If someone who’d sat
through most of Rebecca Zlotowski’s Vie privee were unavoidably
prevented from seeing the last twenty minutes, they’d probably assume (however
regretfully) that they weren’t missing much, that the “reveal” would likely be
as lumpily unconvincing as much of what preceded it. They’d be wrong though:
this is a rare film in which the final stretch substantially elevates one’s
retrospective assessment of the work as a whole. For most of its length it’s
yet another shakily “Hitchcockian” contrivance, the psychiatrist Dr. Steiner (Jodie
Foster) shocked by the sudden death, apparently by suicide, of one of her
favourite patients, convinced she must have been murdered by a family member,
coming up in short order with a motive and apparent evidence, roping in her
ex-husband (Daniel Auteuil), with whom she’s still more than friendly, as
co-investigator. The revelation in effect (and this is all already under
spoiler alert) is that Steiner really isn’t that good at her job: she doesn’t
listen adequately, lets her imagination run away with her, and doesn’t
recognize the boundaries and compromises of the doctor-patient relationship (the
symbolic slapping down even extends to providing three possible explanations
for something she considered an important clue, and then dismissively asserting
that it doesn’t matter which is true). The movie is bogged down by heavy-handed
dream sequences (cementing Spellbound as the most prominent Hitchcock
reference) and some turgid writing, but elevated (when is it ever otherwise?)
by Foster in her predominantly French-speaking role, seeming particularly
engaged in her scenes with Auteuil, in whose company her somewhat pinched, worn
quality yields to greater lightness. At the end, Steiner’s ex asks if she ever
considered that he orchestrated the whole thing to win her back; she laughingly
dismisses the idea, but it playfully reinforces the notion of reality as often
being a matter of who tells the best story.
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