TIFF Review: “A Private Life”

A Private Life (Rebecca Zlotowski, 2025) 3 out of 5 stars

There is one primary reason to see A Private Life, from director Rebecca Zlotowski (Just the Two of Us), and that is Jodie Foster (Nyad), whose riveting performance is further enhanced by the fact that she speaks French throughout. Well, make that two reasons, as Daniel Auteuil (An Ordinary Case), in the role of her ex-husband, is equally compelling. Together, they provide the highlights in this uneven dramedy.

Foster plays Lilian Steiner, an American psychoanalyst long living in Paris, divorced from—but on friendly terms with—former spouse Gabriel (Auteuil), and co-parent to an adult son, Julien (Vincent Lacoste, My Days of Glory), himself now a parent to a baby boy. Though the plot appears to be about other matters, the crux of the script returns time and again to the repairing of Lilian’s damaged relationship to her son. In fixing what is broken, Lilian heals herself. “I’m listening,” she will say at the end. It’s about time.

As the story begins, Lilian is having a bad night: her younger upstairs neighbors have just called her a “rabat-joie” (killjoy) for complaining about their music (Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer”), and then a client, Pierre (Noam Morgensztern, Consent), comes by to fire her for failing to cure his smoking habit over the years. He will also eventually demand a refund for their many sessions. In addition, Lilian discovers via a phone call that another patient, Paula (Virginie Efira, Revoir Paris), has just taken her own life.

That event kicks off an odyssey simultaneously personal and metaphysical, forcing Lilian to confront her most deeply held beliefs and the foundations of her personality. It doesn’t help (though sometimes it does) Lilian’s sense of self that she and Gabriel occasionally hook up, better friends now than they ever were while married. It certainly also doesn’t aid her professional pride that Simon, Mathieu Amalric (The French Dispatch), Paula’s widower, blames her, Lilian, for his wife’s death.

Soon, Lilian becomes convinced that someone is stalking her. Is it Simon? Is it his daughter, Valérie (Luàna Bajrami, A Difficult Year)? They each have their reasons to hate her. In the meantime, having been spurned by Pierre, Lilian decides to visit the hypnotist (Sophie Guillemin, Juliette in Spring) whom he claims cured him of smoking. That in turn sends Lilian down an entirely unexpected avenue involving past lives and murder. It’s wild while it lasts but makes very little narrative sense.

There are a lot more twists and turns within, some enjoyable, others less so. Foster’s engaging manner and the easygoing rapport she shares with Auteuil carry us along, with Amalric and Morgensztern providing comic relief. Efira, seen in flashbacks, is sadly underused.

I have never watched a movie starring Jodie Foster that was not immeasurably improved by her presence, and A Private Life is no exception. Even when the screenplay goes completely off the rails, she holds it together through sheer will. It’s also deliciously fun to see her act in another language (which she speaks beautifully). The movie relies on her (and Auteuil) to its, and our, enormous benefit.

Christopher Llewellyn Reed

Chris Reed is the editor of Film Festival Today. A member of both the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, Chris is, in addition, lead film critic at Hammer to Nail and the author of Film Editing: Theory and Practice.