Mathieu Amalric, who has appeared in most of Arnaud Desplechin’s films, plays George Devereux, a French doctor of Hungarian-Jewish background.

The film is set primarily at a veterans' hospital in Topeka, Kansas, where Karl Menninger was among the staff treating men after World War II.

The site's critical consensus reads, "Jimmy P. has interesting ideas and talented stars, but director Arnaud Desplechin can't seem to figure out how to bring them together.

Matt Zoller Seitz awarded the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, commenting, "the movie offers the most psychologically complex screen portrait of a Native American character in at least twenty years, probably more" and "those who have undergone such treatment will appreciate how accurately the film portrays the process, never simplifying anything, never going for the easy dramatic epiphany, always respecting how analyst and patient circle around and around the edges of meaning.

"[7] Ty Burr of the Boston Globe wrote, "Avoiding the usual therapy-drama story beats, Desplechin has made a densely satisfying drama about Freud, racism, and sympathy in its largest sense.