STAR RATING: ***** Brilliant **** Very Good *** Okay ** Poor * Awful

Sandra Voyter (Sandra Huller), a successful German writer, lives in Grenoble, in the French Alps, with her half blind eleven year old son, Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner), and successful husband, Samuel (Samuel Theis), with whom she's having marital difficulties. When Samuel is found dead after a fall from the top of the house, Sandra finds herself hauled into court on suspicion of his murder. With Daniel as the only credible witness, he is kept apart from her, and plunged into a moral quandary over what he wants to tell the courts.

Foreign cinema gets disturbingly little exposure over here, but this lengthy, award winning effort from writer/director Justine Triet has arrived on a non-streaming platform service. And luckily, it's worth the cash. And the time, given its over two and a half hour length. With a cast likely to be unfamiliar to uncultured swine who aren't familiar with a broader range of cinematic staples (such as moi), there's no one whose star power overshadows the proceedings, and so the whole experience can be soaked up in just the right way.

Although it's a legal drama set in an unfamiliar climate, with a courtroom procedure that seems completely wild from the outside looking in (with cross examination seemingly mixed in with all kinds of other factors), there's still a searing sense of realism to it all, without the wild theatricality of your average cheesy Hollywood courtroom drama, real people with real emotions and real revelations pouring out in the courtroom. In the lead role, Huller lays everything on the line, unleashing the pent up frustrations of a wife who's kept everything in for years, but it's probably Machado-Graner who steals the show as the afflicted rich kid stuck in the middle in his own private hell.

It all builds up to a genuinely suspenseful climax, where nothing is certain, and the trial will leave a tonne of emotional turmoil one way or the other. It's refreshing to see something as pure and unvarnished as this, which builds up to an experience you'll remember. ****

A German-born writer (Sandra HÜLLER) lives with her husband (Samuel THEIS) and son (Milo MACHADO GRANER) in a house in the French Alps. One day the man lies dead in the snow, apparently having fallen out of a window. Was it an accident? Suicide? Or even murder? More and more inconsistencies appear, so that the writer comes under increasing suspicion. And even feels compelled to call on a lawyer (Swann ARLAUD), whom she knows from before, to provide legal advice. Soon there will actually be a court hearing in nearby Grenoble, where hopefully all the uncertainties can be cleared up...

Justine TRIET offers a lot in her film, which was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival: courtroom film, thriller, marital drama. However, all genre elements are essentially broken down into their components. Can the truth even be found like this? And weren't both married couples also accomplished writers or literary educators? The script that TRIET wrote together with her life partner Arthur HARARI also plays with this very cleverly. In German-speaking countries, the phenomenon of autofictional literature was only recognized with some delay. It was only the success of the Norwegian author Karl Ove KNAUSGARD that introduced German-speaking readers to a type of literature that has been very popular in France since Marguerite DURAS and Annie ERNAUX (NOBEL PRIZE for Literature 2022). Autofiction means that the author appears autobiographically in a fictional text. Actually a contradiction from which there is no escape for readers. Unless the text is received either autobiographically or fictionally. Both together don't work.

In relation to the film's plot: What does it actually mean when a couple of writers autofictionally tear each other apart in their own relationship? Are conflicts then real or are they almost acted out in order to be able to exploit them in an autofictional way? And what happens to a child who is helpless in this struggle? However, these abstract questions are interwoven into an exciting plot that can rise above such background information. But that can be crucial for winning film awards. Just think of the year 1994, when a certain Quentin TARANTINO finally used the literary option of not having to tell a plot chronologically, which had been tried and tested since the turn of the century (i.e. Since 1900!!!), in a film with perfectly normal genre elements and It also rightly received the Palme d'Or in Cannes.

A little fun fact on the side: screenwriter Arthur HARIRI has a cameo appearance in the film as a literary critic for a French television show.

But all of this should not be defamed as too calculated! Justine TRIET delivered an outstanding film. The script by her and Arthur HARARI offers pure excitement and is at the same time literary satisfying. Someone has to do that first! Basically, this can only happen about every 30 years! And then Sandra HÜLLER! What more can you say about this exceptional actress? It takes the whole thing into another league. She already has the EUROPEAN FILM AWARD, a nomination for the ACADEMY AWARD should now be inevitable!!!

P. S.: At P. I. M. P. of 50Cent on a continuous loop, I would definitely become the Hulk! ;-)

I was excited to see this movie because several people had recommended it, but I really didn't think it was all that good. Maybe I'm just too American to understand the French courts, but everything about the legal proceedings seemed ridiculous to me. Like suspicion even being cast on the wife without a shred of actual evidence, they simply say "these bruises aren't what we'd expect, his wife must have killed him". They badgered a child to get the results they want, taking his word as truth until he changed his mind and then their legal standing was "no takesies-backsies". The first witness is lead by the prosecutor like a dog to say the things he wanted, they read fiction literature in a court room as evidence to the authors character, people would just jump up and start cross-examining whenever they felt like it. If this is how it works in France, I'm mortified. When the movie hurt a dog to make a stupid point I started to check out, not only that but the court seemed to consider the "dog experiment" as actual evidence. The last 10 minute to me were the most confusing part. Like there was a perfect moment for an ending, I even said "aaaaaand credits" only to get 10 more minutes of.....? I don't really know what that ending was about, I kept waiting for some sort of reveal.

Again, maybe I just don't get the French courts, but this movie seemed extremely unlikely and felt very frustrating. If you're into European court dramas I guess check it out, but I think this was kind of meh.