It won the top prize of the international film community with the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival back in May.
This week, the French courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall” finally opens wider in D.C.-area theaters, giving local viewers a chance to see a major potential Oscar contender for Best Picture, Director, Actress and Original Screenplay, though ironically not Best International Feature as France instead chose Anh Hung Tran’s “The Taste of Things” as its submission.
The film follows German author Sandra, her husband Samuel and their 11-year-old son Daniel, who move to the French Alps to live in a secluded chalet. After Samuel is found dead in the snow, the police investigate whether he was pushed from the second story balcony or whether he took his own life by jumping from the attic window. Sandra is arrested and their 11-year-old son is questioned, but there’s just one catch: he’s blind and didn’t see it happen.
Lead actress Sandra Hüller (“Toni Erdmann”) is having quite the year as “Anatomy of a Fall” is competing against her other film, “The Zone of Interest,” at all of the major festivals. Her mysterious face speaks volumes, but the most heartbreaking performance comes from Milo Machado-Graner as her aching son. As for his father (Samuel Theis), he’s never shown alive on screen, only appearing in revealing flashbacks or music blaring off screen.
It’s a clever choice by writer/director Justine Triet, who opens with a shot of a ball bouncing down the staircase, which is less of an homage to “The Changeling” (1980) and more of a way to foreshadow the fatal fall. The tropical steel drums of 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P.” echo down from upstairs, creating an intrusive force that forces the wife’s interview with a journalist to be cut short downstairs. It’s a power move — and we feel the animosity brewing.
We don’t see his death; this isn’t that type of movie. Instead, the son is out walking the dog when he stumbles across his dad’s body. It would have been better if the blind son was still in the house at the time of the incident, showing his pitch-black P.O.V. with audio clues of what he might have heard. As written, the narrative lacks immersive Hitchcockian suspense or even the thrills of Audrey Hepburn’s blind hero in “Wait Until Dark” (1967).
The murder mystery is juiciest when investigators reenact the fall with a dummy to examine the blood splatter. Even so, the script never quite takes off as a classic whodunnit, nor is it a traditional courtroom drama like Billy Wilder’s “Witness for the Prosecution” (1957) or Otto Preminger’s “Anatomy of a Murder” (1959), despite impassioned performances by Antoine Reinartz as the prosecutor and Swann Arlaud as the defense attorney.
Instead, it transforms into a family drama of grief, slowing peeling back a complex back story of the wife’s infidelity, her son’s tragic accident and the husband’s depression over writer’s block, causing a reverse of “Big Eyes” (2014) or “The Wife” (2017) when it comes to stealing a spouse’s ideas. Some of the revelations feel a little contrived, building to a finale that doesn’t leave without eloquent closing arguments, dramatic verdicts or stunning twists.
For all its craftsmanship, there’s something missing from “Anatomy of a Fall.” I can’t quite put my finger on it, but after investing our attention for 2 1/2 hours, we don’t walk away with much resolution. I suppose that’s the point: relationships are messy and their conclusions even messier. No doubt the film will make many Top 10 lists — heck, it might even make mine — but intangibles prevent it front being near the top for me. It’s a B+ instead of an A.
Oh well, one thing’s for sure: I never would have guessed that the esteemed Cannes Film Festival champion, the crowned art house jewel, would leave me with “P.I.M.P.” stuck in my head. I didn’t have that on my bingo card.
