Rent Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

Gruelling - Anatomy of a Fall review by KB

Very long film which i wouldn't have minded if it had been any good but i couldn't get absorbed or invested in it .I like French films but this one was a big let down despite all the accolades it has had .It is essentially just set in a ski chalet & courtroom . I also didn't like the way it kept switching into English & would have wanted it all to be in subtitled French language .

Nowhere near as clever as it would like to be & a shame overall as i had been looking forward to it.

Overestimated - Anatomy of a Fall review by CSF

It is quite possible that I am not refined enough to appreciate this film because the quality of this film went right above my station. I keep wondering what is so great about it. The usual story of a murder and not knowing who's done it. The best scene is played by the dog, he should have had the Oscar of the best animal actor. Why this film went abroad when so many excellent French films never pass the Channel. It is easier for a migrant to cross the Channel that for a French film.

Engaging court drama interrogating a marriage - Anatomy of a Fall review by PD

This one's the tale of a stone-cold female author Sandra who steals her husband’s book idea, then mercilessly murders him, or alternatively, the tale of widow who must defend herself in court after her depressed husband commits suicide by jumping from the attic window of their remote home in the French Alps. The facts of the case: Sandra Voyter is a writer whose books often borrow from her life—the death of her mother, the emotional rift from her father, and the accident that left her 11-year-old son Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner) partially blind. Her husband Samuel, also a writer, was unable to pick Daniel up from school on time, leading to the accident, and thus blamed himself. One morning, Daniel goes on a walk with his dog Snoop and returns to find his father dead in the snow. Sandra, the only other person present in the house at the time, is the prime suspect, although she claims she was asleep.

Thus set up, the film centres on Sandra's predicament, and therein lies the first problem, for whilst Sandra might be an icy protagonist, Triet’s view of her is weighted in her favour, not least because it's told almost entirely from her point of view. A potentially hostile media for example is ever-present but its perspective strangely utterly tame: the most damning thing a talk show host does in the film is read a quote from one of Sandra’s books (in a film more daring in its critique of the media, you might see a Joan Rivers-like media figure cracking inappropriate jokes about Sandra’s frigid demeanour), whilst in court our sympathies are similarly entirely weighted in favour of Sandra's lawyer/friend. In contrast, the best moment is one of tense passion, showing Sandra and Samuel battling it out in flashback via an audio recording he made without her knowledge, the day before his death. They may be famous writers, but they have a lively argument over the same things many other couples argue over: money, infidelity and, most of all, the division of labour in the household. Who does more for the family, who makes more time for their son? This explosive moment puts the main question that is quietly present in our lives squarely into focus: If your romantic life were put under the scrutiny of the law, without time for preparation, would you come out as the victim or the perpetrator? Marriage is of course often a messy business when it comes to who is blame for what, but the courts must have a black-and-white version of things in order to uphold the law. Since Sandra must prove herself innocent of murder, her main initiative becomes convincing the court that her husband committed suicide, even though she has no physical evidence of this and doesn’t even believe it herself. However, despite Triet's clear sympathy for Sandra, it's also easy to see her as a very selfish woman focused only on herself and her writing career, to the point that she blinds herself completely to her husband’s depression, even after his death.

For me, the film is most compelling, not as a 'whodunnit', nor as the interrogation of a marriage, but as a picture of a grieving child working his way through his father’s death; in this regard Machado-Graner’s tear-jerking performance as a heartbroken child searching for impossible answers after discovering his father’s lifeless corpse is a much more engaging story, and watching Daniel move through the stages of his grief, from bedridden depression to finding some semblance of peace, is ultimately what makes the film worth it. Sandra’s fate rests with Daniel’s court testimony; so too does the arc of the film. Machado-Graner’s tears push past “generic sad kid” and plumb the depths of distress to discover a newfound, authentic optimism in Daniel’s dark circumstances. Shading the role further, a science experiment Daniel performs involving Snoop and some aspirin leads to stellar dog acting that goes far beyond simply playing dead (and earned a well-deserved Palm Dog win). All in all, a rather uneven piece.