Ivan Radford | On 25, Jan 2024

Director: Justine Triet
Cast: Sandra Hüller, Samuel Theis, Antoine Reinartz, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado Graner
Certificate: 15
UK digital release: 9 January 2024

Did he fall or was he pushed? That’s the question at the heart of Anatomy of a Fall, a gripping drama that’s so understated it almost feels like a documentary. Sandra Hüller stars as Sandra, a German author who is living in the French Alps with her French husband, Samuel (Samuel Theis). But after Sandra has to cancel an interview with a young journalist because of Samuel playing loud music, Samuel’s found dead on the floor outside the house by their son, Daniel (Milo Machado Graner) – and Sandra is the prime suspect.

What ensues is a gradual dissection of their marriage by a prosecutor (Antoine Reinartz) with a smirking confidence of her guilt. Sandra certainly doesn’t do herself any favours, thanks to her blunt matter-of-factness and her own self-confidence. She’s sure of herself, even if she isn’t sure about what happened to Samuel, and that certainty makes her a figure of suspicion – and so what begins as a murder mystery grows into a study of gender roles in a marriage.

Sandra recruits an old friend (Swann Arlaud) to defend her, and his fondness for her reaffirms the slippery unknowns of everything that’s unfolding. The resulting back-and-forth between the two sides of the courtroom takes us into Witness for the Prosecution territory, as conflicting perspectives leave us sifting through nuances to determine what we think is the truth. Suddenly, every fault-line and unspoken issue can open up a fissure of culpability.

A crucial audio recording provides a key turning point, but not one that leads to any greater clarity – it only exposes more cracks and grudges between Sandra and Samuel, one of them resenting the confines of their house and the other resenting their spouse’s success when their own career is stumbling, while both of them have reacted to the accident that led to Daniel becoming visually impaired in different but equally destructive ways. It just which pieces of evidence you focus on that determine the colour of the overall picture.

The cast are superb because they contain all these multitudes and shades at once, whether it’s Samuel Theis in flashbacks or Sandra Hüller in stoic long takes in the courtroom. Justine Triet’s script – co-written with her partner, Arthur Harari – is a dizzying web of facts and perceptions, and Triet’s patient direction gives us a glacial, clinical close-up of every detail. It’s a masterclass in space and pacing, balancing an absorbing detachment with blistering emotion. At the heart of it all, the remarkable Milo Machado Graner delivers a heartfelt turn as the son caught between the possibilities. His perspective is what leads Anatomy of a Fall to its only central truth: it’s not a question of knowing what to believe but choosing what to believe.

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