Co-writer and director Rebecca Zlotowski revisits the whole American in Paris trope in her recent black comedy mystery thriller A Private Life, about a highly regarded psychiatrist, Lilian Steiner (Jodie Foster), who fosters her own investigation into the death of her own patients, who allegedly died from overdosing on her prescribed pills. Yet Lilian suspects she was murdered due to little evidence that one of her patients named Paula had no signs of being suicidal.
She spends days sleuthing and retracing the steps of her patient, while upsetting Paula’s husband, Simon (Mathieu Amalric), who blames Rebecca for carelessly prescribing Paula the medication. For A Private Life, Zlotowski uses a lot of abrupt tonal shifts, shifting from a mystery thriller to a raucous dark comedy. Here she does elevate the American in Paris trope in many elements and hardens the same process with fellow co-writers Anne Berestand and Gaëlle Macé. The result does backfire some, as Zlotowski crisscrosses too many narrative threads of many plotlines, involving twists and turns and a tacked-on love story involving her ex-husband named Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil), an ophthalmologist.
Courtesy Sony Pictures Classic
Lilian finds herself very distraught with the grief and accusations that she is responsible. Even more arbitrary in the story, Lilian visits a hypnotist that guides her into a trance where Lilian experiences visions where she sees herself as a male Jew performing in Nazi-occupied Paris. We see Paula (Virginie Efira) as her pregnant mistress, and Simon is aggressive in the hallucinations as he holds a gun. Of course, this plays as a plot device that leads to deeper suspicions that Simon could be the mastermind of Paula’s murder.
Lilian finds herself very distraught with the grief and accusations that she is responsible. Even more arbitrary in the story, Lilian visits a hypnotist that guides her into a trance where Lilian experiences visions where she sees herself as a male Jew performing in Nazi-occupied Paris. We see Paula (Virginie Efira) as her pregnant mistress, and Simon is aggressive in the hallucinations as he holds a gun. Of course, this plays as a plot device that leads to deeper suspicions that Simon could be the mastermind of Paula’s murder.
A Private Life is now showing in theaters
Sounds a bit like a drag…