Editor’s Be aware: This overview was initially revealed through the 2025 Cannes Movie Pageant. Sony Footage Classics releases “A Personal Life” in choose theaters Friday, January 16, 2026.
Earlier than Jodie Foster’s Lilian can work out what to do with a sudden opening in her agenda — Paula (Virginie Efira) has missed a 3rd consecutive session — certainly one of her different sufferers exhibits up unannounced. Pierre (Noam Morgensztern) began seeing the famend psychiatrist almost a decade in the past as a byproduct of his search to give up smoking, and now, in any case these years, he has seemingly executed so, however not because of his almost $40,000 spent in remedy. As he tells it, all it took was half an hour with a hypnotist. Stopping wanting accusing Lilian of being a hack (however suing her for refunds all the identical), he represents the primary is a sequence of occasions that can lead her to rethinking her complete occupation, if not her total life.
“A Personal Life,” Rebecca Zlotowski’s pleasant and kooky movie, disguises this private journey as against the law thriller when Paula’s disappearance is revealed to be her premature dying. At first dominated as a suicide, the fatality is, to Lilian, considerably unnerving at first, however as soon as the physician talks to deceased’s husband (Mathieu Amalric as Simon) and daughter (Luàna Bajrami as Valérie), it takes a flip for the suspicious. With various levels of antagonism, each grievers maintain Lilian answerable for what occurred, both as a result of she didn’t discover any suicidal hints in her talks with Paula, or resulting from the truth that she used the medication prescribed by her shrink to kill herself. Regardless, this units Lilian in movement. Certainly, she thinks, she would have observed if Paula was that depressed. There will need to have been foul-play.
So begins what quantities to not-too-funny, not-too-dramatic dramedy that finds its appeal in Foster’s willingness to play an more and more neurotic therapist who will do something however go to remedy herself, a stubbornness that grows worse after we uncover that Frederick Wiseman is enjoying her former psychiatrist and trainer. The 90-year outdated cinema legend is just not an expert himself, however carries sufficient weight to raise the function past a easy cameo.
Regardless, Lilian ignores him and begins leaping round France searching for clues. Doing so, Lilian begins reconnecting together with her ex-husband Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil) however retains avoiding her son, and up to date father himself, Julien (Vincent Lacoste), with whom she has an advanced relationship. For sure, all this baggage can be put into query as Zlotowski, Anne Berest and Gaëlle Macé’s mild and vibrant script makes use of the investigation because the pretext to provide Foster’s close to excellent French — “A Personal Life” premiered at Cannes, however Johnny Depp in “Jeanne du Barry,” this isn’t — loads of nice dialogue companions.
Of those, none are higher than Auteuil, with whom Foster shares a comical and romantic chemistry that fuels the film’s pleasures even when the thriller’s few narrative hooks have already drained themselves out. Certain, we’re curious to seek out out who broke into her workplace and stole the cassette tape (she data every thing on a format so outdated, each new package deal prices a whole bunch of euros) containing her ultimate dialog with Paula, however primarily as a result of the seek for the recording permits Lilian to drive round, drink and hang around with Gabriel, an eye-doctor who genuinely needs to ease her paranoia, however not a lot so that he’s prepared to forego the possibility to take her to mattress yet another time.
In reality, Gabriel is so sport that he even believes Lilian’s loopy but believable interpretation of a imaginative and prescient she had whereas going to the identical hypnotist that supposedly cured Pierre of his vice. Initially, Lilian seeks a fast repair for what seems to be some sort of involuntary crying. Although she doesn’t appear devastated at first, listening to the information of Paula’s suicide seems to have triggered a continuing stream of tears that, maybe surprisingly, stops as soon as she goes below Jessica’s (Sophie Guillemin) trance. That journey, illustrated by Zlotowski as a surreal dream that doubles as a quick World Battle II flashback (through which her son being a part of a Nazi-friendly militia is the least bizarre half), satisfied Lilian not solely that she and Paula have been kinda, sorta in love, however that Simon is the killer.
As (former) husband and spouse go poking into their newfound suspect’s life, Zlotowski’s management of tone and temper shines via. Whereas one may argue that the playfulness with which she approaches the proceedings belies the script’s central pull, the director is much extra excited about poking Lilian’s beliefs than doing a whodunnit. Her few makes an attempt at straight pressure, particularly a barely weird ultimate confrontation with Amalric’s indignant husband determine, stand proud of an in any other case playful characteristic. Although unconvincing when it tries its hand at one thing purely emotional — Foster is given an Oscar-clip-worthy monologue, which she nails totally in French, however is healthier as tragically humorous lady rising not sure of issues by the day — “A Personal Life” does handle to create an attention-grabbing dynamic because it posits the necessity to stability psychology’s theoretics with precise outcomes and motion.
Should there be a breakthrough for remedy to achieve success? Or is the act of study useful in itself? Whereas “A Personal Life” by no means probes too-too deeply into these issues, the movie’s witty conundrums give the questions sufficient weight to create a very good back-and-forth in Lilian’s (and by proxy the viewers’s) thoughts. Such inquiries are wrapped up in maybe too good a bow. Each single question appears to result in a private {and professional} advance for Lilian, however this diploma of finality is forgiven exactly as a result of Zlotowski retains the movie firmly within the realm of the eccentric. It might all have been a lot simpler, although considerably much less amusing, if Lilian simply listened to her personal psychiatrist. The solutions are sometimes in entrance of our eyes, however there’s pleasure to be present in attending to them.
Grade: B
“A Personal Life” premiered on the 2025 Cannes Movie Pageant. It is going to be launched within the U.S. by Sony Footage Classics.
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