Rob Reviews "A Private Life"

The phrase for today is “taken aback”.

Going into A Private Life, I did that thing that I tend to do by doing so as “cold” as possible.  I referenced it’s limited release a couple of weeks ago on the show by reading the IMDb description of the film and was intrigued.  What I got there fit’s today’s phrase, but in a good way.

Rebecca Zlotowski co-writes and directs here in a film that I thought was a simple whodunit story.  Jodie Foster plays Lilian Steiner, a well-known psychiatrist living in France who finds out that one of her patients has passed away.  Suspecting foul play, she starts an investigation that takes more turns than a drive through the mountains, affecting her both personally and professionally.

Here’s the thing that surprised me: about eighty percent of this film is in French.  INCLUDING FOSTER’S PERFORMANCE.

In doing my research afterwards, I found out that she has actually spoken the language since she was nine years old, and is fully fluent.  Her pronunciations seem flawless and actually feed her performance here very well.  As she works opposite French legend Daniel Auteuil as her still-in-love ex-husband, Mathieu Amalric (Quantum of Solace, Munich) as the widower who believes she had something to do with his wife’s death, and Luàna Barjrami as his daughter whose motives also seem suspect, so much happens in just under two hours that even my head was spinning at times.

Here’s the thing, though: after all of that, this film just seems to… end.  I found myself wanting more than the script gave me as the credits (in French also) rolled, but perhaps that was the point that Zlotowski was trying to make.  At the same time, it really doesn’t leave it up to the viewer as much to draw their own conclusions, although it does make an attempt to do so.  Normally, I would chalk this up to the writers simply running out of steam, but A Private Life doesn’t necessarily feel that way.  Instead, it just does what it does.

Being a fan of the detective and noir genres, this film does not really scratch the proverbial itch for those genres.  It’s not a bad film by any stretch, but it’s just kind of OK for me.  Granted, you put Jodie Foster in just about anything and I am willing to give it a shot as I am a big fan, but even the best of actors cannot elevate a script that is just happy sitting where it sits.  I don’t want the time back; I just am not willing to commit any further time to it.