A Private Life (2025) Review: Jodie Foster binds the Parisian mystery’s loose strings
In this very-French neo-noir, Foster shines as psychoanalyst Lilian Steiner, whose own psychological unraveling soon takes precedent after the mysterious suicide of a previous client.
By Alexandra Hill
R
ebecca Zlotowski's psychological thriller A Private Life (2025) which premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, is a stunningly cosy mystery about psychoanalysis—but beyond that, it struggles to tie together its many ideas. Set in a drizzly autumnal Paris, the neo-noir is the first full French-speaking feature for Jodie Foster, who leads as Lilian Steiner, an apathetic American psychiatrist turned amateur sleuth.
After the apparent suicide of her client Paula Cohen-Solal (Virginie Efira), Lilian’s suspicion of foul play brews as Paula’s grieving widower Simon (Mathieu Amalric) and daughter Valérie (Luàna Bajrami) start to pin responsibility on the psychiatrist, who prescribed the antidepressants that led to the overdose.
But as Lilian becomes distracted from her work – seemingly uncaring for the patients drifting in and out of her office – so does the plot. Maybe it was the daughter. Maybe the husband. The series of rabbit holes Zlotowski leads us down, from blood-stained car vandalism to a mysterious curling-iron, are rarely followed through, with no real sense of danger being built.
Dreams over detection
What becomes clear, however, is that the film is less about the murder and more about Lilian’s psycho-spiral into the self. Becoming increasingly stressed and drinking, Lilian seeks help from a hypnotherapist (Sophie Guillemin) who supposedly cured a client’s smoking habit after one session that Lilian couldn’t do in years of therapy.Despite her scepticism, Lilian regresses quickly into a dreamscape meant to be a subconscious past-life in which Paula is her lover and the two are playing in the string section of a Paris orchestra during the Nazi occupation and Simon is the conductor with a gun for a baton and her son Julien (Vincent Lacoste) is one of the Nazi soldiers and…!
In this dream world, A Private Life loses sight of what it wants to be. Antisemitism in France after the Nazi occupation? Queer exploration? Repressed childhood trauma, which clearly has been passed onto Julien? The mention of her mother is certainly a sore spot for Lilian, but this is never pursued, left to the viewer to interpret the hazy vignettes of (presumably) the two walking in the snow.
Jodie Foster carries the mystery
Thankfully, A Private Life shines in the remarriage rapport Lilian shares with Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil), whose enthusiasm for helping his ex-wife with her investigation acts as a tonic to both the intensity of Paula’s family and Lilian’s awkward obsession with uncovering the truth.Foster and Auteuil's performances, paired with Zlotowski's warm cinematography and elegant direction, carry the mystery until its slightly flat conclusion. In decentralising a resolute ending to this neo-noir, Zlotowski brings psychological discovery and unravelling to the forefront, though the emotional and psychological payoff never fully matches its ambition.
Is A Private Life worth watching?
If you're looking for a tightly wound psychological thriller with a satisfying mystery, A Private Life might be leaving you frustrated. But, for the viewers drawn to character studies, elegant direction and another compelling performance from Jodie Foster, Rebecca Zlotowski's latest is still worth your time. It may not tie together every thread it introduces, but its warm visual style and thoughtful exploration of identity make it an intriguing, if uneven, addition to this year's psychological dramas.
A Private Life is set to premiere on Netflix US on 29 July 2026.
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