Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

Score: 1.5 / 5

Courtroom dramas should be some of the best kind, if only in terms of screenplay, because it is the dialogue and only the dialogue that matters in reconstructing the plot that came before, organizing our impressions of characters and motivation, and dealing out justice or injustice for us to then rationalize. Anatomy of a Fall dramatizes the case of Sandra, a famous writer living in a remote house in mountainous France with her husband, son, and dog, who is suddenly suspected of murder when her husband mysteriously dies. As the title indicates, he falls from an upper level window but his body bears marks of aggravated assault; did he fall, was he pushed, was he injured or attacked before he fell? We don't know, but it's usually the spouse in situations like this, no? Especially when she has no alibi and their marriage was -- as we learn over the next two hours -- fraught with conflict.

Indeed, the titular fall also refers to the fall from grace of Sandra and her husband Samuel, and when not in the courtroom, we're treated to countless vignettes meant to examine their relationship from every conceivable angle. We see them through the eyes, so to speak, of their visually impaired son Daniel and through the brief interactions they share with the court-appointed guardian for Daniel. We become aware of infidelities, of previous queer relationships and dalliances, of latent hostilities due to the way Sandra as a writer pirated and repurposed some of her late husband's material. Resentments and betrayals pile up quickly, it seems, and the prosecution would have the court believe they finally boiled over into murder. SPOILER ALERT: while we never learn what exactly happened to Samuel, the court acquits her and we're made to believe that Daniel at least is sure she is innocent and that Samuel's death was likely suicidal.

The procedural elements of this film -- one-half of its format -- left a lot to be desired for me. Despite cinematic attempts (most technical, from cinematography and editing) to make the courtroom as cinéma vérité as possible, the aesthetic buckles under its own pretensions repeatedly. In what should be riveting moments of revelation and shock, the camera will shake or shift in an awkward handheld way, then zoom dramatically on someone's face. Frankly, it felt like something you'd see in The Office. More than once, this elicited snickering and even one resounding laugh in my screening, and at moments when that should absolutely not be our reaction. Similarly, the screenplay allows brief moments of insight into the forensic specifics of the case before inexplicably cutting to a point later in the same testimony or, sometimes, another testimony entirely, jarring us out of moments that could (and should) have been mined for more information and insight. A few times I found myself grinding my teeth simply because, due to the editing (and possibly the screenplay, who knows?), some courtroom scenes don't even follow from start to finish, disorienting us and making it frustrating to appreciate new information as we reel from the latest pronouncement.

The dramatic elements of this film -- the other half -- will be up to the viewer to appreciate or not. Sandra Huller gives a masterful performance of the character who also bears her name, and her greatest achievement is a feeling of sudden hollowness as she recognizes the truth that we can never fully understand another person, even a spouse or child. Her chilly delivery will feel relatable to some and deeply off-putting to others, so when it cracks and she desperately tries to hold the pieces of her life together, it will affect everyone watching in some way. It helps that while her private life is scrutinized by everyone around her -- including Samuel's therapist and Sandra's interviewer from the day of his death -- we're often made to stare at Sandra's face, reacting (or trying not to react) to everyone else's outside opinions.

But, and this is where the film falters for me, we've seen it all before, and better. Sandra's personality seems on trial far more than her actions, and that's a tale almost as old as cinema itself. Icily cold filmmaking in legal thrillers is nothing new, nor is the combination of family melodrama with courtroom procedurals. Director Justine Triet presents us with a juicy, compelling puzzle to solve, then does almost all the work solving it herself, sacrificing intrigue in a twisty mystery for soapy bilge between characters who are all horribly unlikable. At least Marriage Story, which I dislike for some similar reasons, gave the characters some realism and positive traits. But from the outset, Sandra and Samuel have to compromise on their shared language while Daniel's limited eyesight render them all fairly isolated from each other, and instead of these becoming areas of sensitivity, they become points of conflict and danger. In a movie far too long for its own good (an almost unendurable two and a half hours that I constantly wished I could escape), the crimes in the case of Anatomy of a Fall should render a hefty penalty.