Basic Instincts — Anatomy of a Fall review

A version of this appeared in The Scotsman.

A fragile male ego is at the heart of Justine Triet’s artfully preposterous courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall. In this instance, though, said ego plays second fiddle to the complexities of its female protagonist, Sandra (Sandra Hüller), a German-born author who becomes the prime suspect in the unexplained death of her French husband, Samuel (Samuel Theis), an academic and lecturer jealous of her success and nursing plenty of bitterness about his own non-existent writing career.

In a bold move, Triet dispenses with Samuel's death in the opening minutes. Expertly setting in play a hostile domestic situation, she proceeds to ratchet up the mystery by keeping Samuel physically off screen until his and Sandra’s vision-impaired son Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner) finds his bloodied corpse in the snow outside after apparently falling from the third floor window of the chalet in the French Alps they’re in the process of fixing up.

Initially the film explores the immediate shock felt by Daniel and Sandra as the investigators and legal teams look for inconsistencies in their stories. But as the film cuts to the subsequent trial a year later, details of the aforementioned marital discord start coming to light, as do revelations about Sandra’s bisexuality and her penchant for writing prose that blurs the line between fact and fiction in ways that the prosecution attempt to use as evidence of premeditated murder.

If that all sounds a little familiar, it’s because it’s the plot of Basic Instinct and it’s not quite clear if Triet is paying deliberate homage or attempting to pull a fast-one on the audience in an effort to juice up its lofty attempt to examine the role storytelling has within the legal system. Either way,  Hüller’s performance is thoroughly riveting and her ability to root the film in the messy reality of a difficult, sometimes loving, relationship (one riven with guilt and recriminations) gives it an intriguing Kafka-esque quality.