Anatomy of a Fall

Anatomy of a Fall is a 2023 French courtroom drama thriller film directed by Justine Triet from a screenplay co-written by Triet and Arthur Harari. It stars Sandra Hüller as a writer trying to prove her innocence in her husband's death.
Anatomy of a Fall had its world premiere 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.
The film received acclaim from critics, who praised Triet and Hüller, and it has sold over 1 million admissions in France.
Plot
An interview of novelist Sandra Voyter is halted by her husband Samuel Maleski playing loud music from their house's attic to disrupt it. Their partially blind son Daniel goes out for a walk and returns to find Samuel dead in the driveway from a fall. An autopsy reveals his head wound was inflicted before his body hit the ground, putting Sandra under suspicion. Her lawyer Vincent Renzi plans to claim Samuel committed suicide if she is indicted, and despite not believing he killed himself, she tells him about Samuel's attempt to overdose on aspirin months before his death. He notes a bruise on her arm that she claims to have sustained bumping into a table.
Daniel claims his parents were not fighting when he left the house, but when a test of the music's volume reveals that he could not have heard them talking from where he claims he was, he changes his story. This, combined with blood spatter on a shed below the attic window and a recording Samuel made of a fight he and Sandra had the day before he died, prompts an indictment. While practicing testimony with Vincent, Sandra explains that Samuel was technically responsible for the accident that blinded Daniel, putting him in a depressive state he never fully recovered from.
One year later, the trial has begun. Sandra's defense team claims Samuel fell from the attic window and hit his head on the shed, while the prosecution believes she hit him with a blunt object and pushed him from the second floor balcony. During an argument with Samuel's psychiatrist and the prosecutor, she admits she felt resentment towards Samuel after Daniel's accident. The recording is played, where Samuel accusses her of plagiarism, infidelity, and exerting control over his life. The argument turns violent, and while Sandra is forced to admit that the bruise was sustained then, she claims the rest of the violence was Samuel inflicting it on himself.
She admits that she had several affairs after Daniel's accident and another the prior year (implying that he disrupted the interview for fear of her trying to seduce the interviewer), but insists that she consensually borrowed an idea from Samuel that she turned into her own book. 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. He claims that Samuel would not have committed suicide the day after fighting so vehemently for his independence, while Vincent cites Samuel's stresses and failed writing career as motivation for suicide. Disturbed by what has transpired, Daniel agrees to testify before closing arguments, but asks that Sandra leave the house temporarily.
Remembering that his guide dog Snoop became sick shortly after Samuel's suicide attempt, Daniel feeds him aspirin and finds it has the same effect, suspecting that he ate Samuel's vomit and therefore validating Sandra's claim that the incident happened. While he is still uncertain about what happened, the woman assigned to watch over him to prevent interference in his testimony tells him to believe what he can live with. He recalls during his testimony that, while taking Snoop to the hospital, Samuel implied his own suicidal thoughts while talking about the dog's potential death. Daniel states his belief that Samuel committed suicide and Sandra is soon acquitted. She comes home, puts Daniel to bed, and looks at a picture of her and Samuel before falling asleep with Snoop.
Cast
Sandra Hüller as Sandra Voyter
Swann Arlaud as Vincent Renzi
Milo Machado-Graner as Daniel Maleski
Antoine Reinartz as the Prosecutor
Samuel Theis as Samuel Maleski
Jehnny Beth as Marge Berger
Saadia Bentaieb as Nour
Camille Rutherford as Zoé Solidor
Anne Rotger as the President
Sophie Fillières as Monica
Production
Development
On 10 July 2021, Variety reported that and would co-produce Justine Triet's fourth feature film co-written by Triet and Arthur Harari, and described as "a Hitchcockian procedural thriller".
Triet wrote Anatomy of a Fall for Sandra Hüller, marking their second collaboration following the 2019 film Sibyl. 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. Hüller wanted to speak French in the film, but Triet rejected the idea. "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. On set, Hüller repeatedly asked Triet whether her character was guilty or not, but the director refused to answer.
Triet said that the starting point of Anatomy of a Fall was that she wanted to make another trial film for a long time since her 2016 film In Bed with Victoria. "I really wanted to address the legal issue in its smallest details, to address the issues of the couple, of living together. It was also a pretext to dissect every bit of their life," she told Paris Match. Triet also said she was fascinated by the Amanda Knox case, which involved a young American woman accused of murdering her roommate Meredith Kercher in Italy in 2007.
Filming
Principal photography began at the end of February 2022 and wrapped on 13 May 2022. Filming took place mostly in the region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, such as in Maurienne and Villarembert in Savoie, and in Montbonnot-Saint-Martin and Grenoble in Isère. It was also shot in Charente-Maritime and in Paris.
Release
Anatomy of a Fall had its world premiere at the 76th Cannes Film Festival on 21 May 2023. Le Pacte released it theatrically in France on 23 August 2023. It was also screened at the 27th Lima Film Festival in the Acclaimed section on 13 August 2023. It was also invited at the 28th Busan International Film Festival in 'Icon' section and was screened on 8 October 2023.
In May 2023, Neon acquired the North American distribution rights. 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. In September 2023, Lionsgate UK acquired the UK and Ireland distribution rights from Picturehouse Entertainment and set a release date for 10 November 2023.
Reception
Critical response
The film received critical acclaim. AlloCiné gave the film an average rating of 4.4/5, based on 40 French reviews.
Triet and Hüller were praised by critics, and Le Figaro described the film as the "most ambitious and successful film" of Triet's career. 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." Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film 4 out of 5 stars and wrote, "Sandra Hüller's calm directness as an actor is what gives the film its texture, substance and emotional force." Damon Wise of Deadline Hollywood wrote, "Sandra Hüller shines. A cerebral smash that might finally bring the Best Actress award that its star, Sandra Hüller, was cruelly denied in 2016. Hüller's screen magnetism cannot be denied." 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." 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." 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." Raphael Abraham of Financial Times gave the film 4 out of 5 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. 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."
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."
Box office
The film was released to 379 theaters in France, where it debuted at number two at the box office grossing over $2 million and selling 262,698 tickets, behind Barbie (288,185 tickets) and ahead of Oppenheimer (231,550 tickets). 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. In its second weekend, the film remained in second place behind The Equalizer 3 and ahead of Barbie, accumulating 608,913 tickets sold. In its third weekend, the film reached the top spot at the French box office with 191,392 admissions from 738 theaters, accumulating 800,283 tickets sold, and grossing $5,7 million. In its fourth weekend, the film dropped to the fifth spot at the French box office and accumulated 921,308 admissions.
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.
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 97th Academy Awards. On 21 September 2023, France chose to submit The Pot-au-Feu 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.
Notes
References
External links
Anatomy of a Fall at Unifrance
Anatomy of a Fall at Cineuropa
Anatomy of a Fall at Cannes Film Festival
2023 films
2020s French films
2020s French-language films
French thriller films
English-language French films
German-language French films
Films directed by Justine Triet
French courtroom films
2020s legal drama films
Juries in fiction
Films shot in Paris
Films shot in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Films shot in Isère
Films shot in Savoie
Films shot in Charente-Maritime
Neon (company) films
Palme d'Or winners
Films about writers
Films about women in France
2023 LGBT-related films
French LGBT-related films
LGBT-related thriller films
Le Pacte films