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Anatomy of a Fall Movie Review

Anatomy of a Fall is a 2023 French courtroom drama film directed by Justine Triet and starring Sandra Huller. It’s one of the best movies of the year.

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“Sometimes a couple is kind of a chaos and everybody is lost“

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A woman is suspected of her husband’s murder and their blind son faces a moral dilemma as the sole witness. This critically acclaimed film was a deserved Cannes winner this year and one of the best French movies in recent memory. Unlike ‘Saint Omer’, this courtroom drama holds viewer’s attention completely, making for a great case that this genre in film still has the potential to grip us if done right.

Yes, Anatomy of a Fall is a riveting drama. At two and a half hours, it is a long watch, but it did not feel as long given that it was so well paced and consistently engaging in its perfectly crafted narrative. The movie showcases the French justice system and how well it operates, but those sequences in the court worked because they were impeccably detailed while simultaneously being ambiguous and revelatory as each new evidence further shed some light on the issue while still failing to conclude it properly.

The ambiguous ending of this story worked as not all cases have a clear resolution, which is what Triet cleverly depicted here. Psychologically complex, the film also smartly addresses how so many different accounts and personal gains can influence an outcome of the court ruling. The confrontations on the court were particularly riveting to watch.

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But the highlight of the film is the story that happens before the case itself and outside of the court. The flashbacks are so revelatory and I am not just talking about the question of whether or not this woman killed her husband, but the movie’s sober look at a failing marriage was especially powerful. For once, we get a film that showcases just how important sex and loyalty are to a relationship and if those two are compromised, a relationship starts to fail. The argument that the two have about those issues was difficult to watch and very intense.

Anatomy of a Fall was exceptionally well directed by Justine Triet, who executed this story with a lot of style and confidence. This is one of the best directorial efforts of 2023. The movie is also well edited, so well paced, very well shot and pretty cinematic for the genre. The house as a setting was meticulously detailed and it felt lived in, which was important for the story.

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While I would have liked to have seen more of the son’s perspective, his scenes were still quite moving and powerful. The dog also stole the show, being entirely believable and memorable. But of course the standout of the movie is Sandra Huller herself, who delivered what is possibly the greatest female performance of this year. Sandra is not an easy woman to sympathize with as she’s cold and calculating, but Huller’s performance is so impeccable that she elevated what was already a layered, intriguing role. She sold those intense and emotional scenes effortlessly with particularly potent face acting, but the decision to cast a German actor in a role where she has to speak two different languages was also smart as it fitted the theme of alienation so well.