13. Private Life. Tamara Jenkins. USA.

Despite the deep love I have for Tamara Jenkins’ debut feature Slums of Beverly Hills, I was hesitant to watch her latest, despite the praise I’d heard from festivals and friends. Few things interest me less than a couple’s attempts to conceive, and the product of such an endeavor would be one of those few things. Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody’s Tully came close to proving me wrong about that (thanks mostly to Charlize Theron), but it derails and spoils itself in the end. But Jenkins’ Private Life completely called my bluff.

Anchored by a decidedly un-self-conscious performance by Kathryn Hahn (in her best role since Jill Soloway’s Afternoon Delight), Private Life is a profoundly moving experience that transcends its potentially alienating theme of pregnancy/conception. Like Hahn, the film too feels daring. It addresses head-on a topic often delegated to secondary storylines and makes zero attempt to simplify the situation or pacify the audience at any point. Its intelligence and its power stem from its rawness, which isn’t a cheap stylistic visual or narrative trope.

People can be difficult, good people do terrible things sometimes for no reason, revelations aren’t always received the way they’re intended, feelings don’t necessarily come out the way we want them to, questions don’t always have answers, thoughts don’t always manifest out loud with the right words, resolutions don’t always happen, the right answer isn’t always there. Taking an unglamorous, unpredictable, and unsentimental hand to a difficult subject is a bold artistic choice, and yet for as heavy and challenging as Private Life feels, there’s an equally powerful and inescapable air of hope that radiates from it.

Private Life premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was acquired by Netflix and is currently streaming on their platform in the U.S.

With: Kathryn Hahn, Paul Giamatti, Kayli Carter, Molly Shannon, John Carroll Lynch, Denis O’Hare, Emily Robinson, Siobhan Fallon Hogan