Award-winner is compelling hybrid of murder mystery, courtroom drama and character study

Enigmatic, confronting, touching, testing and sometimes even amusing, Anatomy of a Fall is the first great movie of 2024, writes Leigh Paatsch.

ANATOMY OF A FALL (MA15+)

Director: Justine Triet (Sibyl)

Starring: Sandra Huller, Samuel Theis, Milo Machado Graner

Rating: *****

Going down with a fight, and maybe a conviction

The first great movie of 2024 has arrived.

At turns enigmatic, confronting, touching, testing and sometimes even amusing, Anatomy of a Fall commences its riveting trip into the unknown at a beautiful snowbound chalet high in the French Alps.

This is the new home for a married couple, both authors, who have been recently living in London.

Sandra (dazzlingly played by Sandra Huller) is the more successful of the pair, a fact which clearly strikes a nerve with Samuel (Samuel Theis) when a young journalist arrives to interview his wife.

Supposedly renovating an attic on the top floor, Samuel keeps turning up the volume of his music speakers until the interview is abandoned.

Sensing the tension in the house is about to boil over into an argument, the couple’s 11-year-old son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner) – legally blind and their only child – decides it might be a good idea to take a walk outside with his trusty guide dog.

Milo Michado Graner as Daniel in the Palme d'Or-winning film, Anatomy of a Fall. Picture: Supplied

When Daniel returns home an hour later, he stumbles upon the broken and bleeding body of his dead father on the front entrance of the chalet.

The window of that attic Samuel was working on is conspicuously open. He obviously fell to his death from there. But how? And just as importantly, why?

The investigators who arrive at the scene immediately pick up on some minor inconsistencies in Sandra’s timeline of the lead-up to Samuel’s tragic tumble.

Soon enough, Sandra is in major trouble, facing trial in a French court within a judicial system not afraid to aggressively attack the accused as if already guilty.

It is in this section of Anatomy of a Fall – where Sandra endures a marathon of cross-examination and sudden changes of direction by prosecutors – that the movie reaches the peak of its considerable powers.

Though Sandra’s prickly personality hardly aids her case, her unverifiable alibi and some unintentionally incriminating evidence from a distraught Daniel continues to stack the odds against her.

Sandra’s defence is made more difficult by her not speaking nor understanding French well. Picture: Supplied

Oh, and just to make it truly hard for the defence, German-born Sandra doesn’t speak or understand French very well. Though permitted to give evidence and respond in English, every time Sandra elects to do so may later count against her.

From its arresting opening scene right through to an unforgettable conclusion, this compelling hybrid of murder mystery, courtroom drama and character study carries itself with confidence, precision and authority.

Some have already hailed Anatomy of a Fall as a masterpiece. It is not the most outlandish call that can be made.

After all, since its premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival – where it took out the top prize – the movie has been racking up accolades and awards all over the world. This week’s Best Picture Oscar nomination is merely another layer of icing on an already irresistible cake.

Anatomy of a Fall is now showing in selected cinemas

THE COLOR PURPLE (M)

Rating: ***

General release

Fantasia Barrino and Taraji P. Henson in a scene from the movie musical The Color Purple.

This new take on Alice Walker’s classic novel (originally filmed almost 40 years ago by Steven Spielberg) could well be the best-sung movie musical of recent times. However, there is something awkward about continually pausing a torrid tale rife with interracial tensions so that someone can belt out another brassy number.

What the new movie does capitalise on brilliantly, however, is a vivid grasp of time and place. The era of slavery might be over, but the southern US state of Georgia in the early 1900s is still a hostile place for a person of colour to live. Just ask Celie (Fantasia Barrino), a young woman whose childhood and teenage years were filled with unspeakable abuses. Now, as Celie and her devoted sister Nellie (Halle Bailey) become adults, it looks as if nothing can change for the better. Enter the indomitable Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson), a free-spirited jazz singer who may hold the key to unlocking an independent way forward for poor Celie.

Fantasia Barrino in a musical number in The Color Purple.

The largely female cast are in fine form here, handling the screenplay’s challenging stretches with aplomb. But that niggling feeling the songs are stealing the thunder of an important, imposing story never goes away.

THE BEEKEEPER (MA15+)

Rating: ***

General release

Jason Statham as Clay in The Beekeeper. Picture: Daniel Smith/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

This is one of those fast-paced, fleetingly memorable action flicks that Jason Statham signs on for whenever the pay cheque is juicy enough. Statham plays Adam, a deactivated government assassin who now pursues the hobby of making honey. That is until a sinister telephone call centre cons his elderly landlady out of her life savings, sending her to an early demise.

As any former hitman would, Adam drops everything and goes after the big phishers, burning down call centres and beating up anyone in his way until he can finally get his hands on the sleazy mastermind who needs to be taught a lesson.

The movie keeps dialling up the dumb action sequences and the dopey one-liners, and with each new semi-stupid twist, the foolish-but-fun vibe of it all intensifies.

Co-stars Josh Hutcherson, Jeremy Irons.

Originally published as Award-winner is compelling hybrid of murder mystery, courtroom drama and character study