Vie privee

Jodie Foster

Rebecca Zlotowski's Vie privée (Private Life) is a passable mystery from the French director. Jodie Foster, a Francophile since she was a tot, stars as a psychiatrist named Lillian Steiner. Dr. Steiner has a chichi psychoanalytic practice in Paris. She strikes us immediately as buttoned down and cerebral, catnip for an actor like Ms. Foster. Steiner's life unravels after the death of a beloved patient named Paula (Virginie Efira) who has committed suicide by overdosing on medication Steiner prescribed. Naturally, Paula's husband, Simon (Mathieu Amalric) resents Lillian, but his and Paula's daughter Valérie (Luàna Bajrami) convinces Lillian that there is more to her mother's death than meets the eye. Simon and Valérie both seem like slippery suspects. Lillian enlists her ex-husband Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil) for emotional and physical support as they attempt to unravel the past.

The mystery aspect of Vie privée is one of its weaker points. This is especially so because Zlotowski has Lillian's mentor (Frederik Wiseman, what a mensch) spell out the answer to the mystery about halfway through the picture. In essence: "Physician heal thyself." There is never a sense of thanatos in the film, it is a lightweight bourgeoise mystery like Agatha Christie, Only Murders in the Building, and certain Woody Allen films. The comparison to Allen is illustrative because Zlotowski sets the film firmly in the world of the Jewish intelligentsia of Paris. Unfortunately, Ms. Foster seems like a total shiksa.

The other intersection with Woody Allen is the use of a magically realistic plot device to get a strict Freudian to loosen up and live a little. In Allen's film this usually comes in the form of a ditzy but lovable shiksa, a fortune teller, or a deus ex mama. In Vie privée, it is an "Eriksonian Hypnotherapist" who helps Lillian find a portal in her unconscious. The accoutrements of her unconscious are hoary and trite cliches: stairs leading down to doors. As if the unconscious were an episode of Let's Make A Deal. Once Lillian opens a door we view a past life in which she and Paula were lovers. Sigh. The unconscious is never a mirror of existence. At best, it is a view through a glass, darkly.

What redeemed the film for me was Zlotowski's elegant framing, superb use of music, and ease with her talented cast. This is one of the most distinguished French casts I've ever seen and all the players listed above are superb. I also enjoyed the contributions of Vincent Lacoste, Noam Morgensztern, Sophie Guillemin, and Irene Jacob. The highlight of the film for me was the warm and tender rapport between Foster and Auteuil. Watching them share cigarettes in an auto while giving a post-mortem of their marriage showed me yet again what a team player Foster is as an actress. Whether she is paired with Auteuil, Anthony Hopkins or Kristin Stewart, Foster never grandstands, but engages in a true give and take that helps her partners shine. 

The Best of Sam Neill

1947-2026

    

                                               I was christened 'Nigel'. It set me back years.        

1).    Reilly, Ace of Spies                           Martin Campbell, etc               1983

2).    Peaky Blinders                                     Steven Knight                2013-2014  

3).    The Piano                                              Jane Campion                     1993 

4).    Possession                                           Andrzej Zulawski                 1981 

5).    In the Mouth of Madness                   John Carpenter                     1994

6).    Sleeping Dogs                                      Roger Donaldson               1977

7).    My Brilliant Career                            Gillian Armstrong                  1979

8).    Dead Calm                                            Philip Noyce                       1989

9).    Hunt for the Wilderpeople                   Taika Waititi                        2016 

10).  The Hunter                                          Daniel Nettheim                    2011

The versatile Kiwi had a range that extended from subtle charm to cold eyed villainy. His best role displayed his ease with both. He was one of the most self-deprecating major actors of his generation and one of the most generous. He raved about working with directors as disparate as John Carpenter and Taika Waiti. His self-abnegation came in handy when playing second fiddle to some of the leading ladies of his day. Davis, Adjani, Streep, and Hunter won the lion's share of the plaudits, so Neill's willingness to defer to his co-stars in sturdy support went unnoticed. He did work constantly, but seemed to prefer to do that in Australia or New Zealand no matter how many times Hollywood came calling. The fact that Neill never received an Oscar nomination is nothing short of scandalous.

