Anatomy of a Fall (French: Anatomie d'une chute) is a 2023 French legal dramathriller[5][8] film directed by Justine Triet from a screenplay she co-wrote with Arthur Harari. It stars Sandra Hüller as a writer trying to prove her innocence in her husband's death.
The film premiered at the 76th Cannes Film Festival on 21 May 2023, where it won the Palme d'Or and the Palm Dog Award and competed for the Queer Palm. It was released theatrically in France by Le Pacte on 23 August 2023, receiving critical acclaim with praise for Triet's direction and screenplay (co-written with Harari), and Hüller's performance, and selling over one million admissions in France. It received 11 nominations at the 49th César Awards.
In an isolated mountain chalet near Grenoble, Samuel Maleski is playing music in his attic so loudly that his wife, German bisexual novelist Sandra Voyter, asks to reschedule with the female student interviewing her. Their son, Daniel, returns from a long walk with his guide dog Snoop to find Samuel dead below his attic window. Talking to an old friend, lawyer Vincent Renzi, Sandra says the fall must have been accidental.
When Vincent says that the court will not believe that, Sandra tells Vincent about Samuel's attempt to overdose on aspirin six months earlier, after having gone off antidepressants. Vincent notes a bruise on her arm, which she tells him resulted from bumping into a countertop.
Daniel tells the police investigation that his parents were having a calm talk when he left the house but gives conflicting accounts of exactly where he was standing. This, combined with an autopsy revealing Samuel's head wound occurring before his body hit the ground, blood spatter, and an audio recording Samuel made of a fight he and Sandra had the day before he died, prompts an indictment.
During the trial, Sandra's defense team claims Samuel fell from the attic window and hit his head on a shed, while the prosecution's theory is that Sandra hit him with a blunt object and pushed him from the third-floor balcony. During a courtroom argument with Samuel's psychiatrist, who insists Samuel had no suicidal intent, she talks of her resentment towards Samuel.
In the recorded fight, Samuel accuses her of plagiarism, infidelity, and exerting control over his life. The protracted argument turns physically violent, but it is not clear who is hitting whom. The prosecution claims that all the violence was coming from Sandra. She says that she had thrown a glass at a wall and slapped Samuel's face, and that the bruises on her arms were due to Samuel grabbing her, and that the rest of the violence heard was Samuel beating on himself.
After Sandra admits to having had an affair with a woman the year before Samuel's death, the prosecution argues that Samuel's loud music indicated jealousy over Sandra's flirting with the interviewer, leading to a physical confrontation where the prosecution claims Sandra killed him. The prosecutor notes her pattern of writing her personal conflicts into her stories and how murdering Samuel could mirror a minor character's thoughts from her most recent novel.
Sandra protests that one audio recording does not remotely represent the nature of their marriage, nor do the words of a character in one of her novels reflect her own inclinations. Disturbed by what has transpired, Daniel insists on testifying before closing arguments the following Monday, and the judge lays strict ground rules to prevent anyone from influencing Daniel's testimony, including bringing in a court monitor, Marge, and demanding that all conversations must be held in French, in spite of Sandra's struggles with the language.
Daniel then asks that Sandra leave their house for the weekend so there will only be Marge to watch over him and Snoop. After hearing Sandra's testimony about Samuel's aspirin overdose, Daniel has remembered that Snoop became sick at that time and now suspects that Snoop had eaten some of Samuel's vomit, so that weekend he deliberately feeds Snoop aspirin and finds it has the same effect, which aligns with Sandra's testimony.
Daniel confides to Marge his anguish over trying to determine what is truth, who advises him that sometimes when we do not know what is really true, we can instead just decide what's true for us. On the witness stand, Daniel says that if his mother did this, he cannot understand it, but if his father did it, he can. He testifies that when he and Samuel were driving Snoop to the veterinarian, his father spoke to him about the need to be prepared that those he loves will die and to know that his life will go on, which Daniel now sees as Samuel's own suicidal thoughts.
Sandra is soon acquitted after Daniel's testimony. When she comes home, Daniel tells her he was afraid of her homecoming and she says that she was too, which leads to a warm reuniting hug. As Sandra heads off to bed, she lingers at a photo of her and Samuel before falling asleep with Snoop.
