Anatomy of a Fall

 It's time to finally dissect Anatomy of a Fall, which won last year's Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and just won the Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. By that logic, one can deduce that it's the frontrunner for the International Feature Film Oscar, except that France opted for the currently shortlisted The Taste of Things. What other twists can we expect?

Sandra Voyter (Sandra Huller) is a novelist living with her family in a Grenoble chalet. She and her husband, fellow writer Samuel Maleski, have a strained relationship ever since their son, Daniel (Milo Machado Graner), was partially blinded in an accident. When the film opens, Samuel disrupts an interview between Sandra and one of her students, Zoe Solidor (Camille Rutherford), while he plays 50 Cent's P.I.M.P. on full blast. When we finally see him in person, Samuel (Samuel Theis) is dead from a flight out the attic window. Since Daniel was walking his guide dog, Snoop the Border Collie, Sandra is the only possible suspect. That is, unless Samuel actually killed himself.

Director Justine Triet and her co-writer Arthur Harari dissect the case over the course of 152-minutes. I'll say right now that the ultimate answer is deliberately inconclusive, but your own analysis hinges on Sandra and Samuel's bitter relationship. A pivotal trial moment goes back-and-forth in time between the couple's last fight and Samuel's audio recording of the fight (long story) being played in court. Their increasingly violent argument sees them vent their pent-up frustrations to the point either verdict is plausible. In fact, Triet and Harari's Golden Globe-winning screenplay presents enough evidence to sway one either way. After all, Samuel could have fallen on his own, but his head injury suggests someone struck him beforehand. 

Sandra, if she indeed deliberately killed Samuel, is a masterful actress. She's quite distraught as she calls for paramedics and is especially sympathetic during the aforementioned fight. Most of Sandra's dialogue is actually in English, and her life is naturally made difficult by the language barrier. She spends the film mending her broken life, and Huller's resulting performance is compelling. The same goes for Graner as Daniel, who's as equally sympathetic as his on-screen mother even when he conducts a dangerously irresponsible trial-related experiment with Snoop (the dog lives). Samuel, in what little we see of him alive, is quite pitiable.

Now for a few supporting highlights. The Prosecutor (Antoine Renartz) is just a guy trying to do his job fairly, and is thus, surprisingly likable. Vincent (Swann Arlaud), Sandra's friend and defense attorney, and Marge (Jehnny Beth), a court monitor who looks after Daniel, make for fine moral support. Oh yes, let's not forget Messi, who plays Snoop, who's just a good dog. That specially makes the dangerous experiment quite difficult to watch. 

Anatomy of a Fall is ready for you to stream on-demand. Its intricately inconclusive case will have you talking long after this year's Oscars, of which it's expected to get a few nominations, are over. Just be prepared to make plenty of room in your schedule to see it. As for me, I need to make room for a few other contenders, which includes the actual current frontrunner for the International Feature Oscar. It's not playing yet locally, but I still need to prepare, especially with its subject matter. That's it for now.