Film: Vie Privée (A Private Life)

Tonight was another film, and what came up was Vie Privée (A Private Life), in which Jodie Foster, mostly speaking in French but with a few scattered words in English, plays an American psychiatrist living in France and investigating the death of one of her patients, whom she believes was murdered. Showing in the Curzon Bloomsbury - I used the last of my extra bundle of free tickets on it, my membership is expiring soon.

The road is still torn up because of a burst water main, the #188 isn't an option, so I trudged off to get the #1, which would take me straight there. Strangely, as I walked to the stop, a #188 passed me.. on a route it wasn't supposed to be going on (i.e. its normal route)! And ironically, it was a #188 that came first, and I ended up taking. I was to discover that that route is stopping short, at Aldwych, until Wednesday, because of gas works! And.. I caught a #1 from there, arriving a little late - but I was in time for the trailers.

I spent most of the film feeling irritated at Jodie Foster's character, who seems frankly batty as she constructs suppositions out of thin air. She's also irritated at her noisy neighbours and her inconvenient patients, divorced, and estranged from her son (and therefore also from her grandson). And when one of her patients dies, the grieving widower blames her, and literally throws her out of the wake. Her statement to the police when her flat is burgled is rambling and fanciful, and after attending a hypnotist and regressing to a past life, she brings it up at a family dinner and accuses her son of having been in the Waffen SS - no wonder, she says, we don't get on!

Things aren't great, then. It wasn't until near the end of the film that I clocked that it isn't a crime drama, it isn't a murder mystery. It's a drama about her, and how she copes with a midlife crisis! Ah now see, that makes much more sense.. and seen in that light, it's quite enjoyable - mostly because of the presence of the affable Daniel Auteuil as her ex-husband, whom she enlists in her sleuthing. So yes, maybe go see it for him..

Afterwards to GBK - where they had all of one occupied table, looked deathly bored, and oh, the looks of joy on their faces when I walked in! Well, it has been a couple of weeks.. and they even remembered my drink order without me having to say it.. as to the emptiness, some more did arrive after me.

I did manage to get a #1 all the way home.

Tomorrow, I'm back with CT for Ludwig: Unfinished Business, a comedy about Beethoven, showing in the Playground Theatre and performed by an actual pianist. Another Fringe preview. Eating in The Pavilion beforehand - and it's a good thing they reminded me today, because I'd totally forgotten!

Next, I was thinking of two more days of film.. but now it's kind of two days of London Museums A-Z (LoMAZ)! On Wednesday, I'm doing something rather related to their ongoing Dracula events - they're showing the original Nosferatu in Wilton's Music Hall, with live music, and a couple of others from the group are also going. I'm eating in Cote St. Katharine Docks beforehand, where one of them is joining me.

And on Thursday, I was thinking of Life Support, a documentary about the medics operating in Gaza. Evening showing is in the Rio Dalston. But then I saw there's a comedy showing in Riverside Studios, called The Big Dog, about a married stockbroker whose savings are cleared out by a dominatrix. Thought I might have a look at that instead.

But gee, it's turned out to be one of those really changeable days.. because now it's an unofficial LoMAZ day! One of the organisers decided to do something for International Friendship Day, and we're meeting at Between the Bridges! a free event with street food and such. They've created a WhatsApp group for it - and so far, 28 people have joined. Oh, it's gonna be so good to see them again..

Finally, I end the month on Friday with CT, heading to a concert called Sirens, with an all-female group singing classic numbers in the Emerald Theatre. Eating in L' Ulivo beforehand.