A Private Life | New York Film Festival 2025

“I’m not crying, it’s my eyes.”

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While it may be a slight stretch to claim that A PRIVATE LIFE is the kind of film that Truffaut would’ve loved to have made, it’s not unreasonable in the least to speculate that he would’ve loved watching it. After all, Rebecca Zlotowski’s engaging quasi-noir has all the hallmarks of a classic French thriller—it’s super smart, full of mystery and humor, and everything is executed with a light yet highly skilled touch. The fact that A PRIVATE LIFE is somewhat “Hitchockian” would, of course, have been an extra bonus for Truffaut. The obvious touchstone in this respect is REAR WINDOW: while Jimmy Stewart’s photojournalist character suspects murder as a result of casual voyeurism, Jodie Foster’s psychoanalyst character suspects murder because her profession relies on, as she puts it, “knowing the secrets and lies” of her clients. As in REAR WINDOW, the protagonist must enlist the efforts of a love interest—in this case, a somewhat unlikely one—to investigate a crime that no one else is sure has even taken place. Come to think of it, given its psychoanalytic bent and dialogue that interprets some creative mindscreen sequences, this is a film that the director of SPELLBOUND himself would have enjoyed.

That is, with the possible exception of the characters’ unrepressed sexuality and the film’s ultimate critique of reason alone—remember, Hitchcock never made supernatural or paranormal genre fare. In these aspects, Zlotowski’s script, co-written with Anne Berest and Gaëlle Macé, is at its Frenchiest. On the other hand, the presence/aura of Foster, who’s playing a longtime expat, and the way that the story wraps up in an upbeat fashion (which is one reason A PRIVATE LIFE isn’t a true noir) point to an American side of the film’s lineage. Indeed, for some the way that Foster’s arc cleanly dovetails with the solution to the central mystery, the transformation of her own fiercely held epistemologies, and the resolution to her sidebar family conflicts will be a bit too much—it’s too pat and too Hollywood, achieved with little ambiguity and earned at little cost. 

There’s some validity to such an argument, but I’m choosing mostly to ignore it. Granted, A PRIVATE LIFE may be too ambitious for its own good, attempting to say too much about too many things, but in a way that’s part of its charm. It’s like one of the wine-filled evenings it depicts—too much may be said, and some of it not even clearly recalled later, but no one can say that the time spent in its company isn’t full of life and truth. Once upon a time critics called such a film a “confection,” but A PRIVATE LIFE is a little too dark and too serious under its veils of wit and style to be dismissed as something sweet.