Anatomy of a Fall
Justine Triet’s enthralling and Palme d'Or-winning “Anatomy of a Fall” is an examination of many such moments between a husband and wife in a court of law, as the decline of their partnership is dissected and speculated upon from every angle, due to the fact that the husband was killed after falling out of an attic window of their snowy chalet, and the wife was the only other person in the house. The court must try and determine if the man jumped or was pushed, and since they only have the woman's word to go off on, they must turn over every stone in the couple's recent lives to try and determine what exactly happened that day. It's an often breath-stopping courtroom drama that ruthlessly shines a light on every blemish, big, small or perceived, of a marriage in freefall, as each uncomfortable truth is revealed with the impact of a punch to the gut.
In one of a few similarities to 2022's "Tár", the movie opens with Sandra (Sandra Hüller), a famous author, being interviewed by a journalist in Sandra's remote cabin in the French Alps. The interview is casual and debatably flirty, but is soon interrupted and ultimately ended prematurely due to Sandra's husband Samuel (Samuel Theis) blaring an instrumental version of 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P.” on repeat while he works in the attic. It's clearly an act of hostility on Samuel's part, but before we can even ask why, Samuel is found dead outside in the snow below an open window, found by their 11-year-old son (Milo Machado Graner) who had gone to take their dog Snoop on a walk. Sandra was the only other person in the house, maintaining to the arriving police officers that she was briefly working and then trying to nap a floor below the attic when it happened, a story that immediately sets off alarm bells of suspicion.
The rest of the movie is Sandra on trial in a wonderfully French courtroom, as an aggressive prosecutor essentially deconstructs Sandra's personality in an effort to prove her guilty of murder, in absence of any kind of evidence beyond Sandra and her son's recollection of events. Sandra's story certainly has some holes in it, and her son Daniel can only report on what the tone of the conversation between his two parents was before he left (and even that report is suspiciously inconsistent). Multiple witnesses are brought in to speculate. Blood splatter experts (apparently a thing) use reenactments and 3D computer models to construct opposing theories about what the position of the dead body means with respect to whether it could be a murder or suicide. Samuel's therapist recounts Samuel's journey with anti-depressants. Recordings are discovered that capture arguments between the couple. Even Sandra's novels are dissected to look for clues, in a particularly interesting segment where the movie comments on how artists can't help but use the people around them as inspiration for their own works. No scrap of Sandra and Samuel's lives is considered too small to be remarked upon by the court, and by the end, we have a surprisingly realized portrait of their marriage. But is that enough to convict Sandra without any concrete proof?
Triet uses a few fascinating directorial methods to show us these details. Flashbacks are often used to provide reenactments of what is being revealed in court (but can even those be trusted? are they merely recreations of speculation?). In what might be the movie's standout scene, a recording of an extremely intense argument between the couple is played, mixed in and out with a flashback of the argument itself. (A small joke at argument's end graciously relieved the scene's immense intensity; you could feel everyone collective exhale in the theater.) Even though the courtroom procedural is a well-used device, it's still hard to beat for sheer drama when it's done as well as it is here.
Hüller is absolutely mesmerizing in the lead role, completely becoming the character of Sandra. It many ways it's a reserved performance considering the circumstances, as she keeps so much of her emotions in check during the trial (making the explosive argument flashback mentioned above even more effective), never allowing the viewer to know what's really going because she won't give anything away by her reactions and expressions. Milo Machado Graner puts in an equally impressive performance as young Daniel, who is forced to learn so much that he didn't know about his parents, barely able to keep it together as his world is completely upended around him, including an emerging fear of his mother as the trial progresses.
The movie is perhaps too long at 151 minutes; it feels like maybe a little too much time may have been spent luxuriating in the courtroom. But it's hard to discount how everything serves to build and build drama, surprising with reveals that feel natural while avoiding melodramatics. It's a spellbinding unraveling of that tapestry of the tiny moments shared between two people, weaponized in court to try and prove guilt, rationalized by Sandra as moments too isolated and disparate to prove anything. The ending will have you arguing with your friends about what you think really happened, whose side you're on, who is to blame. But the movie, like life, doesn't appear to have an answer, nor does it suggest that something like blame can be so black and white.
