Review
ANATOMY OF A FALL – Review
ANATOMY OF A FALL begins with a deadly fall but another kind of fall is much of the fascinating, emotionally searing story, starring Sandra Huller, who was so outstanding in TONI ERDMAN. Huller plays Sandra, the German wife of a French man, Samuel (Samuel Theis) who is killed in a deadly fall from an upper level of their remote Alpine chalet home, a fall that quickly becomes suspicious, with circumstances pointing to the wife. The couple have a son who may or may not be a witness to what happened – if there is indeed a crime. Questions and doubts abound in this excellent drama.
ANATOMY OF A FALL won director/writer Justine Triet the Palme d-Or at Cannes, wowing both audiences and critics, and creating considerable awards buzz. Director Justine Triet’s drama is a near perfect combination of police procedural, courtroom drama, and psychological relationship drama with a deep dive into an unraveling marriage and complex family dynamics. The cast is outstanding, the photography striking and storytelling gripping.
The film is French and the story takes place in the French Alps but the film is mostly in English, the language shared by the German wife and French husband, and spoken at home with their son, with some French and a little German with subtitles. But because of the rules for the Oscars, this excellent film is not France’s submission for the International Oscar due to the amount of English spoken versus French.
Regardless, it is an Oscar-worthy film, and an impressive example of how an engrossing, edge-of-your-seat crime thriller film should be made.
In the film’s press notes, the director said that the idea of the film was to depict the downfall of the couple’s relationship, which we discover is teetering even before the fatal fall. References to the potential for a fall, physical or emotional, is everywhere.
From the beginning, with a shot of a ball bouncing down stairs, the photography emphasizes the steepness of the Alpine chalet home, giving us a sense that falling is an ever-present threat. Even the location of the house, perched on a mountain, reinforces this feeling of imminent falling.
The action begins with the German wife Sandra (Huller), an author, being interviewed in their home. Although the interview is why the young woman journalist is there, the author seems to keep delaying the interview’s start, asking questions about the interviewer, refilling her own wine glass and offering a glass to the interviewer, even though it is only mid-day. Eventually, the interview does start but as the interviewer switches on her digital recorder for her interview notes, loud music starts blaring from upstairs.
The author says it is her husband, who is listening to music while working on their attic, yet she makes no move to go and ask him to stop. After struggling for awhile to conduct the interview despite the noise, they finally give up and agree to meet another time, maybe in town. The author only looks slightly irritated, more sorry to lose the company than anything, while the interviewer is clearly frustrated, after having made a long trip.
The subtext that something else going on in this household is palpable, and our anticipation that something will happen as soon as the interviewer leaves is keen. Instead, the loud music continues and the camera’s focus turns to the couple’s son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner), who leaves the house with his dog, for a walk in the snowy landscape.
When the boy returns, it is to find his father’s lifeless, blodd-spattered body, face down in the snow, just outside their home. He yells for his mother, who rushes out of the house to find the shocking scene. Emergency services are called, as well as the couple’s long-time friend Vincent.
From then on, there is a flurry of police and ambulances, with the couple’s long-time friend Vincent (Swann Arlaud), a lawyer, arriving for moral support and to act as a buffer between the woman and the investigators. The first question is what happened: was it an accidental fall, a suicide or, perhaps, murder? The evidence seems to point to something suspicious, and those suspicions quickly fall on the wife. What had been an emergency response becomes a crime scene investigation.
ANATOMY OF A FALL unfolds like a police procedural and then a courtroom drama, but the whole while, an interpersonal drama is unfolding, one that reveals the nature of their marriage and the family’s history as layers are peeled back. A key for us, the audience, is the presence of the lawyer friend, who to be on hand during the investigation and to help support his friend, moves into the remote mountain home. There, he both consuls the widow legally and provides emotional support, but allows the audience to have a narration of what is going on, physically and emotionally. The lawyer is an old friend of the couple, and his awareness of their shared history, gives us an entry the couple’s private lives we would not otherwise get. One of the things we learn is that their son is legally blind, which may have an impact on what he can tell about what happened before the fall.
Through flashbacks to the couple together, including confrontations, we learn that things have been unraveling for awhile and why. These insightful scenes and conversations with the old friend, now her lawyer, alternate with the police investigation in the home, their interrogations, and crime scene recreations and later courtroom scenes.
In addition to the talks between the accused wife and her lawyer friend, we get scenes between the boy and a court-appointed advocate for him, who also keeps an eye on any attempt by the accused to influence what her son might say. There are, of course, scenes between mother and son, where she is solicitous and caring but also worried, both about how he will be affected by what has happened and what he may say or do with all that is happening.
ANATOMY OF A FALL is a film that always keeps you guessing. The woman appears dazed by what has happened and proclaims her innocence. In fact, she does not seem guilty to us but there are a lot of secrets about the couple’s relationship and a good amount of acrimony between them is revealed. Doubt creeps in, and we waver back and forth about whether we think she is guilty. We can’t rule out something that might have happened, maybe in the heat of the moment, but maybe more deliberate.
The effect is chilling but the film also makes a deep dive into the characters, revealing their past and their conflicted thoughts and emotions. This excellent film builds up a thriller tension as the investigation and trial unfold in parallel to its tense family drama, with deep insights into a failing marriage and complicated family relationships, all of which grabs and holds tight to our attention.
Sandra Huller is the amazing center of all this, delivering a powerful, multi-layered performance, while on screen nearly throughout. The other actors are excellent as well, particularly young Milo Machando Graner as their son Daniel, who undergoes a transformation as the secrets of his parents’ marriage are revealed. But the biggest acting burden falls to Huller. And she is supremely good, keeping us on our toes, revealing her character’s inner conflicts, her fears and anger, in creating this complex character.
ANATOMY OF A FALL is a title that might evokes another film, the classic ANATOMY OF A MURDER, a 1959 courtroom drama directed by Otto Preminger and starring Jimmy Stewart, but apart from being a courtroom drama (in part) with an accused central character, there is not a lot of overlap. In the case of ANATOMY OF A FALL, we follow the events of the fall from start to finish. Everything is in doubt, all characters may not be what they seem, and even whether a crime has occurred at alls is a mystery. It almost could have been called “anatomy of a marriage” but that does not cover it all either. One thing is certain in this fascinating drama is that there is more and more, as each layer is peeled back, in its riveting examination of relationships and events.
ANATOMY OF A FALL opens Friday, Oct 27, in theaters.
RATING: 4 out of 4 stars
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