'Anatomy of a Fall' review: Prepare to be wowed by one of the best movies of the year
Having won the Palme d'Or, the highest prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, "Anatomy of a Fall" is now in theaters where you can see what all the fuss is about. Prepare to be wowed by one of the best movies of the year -- a spellbinding murder mystery that is really a forensic anatomy of a marriage told through the gripping story of a wife on trial for killing her husband.
The film is a showcase for the sensational Sandra Hüller. Remember how hilarious she was in 2016's "Toni Erdmann?" In "Anatomy of a Fall," she lights up the screen with a display of dramatic fireworks that should make her the leading contender for the best actress Oscar.
Yup, she's that good. Better even, given her blazing, revelatory brilliance as Sandra, the German wife of Frenchman Samuel (Samuel Theis), and the mother of their 11-year-old son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner), who lost most of his sight in an accident while under his father's care.
Set in a chalet in the French Alps, where the family lives after a move from London, the film reveals a hostility brewing between husband and wife -- both novelists who weaponize the details of their lives for their craft. Downstairs, Sandra is being interviewed by a fawning journalist while above, Samuel drowns them out by blaring a steel-band cover of 50 Cent's "P.I.M.P."
Stopping the interview, Sandra retreats for a nap while her son goes for a walk with Snoop, the perceptive border collie who picked up his own award at Cannes for animal acting at its finest. On their return to the chalet, Daniel and Snoop find Samuel's bleeding body in the snow. Did he fall to his death from the top floor or was he pushed? Or could he be a suicide?
Justine Triet, who directs this dizzying dance of caustic wit and shocking gravity, entertains all three possibilities and every sexual, psychological nuance in between, along with exposing the gender bias against a woman who admits to her bisexual infidelities and limitations as a mother.
Triet's directorial choices are unerring, from the potent camerawork of Simon Beaufils and the incisive editing of Laurent Sénéchal to the grace notes that permeate every performance. She co-wrote the vividly audacious script with Arthur Harari, her partner in art and life. Make what you will of how their relationship seeps in the script.
Sandra's lawyer, Vincent (a tricky role subtly negotiated by Swann Arlaud), whose feelings for his client are far from strictly professional, thinks Samuel's possible suicide is her best defense. But what to make of the bruises on Sandra's arm or the bump on Samuel's head that the prosecutor (a powerhouse Antoine Reinartz) argues is an indication of a struggle before the fall.
In the face of inconclusive evidence, Sandra maintains her innocence, though she is shaken when the judge (Anne Rotger) insists the trial be conducted in French, a language in which Sandra is less fluent than English or her native German. Does the verbal barrier make it harder for Sandra to lie? The clues are right there on Hüller's face. No wonder you can't take your eyes off her.
Or young Daniel (a touchingly perfect Garner), the son caught between the parents he thinks he knows and the legal system he doesn't. His confusion escalates when the court appoints a chaperone (Jehnny Beth) to live with mother and son for the duration of the trial so Sandra can't influence his testimony.
The tension reaches fever pitch when an audio recording is introduced of Sandra and Samuel arguing bitterly on the day before his death. Triet shows the fight in flashback, a first chance to actually watch the resentments flying like shrapnel over Sandra's success and his inability to compete. There hasn't been this incendiary a look at marriage since "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
At one point Sandra asks, "I'm not a monster -- you know that, right?" But do we know that? At trial, she lets raw emotion crack through her customarily cool façade. Is it genuine feeling or part of the performative art she's honed through bestsellers carved out of her own experience?
Triet never tells us how to think or leads us to her own conclusions about this devastating death-of-love story, shot through with blistering laughs and a tragic sense of life out of balance. But in Hüller, she's found an actress with the skill of a sorceress. You'll hang on her every word. Just another reason why "Anatomy of a Fall" is essential viewing that will pin you to your seat.