I also appreciated Neill's efforts in The Final Conflict, Plenty, A Cry in the Dark, The Hunt for Red October, Until the End of the World, Jurassic Park, Sirens, Restoration, Children of the Revolution, Merlin, The Tudors, Old School, and Cinema Quarantino.

    

House of Strangers

Richard Conte and Susan Hayward

I was inspired to watch this chestnut after reading not one, but two, rave reviews on one of my favorite film blog sites, the Gallic Shangols. I often disagree with the (mostly) French writers, but I enjoy their lively commentary just the same. While I certainly do not think that House of Strangers is a great film, the scenario is extremely hoary, I do find it interesting enough to recommend. I think it is one of the better cast films of the era. Richard Conte (born in Jersey City), Susan Hayward (born in Brooklyn), Edward G. Robinson (born in Bucharest, but immigrated to New York at the age of ten), Luther Adler (born in New York), and Efrem Zimbalist (born in New York) are all perfectly chosen for this saga of a modern Italian-American banking titan and his family based in the lower east side of Manhattan. Robinson spouts a little too much verbal linguini at times, but he is supposed to be an over blown and operatic character, he blasts arias during family dinners, so the grandiosity is appropriate. It is one of his many little Caesars.

The film starts in 1939 with Conte a free man after seven years in the slammer. We learn that Dad (Robinson) has passed away in 1934 after Conte's brothers (Adler, Zimbalist, and Paul Valentine) had wrested control of the bank the patriarch founded. Conte also feels his brothers are responsible for his incarceration. He visits an old flame (Hayward) who still holds a torch. Then he visits the old family manse, now abandoned, and a flashback to 1932 ensues. We see Conte's brothers resentment at his favored son status and the way they chafe at their padre's domineering leadership at the bank. Conte, a lawyer, is living the life of Riley. He is engaged to one woman (Debra Paget, under utilized) while squiring another (Hayward) around town. However, his world comes tumbling down after his father is prosecuted for predatory lending. Conte takes up his defense, but ends up getting busted for jury tampering after Adler finks on his bro. After a viewing of Robinson's casket, we return to 1939 and, presumably, Conte's revenge.

Edward G. Robinson and Hayward

The scenario for House of Strangers, penned by Philip Yordan and Mankiewicz and based on Jerome Weidman's novel, is overly rhetorical and redundant. Three times we get to hear the same grievance, that Robinson has gained the world but lost his soul, recited in turn by his sons, wife, and Hayward. The details of the financial chicanery in the film are never properly explained. Mankiewicz, never the most dynamic director, is mostly content to construct static verbal tussles in drawing rooms and nightclubs. He does employ two tracking shots, but scenes containing a run on the bank and a boxing match are undynamic and visually dull. I did like his touches in a Greenwich Village checkered table speakeasy that revealed the joint's seam underbelly: a man passed out and a young chick casually brutalized by her much older date. However, such little touches are rare in this film. The film contains some location shooting, then gaining currency in Hollywood, but it is poorly integrated with the footage on the Columbia backlot.

I do think Mankiewicz deserves praise for what is Conte's finest performance. There is a delicacy and exactness to his work here that I haven't encountered anywhere else. Just see what Conte does with his fingers here, whether he is eating popcorn or examining Hayward's powder puff. There is more to this character than the numerous hood roles Conte was saddled with. Speaking of which, Bosley Crowther, in his New York Times review of the film, noted correctly that Robinson's banking career is a fig leaf for organized crime. Even after the Kefauver and McClellan hearings in the 1950s shed light on organized crime, Hollywood film producers were wary of alienating Italian-Americans. As late as 1971 when The Godfather was in production. producer Albert Ruddy did a bit of fence mending by reaching an agreement with the Italian-American Civil Rights League to not use the words mafia and Cosa Nostra in the film. The League had been masterminded as a PR move for the Mob by Joseph Colombo, then boss of one of America's five mafia families.