An American in Paris… but not the way you expect
There’s a familiar ring to the phrase “an American in Paris,” but this film refuses to follow the romantic, whimsical path that cliché usually promises. Instead, it drops us into a psychological labyrinth led by Jodie Foster, who delivers a psychological, layered performance as Lilian Steiner, an American psychiatrist living in Paris whose world begins to unravel.
Lilian’s life is shocked out of complacency when she learns that her longtime patient Paula (Virginie Efira) has died by suicide. The news doesn’t sit right with her. Paula had never expressed suicidal thoughts, and Lilian’s clinical instincts—along with something more personal—tell her that something is off. What begins as a professional concern quickly spirals into obsession.
Her suspicions first land on Paula’s husband, and Lilian plunges into an increasingly risky investigation. She even ropes in her ex-husband, Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil), turning their strained, unresolved relationship into an unlikely detective partnership. Their dynamic becomes one of the film’s most compelling threads: two people with a messy history trying to decode someone else’s secrets while stumbling over their own.
When Lilian’s office is broken into and confidential files are stolen, her paranoia sharpens. She becomes convinced the intruder is Paula’s ex-husband, and the former couple begins tailing him through Paris, piecing together clues that only raise more questions.
As the mystery deepens, so does the portrait of Lilian herself. Every relationship in her life seems frayed, distant, or unresolved. The investigation forces her to confront not only Paula’s past but her own—memories, failures, and emotional blind spots she’s spent years avoiding. It’s the classic warning journalists receive—don’t become the story—but Lilian crosses that line. After years of emotional detachment, she suddenly takes Paula’s death personally, clinging to every detail as if solving the case might also solve something inside her.
Her search for answers leads her to a hypnotist, played by Sophie Guillemin, whose unconventional methods intrigue Lilian enough to try therapy herself. She even seeks out her former mentor, played in a cameo by 96‑year‑old filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, hoping he can shed light on the person she used to be.
Foster, with decades of experience behind her, pushes herself in fascinating ways here—acting in both French and English, embodying a brilliant but deeply conflicted woman whose intellect can’t shield her from her own emotional fractures. It’s a performance that feels raw and sad.
This isn’t a whodunit so much as a did-he-do-it, and even that question becomes secondary to the psychological excavation happening beneath the plot. The film invites you to consider how little we truly know about the people around us—and how even less we sometimes understand about ourselves.
A psychological puzzle wrapped in a character study, set against the backdrop of Paris but stripped of the usual romantic gloss. Instead, it offers something far more interesting: a woman unraveling, searching, and ultimately confronting the shadows she’s avoided for far too long.
Released in Toronto and Vancouver January 23, 2026
.png)