There is a lot to love about this stylish French psychological drama which delves into the charms and failings of psychoanalysis and the difficulties when we don’t heed our own advice.

Directed by Rebecca Zlotowski, it starts on a really high point with Talking Heads Psycho Killer playing over some beautifully crawly red font, something we spy later is very similar to our protagonist’s handwriting when she writes prescriptions.

Because our protagonist is a psychiatrist, Lilian, played with great seriousness and warmth by Jodie Foster in her first French language role. She is an American living in France, divorced from her husband Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil), struggling to feel a connection with her son Julian (Vincent Lacoste) and his new baby, and going through the motions with her patients.

Her boringly ordered life is thrown into chaos when she finds that one of her patients, Paula (Virginie Efira) has committed suicide. As we get to know Lilian, we can see that her inability to reflect on her own flaws sends her down a paranoid rabbit hole of trying to find out who else is to blame for Paula‘s death.

It’s a gradual letting go of control, as she visits a hypnotist, starts to believe in past lives even though she doesn’t actually believe in them at all, and reconnects with Gabriel, perhaps for the first time asking for help.

The story twist and turns, it has that French style and complexity that both underplays character and emotion and then occasionally completely overplays it. It’s not quite the psychological thriller that you think it’s going to be, probably understandably the attention is about Lilian working out why the people are around her are unhappy with her.

Foster is really great. Many other reviews I have read of this film commented on her stylish clothing and clip clopping heels which really surprised me when I watched it. She is actually quite a non-descript person and I think she does well to play someone who verges on being unlikable, but is always understandable.

 t ends probably in the way you think it is going to, with some threads tied up neatly but also enough vagueness that we understand that the thriller aspect might have been all in Lilian‘s head.