Anatomy of a Fall

ANATOMY OF A FALL (ANATOMIE D’UNE CHUTE) (15)

D: Justine Triet

Le Pacte / Les Films Pelléas / Les Films de Pierre (Marie-Ange Luciani & David Thion)

France 🇫🇷 2023

152 mins

Drama

W: Justine Triet & Arthur Harari

DP: Simon Beaufils

Ed: Laurent Sénéchal

Sandra Hüller (Sandra Voyter), Swann Arlaud (Vincent Renzi), Milo Machado-Graner (Daniel Maleski), Antoine Renartz (The Prosecutor), Samuel Theis (Samuel Maleski)

This French-produced courtroom drama is easily amongst the best films of 2023, and certainly has one of the year’s greatest performances, courtesy of Sandra Hüller.

Following the death of her husband at a remote chalet in the Alps, novelist Sandra Voyter (Hüller) becomes implicated as the prime suspect when authorities seem convinced that it was not merely the result of an accident, as she had claimed.  The only other witness was Sandra & her husband’s visually-impaired son, Daniel, who was walking the family dog at the time of the event and first person to discover the body.

What follows is more a study of the breakdown of their relationship and marriage, as well as the family unit, which had changed since Sandra’s success as a writer, as well as the turn of events that cost their son his eyesight.

The dialogue is mostly in English, with some French and German, which would be of benefit to English-speaking audiences, but it’s a decision that probably cost the film a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, which it may likely have won.  Nevertheless, it did receive a nomination for Best Picture of the year, which was thoroughly deserved, as well as winning the prize for Best Original Screenplay for director & co-writer, Justine Triet.

8/10