Equal justice under the law — remember that?
Anatomy of a Fall got five Oscar nominations (including Best Picture of the Year) the same week our justice system was blatantly violated in New York’s E. Jean Carroll v. Trump defamation trial. For a brief instant, the Cannes Film Festival Palm d’Or–winning courtroom drama became a must-see movie. Anatomy examines today’s justice system in minute detail, something America’s one-sided mainstream media fail to do. Yet, upon reflection, the “fall” that Anatomy director-writer Justine Triet refers to — not just a defenestration but one of those feminist victimization routines — feels insupportable. Her initial ideological conceit is outstripped by real-life hysteria.
Know this: It is now impossible to watch Millennial movies apolitically.
Here’s why: Triet portrays novelist Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller) on trial in Switzerland for the murder of her husband, a troubled writer who may have committed suicide. German-born Sandra faces the trepidation of a woman displaced in foreign territory where even her motherly instincts come into question regarding her trusting, visually impaired son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner), a precocious pre-teen who plays Chopin preludes.
Triet’s character study is more carefully laid out than any E. Jean Carroll media story; still, this procedural resembles an episode of the ole Perry Mason series. Her storytelling is so assiduous — planting such details as Sandra publishing a book titled Eclipse with a plot stolen from an unfinished project written by her jealous, competitive, suicidal husband — that it’s a shame Triet’s “ambiguity” is also predictable (especially after Glenn Close’s pseudo-literary The Wife).
Sandra must be Triet’s heroine in order to protest the way women are mistreated in various societies and justice systems. There’s no suspense in sleuthing out the likely murderer; only Sandra’s survival and reputation seem uncertain.
It takes Triet 90 minutes to hit her stride, then the trial unveils a surprise hidden recording (and transcript) that was made by the dead man. It’s a sharp, shocking depiction of a troubled marriage in the era of feminist defiance. Wife and husband argue about commitment, cowardice, blame, and sex, in that order.
The flashback gives Hüller an acting showcase. Her force, plainness, and refusal to turn on feminine charm recall Glenda Jackson, and it’s a purer, more varied performance than Streep’s stylized Manhattanite angst in Kramer vs. Kramer. Sandra wears a suit jacket in court to signal her bisexuality, consistent with the mannish presiding judge (Anne Rotger) and the accusatory court spectators. They’re a panoply of feminist social types who thrill to Sandra’s dramatized polemics: “Let’s not do an inventory. This is your own trap. You impose your way of thinking, speaking, even f***ing.” Then the husband retorts, “You’re a monster, you’re cold-hearted.” Cutting back to the courtroom audience lessens the scene’s intensity for a predictable conclusion: Emotionally balanced woman vs. weak man.
This is where Triet’s intelligence sags. Her modish technique (mixing swish-pan realism with the camera glare of happenstance, spontaneity and artlessness) may convince TV and streaming fans, but it lacks the moral fascination that came from the aesthetic profundity of David Lean’s Madeleine (1950), the greatest woman-on-trial movie since Dreyer’s silent masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc (1927). Lean blended guilt and innocence with the relativity of social mores, and the spiritual excitement was blazing.
All Triet’s got is feminist politics. But being a French cineaste (and no doubt paying homage to Otto Preminger’s courtroom classic Anatomy of a Murder), she avoids American feminism’s vengeful Hillary Clinton predisposition. In light of the E. Jean Carroll catastrophe, it’s admirable that Triet yet offers awareness of any jurisprudence at all. Sandra’s assistant defense attorney tells the press, “The judge’s refusal to give in to repressive reflexes is a healthy sign.” Even better, little Daniel’s court-appointed guardian (Jehnny Beth) explains her role to him and holds to the highest principles: “The law can’t be someone’s friend. Otherwise, it couldn’t be someone else’s friend, and the law must be the same for everyone.” Given the injustices currently overtaking our legal system, just hearing those elementary beliefs contradicts Triet’s overall banality — a faint echo of the ethics we have lost.