Displaying items by tag: Aurore Clement

VIE PRIVEE/ A PRIVATE LIFE

France, 2025, 109 minutes, Colour.

Jodie Foster, Daniel Auteuil, Virginie Efira, Mathieu Amalric, Vincent Lacoste, Luana Bajrami, Noam Morgensztern, Sophie Guillemin, Frederick Wiseman, Aurore Clement, Irene Jacob, Park Ji-min.

Directed by Rebecca Zlowtoski.

Jodie Foster, very American in her award-winning career for over 50 years, nevertheless had quite an education in French and has appeared previously in French films. Here is a star vehicle for her, working along some of the most prominent of contemporary French actors.

She is Lillian, divorced from a Frenchman, and eye-doctor, Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil) with a son she does not communicate well with who is married with a baby son (Vincent Lacoste). She is a psychiatrist, quite a clientele, working with some of her patients for many years – and glimpses of her at work, with an angry client who wanted to give up smoking and failed after so many years and has gone to see a hypnotist with an instant cure and he wants his money back! So, serious themes with touches of humour.

But, she is visit by the daughter of one her long-term clients with the news that her mother has died. Lillian goes to the memorial but is angrily rejected by the dead woman’s husband (Mathieu Amalric), her being blamed for the death which turns out to be a suicide.

Which means then that the film turns into something of a detective story, Lillian worried about the suicide, coming to the conclusion that it was really murder, suspicions on the husband, and then the erratic behaviour of the daughter. And she enlists her genial ex-husband to help her find evidence. Thedead woman, Paula (Virginie Efira) appears in flashbacks.

At one stage, Lillian also visits the hypnotist because she has started to weep cannot prevent the tears. The therapy includes quite a startling episode, imagining a former life, 1942, Lillian with the dead woman, musicians in Orchestra, the husband the conductor drawing a gun, and the police arriving, led by her son. Which seems to indicate that Lillian herself is in serious need of some kind of therapy.

While Jodie Foster is a strong screen presence, her character here is rather superior in the American way, sometimes alienating the other characters and, sometimes, the audience.

With all the investigations, the complexity of relationships, and, it should be mentioned, strong Jewish background, there are many threads to be followed. With its complexity, the temptation is to say that it is all very much psychologised or, more accurately, psychiatrised.

1. The title? For Lillian and, for Paula, the other characters?
2. The French setting, atmosphere, psychiatrists, opticians, the range of clients, sessions? Background, apartments, restaurants, the home invasion, the countryside? The musical score?
3. The film’s perspective on psychiatrists, their patients, years in sessions, effective, not effective, listening, hypnosis, special techniques? Psychiatrists and their personal life interfering with their practice?
4. Lillian, American, American superiority, her skills as a psychiatrist, interactions with her patients, the patient and smoking, hypnosis, wanting his money back? The sketches of other clients and their talking, on the couch? Lillian and her life, marriage to Gabriel, her professional work, the separation, her relationship with her son, the grandchild, offhand? Superior?
5. Valerie, the visit, Paula’s death, Lillian going to the wake, Jewish ceremony, Simon and his hostility, ousting Lillian? Valerie explaining the suicide? Lillian and the long years of therapy, the relationship with Paula? Not listening to her final tape? Suspicions, the psychiatrist mind, questioning, suspecting Valerie and her motivations, suspecting Simon, the visit to the funeral, his hostility, the decision to go with Gabriel to find the stolen tape? His coming to her office, making her lie down, his speech explaining the situation, all, Paula, choosing him as the father of her child, the death of the hunt?
6. Paula, seen in flashbacks, character, relationship to Simon, relationship to Valerie, the long years of therapy, her aunt and the death, the issue of the medication, ending her suffering, the repercussions, her suicide? Or murdered by her daughter, Simon using the medication to kill her?
7. Gabriel, working with eyes, love for Lillian, the marriage, the separation, her going to him for advice, her weeping, the meetings, the meals, the friendship and response, going to Simon’s house, pretending to be out of petrol, the aftermath?
8. The ransacking of the office, the stealing of the tapes, and a confession of the patient with the smoking problem, apology?
9. Lillian going to see her son, the technical issues, her using old-fashioned tapes, her set? Difficulties with her son, the glimpse and her grandchild? The later visit, the apologies? Her daughter-in-law?
10. Going to see the hypnotist, the session, going to the imagination, a past life, the war, the orchestra, relationship with Paula, Simon is the conductor, her son as the military presence? Her escaping? The hypnotist, not wanting to see her again, Lillian listening to the tape, the imagination?
11. The resolution of the issues, Lillian and her problems, needing some kind of therapy, the contribution of all of the characters? And peaceful ending with the family?