Review of Anatomy of a Fall / Anatomie d'une chute, directed by Justine Triet

I’ve known about Anatomy of a Fall ever since it started gaining traction at the Cannes Film Festival, and although I hadn’t seen it until I was on a 25 hour journey to Malaysia, watching it courtesy of Etihad, I kept hearing about the movie and the hype it was getting from critics. In the end, I was not surprised that it was nominated for so many Academy Awards.

Despite this, I didn’t have the chance to see it when it finally appeared at my local AMC Theater, as it was only there for two days at the worst times before dropping off of the movie slate list for the week. I was devastated y’all to not be able to see it.

But when I saw the French title, not the English one, on my Etihad flight, I knew I was in for a treat. I had a ton of time to burn and kind of just shrugged and said why not. And that is how I finally ended up watching this movie that I’d kind of been dying to see on the inside.

Here is my review!

A woman is accused of murdering her husband, putting her in the midst of a frenzy.

Our main character in this movie is Sandra, who lives in the French countryside with her husband and son. Her husband is a university lecturer and from France, while Sandra is native to Germany. At the beginning of the movie, she’s sitting down to be interviewed by a female student. But as they begin, they hear her husband aggressively playing music.

Sandra cancels the interview, and the woman leaves. Her son, Daniel, finds Sandra’s husband dead on the ground, covered in blood, with his guide dog leading the way. Daniel is visually impaired, so there’s no way he could have seen what unfolded. Sandra thinks it’s an accident, but as she contacts her friend Vincent, who’s also a lawyer, he tells her maybe it was a suicide.

She thinks back to an incident where her husband tried to overdose on aspirin. However, Daniel’s inability to remember what had happened in the hours leading up to his father’s death, as well as the husband sustaining a head injury, leads to suspicions and potential charges that Sandra killed him.

So begins the trial, which is a circus in itself. Vincent and her defense team claim that he fell out of the window and hit his head on a shed, while the prosecution pushes that Sandra whacked him with something hard and he was then pushed out of the window. Sandra makes a mistake and admits in front of everyone she resented her husband, as he was the reason Daniel became impaired.

We discover Samuel recorded his arguments with Sandra, where he accused her of cheating, plagiarizing, and controlling him. The argument then got violent, and then the prosecution begins a grand debate of who hit who first, with their logic being that Sandra did it. She confesses she slapped him, but then insists he hit himself.

She also admits she had an affair with another woman, and then the prosecutor uses her novels and stories to claim that she wrote her life into them. Using a plot point in her most recent novel, he claims that a very minor character, who contemplated similar actions, represents Sandra. This leads to protests from Sandra and her team.

Next, Daniel demands to testify. Daniel is put in charge of the state, as he cannot be alone with Sandra while the investigation is underway and he testifies—they think she might try to influence him. This leads to even more tension. It’s during his time with the state guardian where he realizes his dog overdosed on aspirin due to eating his father’s vomit, and he tests out his theory: it works.

Daniel testifies, and he says he believes his father killed himself. He then describes a visit to the vet where his father had a confession to him that now reads as suicidal. Sandra is then acquitted, and they are reunited and embrace. Sandra goes to bed, with Snoop, the dog, in the room with her.

Overall Thoughts

There are many reasons why this movie has become so beloved. The acting is extremely tight, and the dialogue works really well. None of it feels flat, which is a testament to the strength of the movie’s screenplay.

Honestly, I typically don’t like legal dramas like this, but I was so hooked on what was going to happen next. Most of the time these movies don’t click for me because of how the elements come together, but this movie just came together in the perfect mix. In the end we’re still kind of debating whether she did it, but I believe she didn’t.

There were major undertones of sexism and media frenzy happening beneath the surface, as well as the fact she didn’t speak French. Sure, Sandra could have done better with her court appearances, but she was struggling. I think a lot of us would have been in that moment, too, especially if he was the way he was with her.

That said, fascinating film overall. I’ll be returning to it in the years to come.

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