FilmSnobReviews

Title: Anatomy of a Fall
MPA Rating: R
Director: Justine Triet
Starring: Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Mercado Graner
Runtime: 2 hrs 31 mins

What It Is: It’s a peaceful day around Sandra Voyter’s (Hüller) home. She’s being interviewed for a profile piece. That isn’t going so well. Her husband is playing music very loudly as he attempts some home repairs. Suddenly he’s discovered face up on the ice covered ground…dead. Sandra is the number one suspect in the murder of her husband. Could she have done this? What would her motivation be? Or did her husband simply have an accident that lead to his inevitable demise?

What We Think: Sandra Hüller continues to show she is an absolute force of goddamn nature in front of the camera! She’s in two films that one could consider Best Picture (and that are nominated as such) with this and The Zone of Interest. In both she plays a woman struggling with conflict. What I find really impressive here is that she is a German actress reciting dialogue in both French and English and not her native German. She’s also doing an incredible job with that acting. Not only do I feel for Sandra as a new widow and newly single mom but she keeps this little something in the back of my head where I think. to myself “Could she have done it?”. I think that takes immense talent and a Goliath ability to understand the material as written. Let’s talk about that material as well. The script is a tightly written one and just from synopsis you’d never know this was a courtroom drama. That’s what fills a majority of this runtime. Even at 151 minutes this never feels it’s length. Which frankly is something perhaps Scorsese could’ve learned from with his last couple of efforts Killers of the Flower Moon and The Irishman. Justine Triet is an incredibly talented writer and perhaps an even better director. To make something of this nature so interesting, so must watch takes such a fantastic hand behind the lens. This film has that in her. I do think having worked with Triet on her last film Sybil helped Hüller get into character here.

Our Grade: A-, Not only is this a film I HIGHLY recommend you see but it might surprise you just how invested you end up at the films end. It has an odd suspense alongside it. I know there’s still a contingent of people out there who will not watch a film in a different language. I’m here to tell those people to knock it off! This is worth the watch. Stop being a coward! Unless you can’t read. In which case you can’t read this review of the film either. A conundrum indeed.