On 10 July 2021 Variety reported that Les Films Pelléas and Les Films de Pierre would co-produce Justine Triet's fourth feature film, Anatomie d'une chute, co-written by Triet and Arthur Harari,[10] and described as "a Hitchcockian procedural thriller".[5]
Triet wrote Anatomy of a Fall for Sandra Hüller,[11] marking their second collaboration following the 2019 film Sibyl.[12] When Hüller was cast in the role of a German writer who is accused of murdering her French husband in France, Triet told the actress that the language would be an important subject in the film.[11] Hüller wanted to speak French in the film, but Triet rejected the idea.[11] "The fact she is a German who speaks English and tries to speak French that creates lots of masks and clouds the issue, creating more confusion around who she is," Triet told Deadline.[11] On set, Hüller repeatedly asked Triet whether her character was guilty or not, but the director refused to answer.[13]
Triet said that the genesis of Anatomy of a Fall stemmed from her longstanding desire to create another trial film since her 2016 production, In Bed with Victoria.[14] In an interview with Paris Match, she explained, "I really wanted to address the legal question in all its details, to delve into issues of relationships and cohabitation. It was also a pretext to dissect every aspect of their lives."[14] Triet further expressed her fascination with the Amanda Knox case, wherein a young American woman was accused of murdering her roommate, Meredith Kercher, in Italy in 2007.[14]
In May 2023, Neon acquired the North American distribution rights.[20] Neon released the film in a limited theatrical release in the United States on 13 October 2023 before expanding to more theaters the following week.[21][22] In September 2023, Lionsgate UK acquired the UK and Ireland distribution rights from Picturehouse Entertainment and set a release date for 10 November 2023.[23]
The film received critical acclaim.[a] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of 216 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "A smart, solidly crafted procedural that's anchored in family drama, Anatomy of a Fall finds star Sandra Hüller and director/co-writer Justine Triet operating at peak power."[33]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 86 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[34]AlloCiné gave the film an average rating of 4.4/5, based on 40 French reviews.[35]
Triet and Hüller were praised by critics, and Le Figaro described the film as the "most ambitious and successful film" of Triet's career.[36][37] Jon Frosch of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "A director and actress in peak form. Sandra Hüller is brilliant, sensational. An exciting step forward for a filmmaker who seems primed for greater international recognition."[38]Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film four out of five stars and wrote, "Sandra Hüller's calm directness as an actor is what gives the film its texture, substance and emotional force."[39] Damon Wise of Deadline Hollywood wrote, "Sandra Hüller shines. A cerebral smash that might finally bring the [Cannes] Best Actress award that its star, Sandra Hüller, was cruelly denied in 2016. Hüller's screen magnetism cannot be denied."[40]
For David Sims of The Atlantic, the film "works largely because Hüller, a German actress probably best known for her role in Toni Erdmann, gives an extraordinary performance already being tipped for Oscar success."[41] Steve Pond of TheWrap wrote that the film "is straightforward in its style but sophisticated in the way Triet doles out information. It's tense, unbearably so at times, but also subtle and satisfying."[42] Alexandra Heller-Nicholas of Alliance of Women Film Journalists wrote, "Both in front and behind the camera, Anatomy of a Fall is a film made by two women in particular who are simply at the top of their game, and neither Hüller nor Triet show any signs of slowing down."[43]
Raphael Abraham of Financial Times gave the film four out of five stars and wrote, "Triet builds a taut did-she-do-it tension while also working in discomfiting questions about marital power dynamics and how much an artist's work really reveals about their character." Abraham also added that Hüller deserved a Cannes Best Actress prize for her performance.[44] Candice Frederick of the HuffPost wrote, "Through vivid flashbacks and meticulous courtroom interrogation, Triet masterfully turns our attention from potential crime-solving to the inner workings of two imperfect people and one complicated marriage. It's absolutely riveting."[45] Peter Debruge of Variety called the film "thought-provoking", "a kind of Gone Girl in reverse", and an "uncommonly mature film through all its layers, seeing rarely expressed truths about 21st-century relationships in its trajectory."[8]
Anatomy of a Fall was ranked third on Cahiers du Cinéma's top 10 films of 2023 list.[46]
Box office
The film was released to 379 theaters in France,[47] where it debuted at number two at the box office grossing over $2 million[7] and selling 262,698 tickets, behind Barbie (288,185 tickets) and ahead of Oppenheimer (231,550 tickets).[48]Anatomy of a Fall had the best opening for a Palme d'Or winner since The Class (2008), which sold 358,000 tickets in France during its opening weekend in 2008.[48] In its second weekend, the film remained in second place behind The Equalizer 3 and ahead of Barbie, accumulating 608,913 tickets sold.[49] In its third weekend, the film reached the top spot at the French box office with 191,392 admissions from 738 theaters,[50] accumulating 800,283 tickets sold,[51] and grossing $5,7 million.[7] In its fourth weekend, the film dropped to the fifth spot at the French box office and accumulated 921,308 admissions.[52]
On 23 September 2023, Anatomy of a Fall exceeded 1 million admissions in France one month after its theatrical release, becoming the seventh Palme d'Or winner – and the third French Palme d'Or winner – to cross the 1 million admissions mark in France since 2000.[53]
Accolades
On 13 September 2023, Anatomy of a Fall was one of the five films pre-selected by France's Oscar committee to represent the country in the Best International Feature Film category at the 96th Academy Awards.[54] On 21 September 2023, France chose to submit The Taste of Things instead, which sparked controversy, with French insiders claiming that director Justine Triet was being "punished" for criticizing French President Emmanuel Macron's repression of the pension reform protest movement during her acceptance speech at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.[55][56][57][58]The Taste of Things did not receive a nomination.[59]
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