NEW YORK (AP) — Since Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival where it won the Palme d’Or, Sandra Hüller has been dogged by a question: Did she do it?
In “Anatomy of a Fall,” Hüller plays a well-known novelist, also named Sandra, whose husband (Samuel Theis) is found dead outside their chalet in the French Alps after plunging from a top-floor window. Did he fall, or was he pushed?
There are no witnesses except, possibly, a border collie named Snoop. The couple’s 11-year-old son is blind. Authorities charge Sandra with murder. When the trial commences, “Anatomy of a Fall” twists a legal procedural into a thorny marital drama, putting the couple’s tumultuous relationship — all the fights, resentments and affairs — on the stand.
It is a staggering showcase for the German actor Hüller’s cunning intelligence and rigorous intensity as a performer. Is Sandra’s frank testimony convincing because she’s innocent or is it that Hüller is just that good?
“I answered the questions that were posed to her in the most honest way that was possible, but I don’t know the complete truth,” Hüller said in a recent interview. “I decided to believe her. I decided to play her as someone who’s telling the truth, even if it’s just that she believes she’s telling the truth. At the same time, I wanted her to be someone whom I could think capable of doing such a thing.”
“She should be a dangerous person, in a way,” Hüller added. “Not dangerous in a way of threatening people but dangerous in the way of: You don’t mess around with her.”
“Anatomy of a Fall,” which Neon releases in theaters Friday, has been widely hailed as one of the finest films of the year. But by an even wider margin, no film this year has left…