Anatomy of a Fall a courtroom drama where the wife of a guy who died in a household fall is on trial for his murder. There are a lot of accusations, suppositions, blame, and recrimination. There’s not a lot of solid, absolute facts though.

This flick can be absolutely mesmerizing when we’re ten minutes into a dramatic courtroom cross examination. I was drawn in very much like I was in The Caine Mutiny Court Martial earlier this year. Just something about a quiet court room with a series of focused questions and answers painting a scene that draws me in.

This is a French film about the French court system which operates a little different from the more familiar American ones (or at least the ones we see in the movies). The way witnesses are deposed, how others can apparently join in, the judge (or judges), and where in heck the jury was seated were all pretty foreign to me. None of this affects the quality of the acting, just my slight removal from the drama while trying to figure out the rules. Not a fault of the movie though… just for me either not having seen enough French courtroom dramas or never having been on trial for my life in a French court (as far as you know).

Sandra Hüller as the wife on trial has to switch back and forth from English to French. Sadly as not a French speaker myself, it was difficult to get the nuance of how well she spoke the language as that appears to be a point of consideration in a French court. Great performance otherwise.

The prosecuting attorney is a conniving weasel who we’re supposed to hate (since we’ve seen enough courtroom dramas before). But on the way to booing and hissing at him, a lot of the defense’s arguments felt noticeably self-serving. As would be expected in a real trial… but in a film, they made me suspicious. It made me doubt everything said in her defense, especially in the climactic cross examination. Good work on the script and actors for making me unsure what to believe.

The whole movie isn’t a courtroom drama and we spend enough time at home before the death and during the trial. These sequences vary a great deal and sometimes feel a little padded given the 2 1/2 hour runtime. I wouldn’t say I was bored, but it kept the movie from the heights it could have reached for me.

But otherwise, I was enthralled. This is an excellent courtroom drama only marred a little but its length and its (to me) unfamiliar milieu. Great acting and a smart steady camera keeps the drama running.

Score: 87