A Private Life

Although I didn't thoroughly scour my archives to be 100% certain, I'm reasonably sure the time between my last post about a movie and today is the longest gap of its kind since I began reflecting from the bell curve fifteen + years ago. My recent ten+ weeks of movie silence here is not connected to the number of films I've sat through since late May when a re-watch of Fargo inspired a post. But not a single film since then spoke to this unrepentant movie geek like A Private Life did. Cinephiles: Put this one in your queue. 

Aside from Jodie Foster's predictably excellent performance - speaking in French throughout - what sets this 2025 movie apart from some of mediocre fare I've endured these last few months is its incisive script. As the film opens, Foster is experiencing personal challenges as well as setbacks in her professional life as a slightly aloof psychiatrist. The director and screenwriters then imbue that straightforward premise with astute insights about the stories we often create in an attempt to make sense of the things that happen to us. 

"Irony can be an effective way to avoid dealing with fear." I'm accustomed to capturing sharp phrases in my journal while reading. But I cannot readily recall the last time a line of movie dialogue that did not come from a book hit me with as much force as the one directly above. I felt compelled to write it down, much like when I'm reading. When did a line of movie dialogue recently do the same for you? 

I recommend A Private Life without reservation.

p.s. How refreshing it is to see a sixty-three-year-old movie star who looks sixty-three. On a parallel plane, not long ago I read a NY Times article about Jodie Foster. In that article, I recall her comment that having a personal assistant struck her as "... like having someone else living your everyday life ..." or words to that effect. Is it possible she is carefully curating a down-to-earth public persona? The cynic in me would be inclined to believe that but those lines in her face tell a different story.