Jodie Foster has always been an actor who chooses projects with intention. A two-time Oscar winner who started working at age three, she’s earned the right to be selective, and what she gravitates toward tends to reveal something about where she is in life. So when Foster takes the lead in a French-language film noir about a psychiatrist investigating her patient’s death, speaking almost entirely in the language she’s been fluent in since childhood, you pay attention. A Private Life marks her first time headlining a film predominantly in French since her supporting turn in Jean-Pierre Jeunet‘s A Very Long Engagement back in 2004, and the result is a character study that rewards patience even when it tests it.

Foster plays Lilian Steiner, a renowned psychiatrist whose ordered existence fractures when she learns that Paula (Virginie Efira), a longtime patient, has died. Convinced the declared suicide was actually murder, Lilian begins poking around in places she probably shouldn’t. The more she digs into Paula’s life, the more her own complications surface—a divorce from Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil), an estranged relationship with her adult son Julien (Vincent Lacoste), and questions about how well any of us really know the people sitting across from us. Director Rebecca Zlotowski, working from a script she co-wrote with Anne Berest and Gaëlle Macé, isn’t particularly interested in giving you a tidy resolution. If you’re expecting Foster to crack the case and deliver justice, you’ll leave wanting.

What A Private Life offers instead is something more elusive and arguably more interesting: a portrait of a woman who listened to secrets for a living and is only now confronting her own. Foster is, of course, exceptional. Playing a character whose profession demands composure while her interior world crumbles, she conveys volumes through pursed lips and those electric, searching eyes.

Auteuil makes for a charming pseudo-sidekick as her ex-husband, drawn back into her orbit by circumstance. Their rapport avoids the tired bickering of former spouses in favor of something livelier—renewed curiosity, maybe even lingering affection. Efira exists largely in recorded sessions and memory, but her presence haunts the film effectively, while Mathieu Amalric (Quantum of Solace) brings his trademark ambiguity as Paula’s husband, a man you can never quite read.

George Lechaptois‘s cinematography keeps the mystery angle visually afloat, with circular shots of staircases and shadowy corners contrasting against crowded, brightly lit interiors that feel equally unnerving. Composer Rob (just Rob) maintains momentum without overplaying his hand, and editor Géraldine Mangenot ensures Zlotowski’s deliberately paced narrative never loses its rhythm. The opening and closing musical selections are perfectly chosen, bookending a film that looks like a slick 1990s American thriller filtered through distinctly French sensibilities.

I’ll admit that walking in, I wanted A Private Life to be more of the whodunit it initially promises. For roughly ninety-eight percent of its runtime, not much happens in the traditional sense. But Foster’s performance and the intriguing ensemble Zlotowski assembled gradually won me over. This is the kind of film that arthouses used to heartily welcome—not quite multiplex material but deserving of more than a quiet streaming burial. Foster’s involvement will draw curious viewers, and hopefully they’ll stick around once they realize the mystery worth solving here is Lilian herself.