Anatomy of a Fall: film review

We belatedly watched this film, all two-and-a-half hours of it, on Netflix on 14th April 2024. It was excellent.

It starts with an author being interviewed by a PhD student in her chalet in the French Alps. Her husband is upstairs, doing DIY, with music on at full blast, so the interview is terminated and the student leaves. The author’s blind son goes out to take the dog for a walk. He returns to find his dad on the ground outside the chalet, dead. He has fallen from the balcony outside the loft.

It is fundamentally a courtroom drama. The author is put on trial for the murder of her husband; she claims the death was suicide. In the absence of unequivocal forensic evidence, the trial explores the often stormy relationship between the author and her husband, and whether he was suicidal. The son has to sit through day after day of testimony, discovering the secrets of his parents while we, the viewer, wonder whether his father was a suicide or his mother is a murderer. We also wonder whether he has lied to cover up for her. It is gripping stuff.

The dialogue is in both French and English since the woman was German and her husband French and they settled on English as a lingua franca. But most of the court is done in French. Subtitles are essential! Even with this handicap, it is still gripping stuff.

There are outstanding performances from the mother (Sandra Huller), her son Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner) and the dog Snoop (a border collie called Messi) who has to play dead in the film’s climax and does it brilliantly, winning the Palm Dog at Cannes. But there wasn’t a single poor performance; this was acting at its best.

The film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. It was nominated for seven BAFTAs winning best original screenplay, four Golden Globes winning best picture not in English and best screen play, and five Oscars including best picture, best director, best actress, and best editing, winning best original screenplay. It achieved 90% audience review on rotten tomatoes and 96% on the tomatometer and 7.7/10 on 1MDb. The Guardian gave it 4 stars out of 5 calling it “gripping” and “sinuous”.

There is little closure. Yes, there is a verdict, but at the end there are still questions.

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God