"I want to drink a lot in a very short time". Like her hyper-controlled psychoanalyst protagonist, who suddenly finds herself in a state of "psychic transparency", her over-reacting sensibility stimulated by a convulsive need to understand (in fact, to understand herself), Rebecca Zlotowski has seized the pretext of a comedy in cavalcade mode to shatter the armour of the intellect in A Private Life [+lee también:
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"You're a very receptive subject, it's super rare to come down the stairs so quickly - I don't believe it at all." Described as a killjoy by her neighbours, Lilian Steiner (Jodie Foster) may be determined to explain everything rationally, the psychoanalyst is nevertheless (even if she denies it) shaken by the loss of two very long-standing patients (one calling her a fraud after having successfully tried alternative medicine and the other - Virginie Efira - having committed suicide to the immense stupefaction of her therapist) and impulsively throws herself, one thing leading to another, into an Ericksonian hypnosis session. Has she missed something in her therapy? Did her patient really kill herself or was she murdered?

Guilt-ridden, Lilian, who records all her professional exchanges, tries to get to the bottom of it, conducts an impromptu investigation, suspecting the husband (Mathieu Amalric) and daughter (Luàna Bajrami) of the missing woman, and becomes slightly paranoid when her practice is burgled. Also around are her own ex-husband (Daniel Auteuil) and their son (Vincent Lacoste), who has just had a baby and with whom she does not have a good relationship. Very quickly everything gets mixed up in Lilian's head and in her life. And now even past lives are getting in the way! But she keeps on going and investigating to discover the key or keys to the events...

Breaking out of the familiar, reassuring cinematic framework in which she excels, Rebecca Zlotowski has produced a highly entertaining film, packed with non-stop action and starring some very solid leads. But underneath the sometimes enormous and far-fetched fun of the plot, it is clearly the portrait of a woman navigating between her neuroses, her deep-seated fears and the onset of depression that the film skilfully draws. A woman who no longer hears others or listens to herself, but who by “freeing the dybbuk” is going to wake up.

A Private Life was produced by Les Films Velvet and co-produced by France 3 Cinéma. Goodfellas handles international sales.