Jodie Foster’s late-career selectiveness has, for a while now, burdened her projects with an anticipatory sense of importance that makes them especially susceptible to disappointment whether she’d like it or not. So something like the breezy, matinee-friendly A Private Life comes as a welcome change of pace. The movie, directed and co-written (with Anne Berest and Gaëlle Macé) by Rebecca Zlotowski, is the closest thing the 63-year-old Oscar winner has made to a lightweight popcorn feature since, arguably, the forgotten kiddie adventure flick Nim’s Island (2008). It’s the cinematic equivalent of a pleasant surprise.

A Private life’s caper-like airiness doesn’t devalue the greatness of Foster’s performance, which is among her coolest and most appealing. She’s an American who’s been settled in Paris for decades — her character, Lilian, has a still-adoring ex-husband native to France (Daniel Auteuil) with whom she has an adult son (Vincent Lacoste) — and she makes a living as a pricey psychoanalyst. From a tastefully appointed office in her enviable, albeit easy-to-break-into, apartment building, her clients lie supine on a cozy furniture piece, purging secrets. (This is the first time since 2004’s A Very Long Engagement that the French immersion school-educated Foster has given a performance almost completely in her second language.) 

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Photo: Sony Pictures Classics