Is Anatomy of a Fall the rare film that improves the more you think about it? The French courtroom thriller, directed by Justine Triet, certainly has a je ne sais quoi which has won over audiences. The movie has just been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars; Triet was nominated in the directing and original screenplay categories. Not much of a surprise: it is robustly-directed and well-performed. And it also nails its ending. But you might still have questions, unlike the film, you may not have a blood splatter expert on hand, so let’s delve into that icy conclusion. Many spoilers ahead, obviously.
Is Sandra guilty or innocent in Anatomy of a Fall?
A quick refresh: Sandra Voyter (played by Sandra Hüller, who is nominated for best actress at the Academy Awards) is a German novelist living in an isolated chalet in France with her husband, an aspiring writer Samuel Maleski (Samuel Theis) and their visually-impaired 11-year-old son, Daniel (Milo Machado Graner, a stand-out). After Samuel is found dead on the icy ground below, Sandra is accused of murdering her husband, with whom she had a volatile relationship. But could he have fallen by accident? Or could he have killed himself? There are no witnesses: Daniel had been walking his dog, Snoop, and returned to find his father’s body. It is up to the court (and us) to decide.
Guilty!
As the trial continues, we learn that there were problems in Sandra and Samuel’s marriage. She blamed him for the accident which resulted in Daniel’s blindness; he accused her of plagiarising his work. In a fight that Samuel recorded shortly before his death – apparently for literary inspiration – we hear them argue over familial responsibilities, Sandra’s infidelity, and Samuel’s crippling ambition to write a novel. Was this – and the repeat playing of the instrumental version of “P.I.M..P” (a criminal act in itself!) – the tipping point for Sandra?
Not guilty!
Could Samuel have simply fallen? Well, he was a cautious worker, according to Sandra, and the blood splatters do not align with that view, according to the experts. The defence, led by handsome Vincent Renzi (Swann Arlaud), plump for another explanation: he killed himself. Samuel had recently stopped taking his meds, his latest literary project seemed doomed and, according to Sandra, he had tried to overdose on aspirin a few months earlier (she found vomit on the floor but they did not discuss it in detail afterwards).
What happens at the end of Anatomy of a Fall?
There is evidence – and lots of well-argued speculation – for both sides, but the film reaches its crescendo with a few revelations courtesy of Daniel. Just before the trial ends, the judge announces that there will be a weekend break before Daniel provides a last-minute testimony: the child is clearly upset by the secret recording, and its various revelations, that played during the trial.
That weekend, Daniel tells his court-appointed guardian Marge (Jehnny Beth) that he wants some distance from his mother. So begins his experiment: he feeds Snoop some aspirin, only to panic once the dog passes out. The pair manage to make Snoop throw up (“feed it saltwater,” Siri helpfully chimes in!), and Daniel explains his theory to Marge: after he learnt of his father’s apparent suicide attempt, he remembered that Snoop had fallen ill at the same time. Could it be that Snoop hoovered up his father’s vomit and became sick from the aspirin? After testing the effects of the drugs and seeing that the dog react in the exact same way, he believes Sandra’s claim about the suicide attempt.
The film’s pivotal line comes just after this, when Daniel is searching for guidance about what actually happened. It seems that he has been growing sceptical of his mother. Marge tells him that – and I’m paraphrasing French here, so patientez, s'il vous plaît – that when you are uncertain of something, you just have to decide what is true for you. Good advice (if you are a well-adjusted person).
Cut to Daniel’s testimony, during which he explains his aspirin experiment and also tells the court that while he cannot believe his mother would kill his father, he can believe that his father would have killed himself. He finishes with a story about a trip to the vet, in which his father told him that although Snoop loved him and was dedicated to him, the beloved dog would not always be around. This story, a thinly-veiled goodbye from Samuel, seems to have the effect Daniel hopes for: Sandra is acquitted. Mother and son reunite uneasily back home, and later Snoop leaves Daniel and joins Sandra as she sleeps on the sofa.
Anatomy of a Fall’s ending, analysed
Triet’s direction energetically hones in on different characters’ perspectives, so it is never clear if you are witnessing a scene that actually took place or happened in someone’s head (which is, uh, how most of real life happens, too!). That means it is impossible to know exactly what happened to Samuel. It would have been a much less accomplished film if Triet had spelt it out for us (Hüller does not even know if her character is guilty: Triet simply told the German actor to “play her like she’s innocent”).
But if you were to ask this writer, I’d say it’s fairly obvious that Sandra did not murder her husband, and that Daniel – seeing that things were not looking great for his mother – lied in his testimony to help her suicide theory. That makes for the most compelling narrative: watching the judicial system throw doubt on a woman in an unhappy, but not murderous, marriage. It’s also the most satisfying arc for Daniel, who decides that his mother is innocent and lies to convince the court. Both Graner’s acting during the testimony and Triet’s recreation of the car-trip to the vet – depicted as a unfixed, childlike memory – support that.
Of course, there are countless theories as to what could have happened – did Samuel frame Sandra with the recording and kill himself? Did Daniel kill his father? Maybe it was Snoop! – but what makes Triet’s film so good is the implication that none of this matters. We live and die by the stories we tell. And Daniel, the son of two writers, tells one good enough to get exactly what he wants.
‘Anatomy of a Fall’ is available to stream now
Henry Wong is a senior culture writer at Esquire, working across digital and print. He covers film, television, books, and art for the magazine, and also writes profiles.
