Anatomy Of A Fall

UK Release Date. 10 November 2023
Certification. 15
Running Time. 2 hours 31 mins
Director. Justine Triet
Cast. Swann Arlaud, Sandra Hüller, Milo Machado-Graner, Antoine Reinartz, Samuel Theis.
Rating. 79%

Review.

Perhaps more than any other genre, the success of the courtroom drama rests upon the strength of the writing. Poorly conceived and the production can be mired in dry, overly procedural dialogue, but when written well, as in Anatomy Of A Fall, the end result is compulsive viewing. Justine Triet, and her husband Arthur Harari, have produced a sinuous, layered and rewardingly intricate screenplay for the 2023 Palme d’Or-winning Anatomy Of A Fall. 

When Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller), a successful author is prosecuted for the murder of her husband, Samuel Maleski (Samuel Theis) the history of the couple's troubled relationship comes to light. As the court forensically examines their marriage, we learn that they clash over finances, their differing approaches to parenting, their unsatisfying sex life and, in particular, Sandra's past infidelity. We learn that Samuel never truly forgave himself for his part in the accident that left their son, Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner) severely visually impaired. And that Sandra routinely expressed frustration at the many sacrifices she's quietly made, including relocating to a remote village in the French Alps. 

Did she do it? It is interesting to note that when Sandra Hüller asked the director this question, Justine Triet refused to say, claiming that she herself didn’t know the answer. This is the undoubted strength of Anatomy Of A Fall – the uncertainty and the niggling doubts that remain. 

In many ways, the outcome is so much more than a binary choice. As with another recent critically acclaimed French courtroom drama, Saint Omer, it’s more than a woman on trial here. Just as Alice Diop’s drama wove into its court case an examination of race, class and the status of the female migrant in French society, so Justine Triet seeds Anatomy Of A Fall with questions about traditional divisions of labour, about the role of the wife within marriage and about society’s profound discomfort with a woman who not only takes what she wants from life, but in no uncertain terms refuses to apologise for it.