'A Private Life' is ultimately Jodi Foster's show anyway

Jodie Foster plays a self-assured psychoanalyst whose composure unravels after a patient unexpectedly dies in the genre-bending French film "A Private Life.

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Rebecca Zlotowski’s latest, in theatres on Friday, is part noir, part comedy of remarriage, and part Freudian fever dream about past lives. This is a film that does not abide by rules or play into any easy expectations about what it should be, resulting in big swings, tonal shifts and even a lurking Holocaust through-line. Also, oddly enough considering such grave themes and subjects, it’s all done with a relatively light touch set, in part, by the cheeky needle drop at its opening: the Talking Heads song “Psycho Killer.”

Some parts work better than others, but you can't help but admire the go-for-broke originality and unabashed femininity of it all. And anchoring it all is Foster, using the full force of her star power and impeccable French to make “A Private Life,” unwieldy and complex as it is, go down as easy as a glass of gamay.