A Private Life

Jodie Foster is entrancing in her first French-language performance, playing an American psychoanalyst in Paris whose tightly knit world begins to unravel after the sudden death of a patient. In the midst of her own familial and professional crises, Foster’s neurotic Dr. Lilian Steiner takes it upon herself to investigate the circumstances around this patient’s alleged suicide, which she begins to suspect might have been a murder. Director Rebecca Zlotowski (Other People’s Children) masterfully balances the sinister and the playful, and surrounds Foster with a veritable who’s who of French movie stars, including Daniel Auteuil as Lilian’s affectionate ex-husband, who gets coerced into her dangerous inquiries; Vincent Lacoste as her semi-estranged grown son; Virginie Efira as the late patient Paula, seen in flashback; and Mathieu Amalric as Paula’s grieving, rage-filled husband. Unpredictable and loose-limbed, A Private Life, like its incandescent star in her most dexterous role in years, is a complete delight. A Sony Pictures Classics release.