ANATOMY OF A FALL

Directing: A
Acting: A
Writing: A
Cinematography: A-
Editing: A

Anatomy of a Fall is a spectacular specimen of cinematic craftsmanship. At 151 minutes, it does seem at first to move at a somewhat labored pace, and between that and the fact that the dialogue is in three different languages, this film won’t work for everybody. I would argue that it works for anyone with an appreciation for cinema that is elevated to high art through writing, editing and performance rather than dazzling visuals.

Mind you, the visuals in Anatomy of a Fall should not be underestimated. There’s a tracking shot early in the film that had me thinking, Why the hell are we suddenly going through the house from the point of view of the dog? Much later, during the second half of the film that is dominated by a trial, seemingly out of the blue we hear a clear recording of a recent argument between the woman accused of murder and her dead husband—and, at first, all I could think was, How is this happening? Who the hell recorded this?

I learned quickly enough that no matter what questions arise in Anatomy of a Fall, I need only to put my trust in the filmmakers—co-writer Arthur Harari, and especially director and co-writer Justine Triet. The early scenes in this movie seem to skirt the edges of inconsequential, but later prove important. This isn’t a “whodunnit” so much as a “did she do it?”, but in any case all the details we see onscreen are important.

As the title refers to, everything hinges on the discovery of Samuel (Samuel Theis), husband and father, dead in the snow outside the family home in Grenoble, having evidently fallen from the third-floor, attic window of the house. The key players in this mystery are wife and mother Sandra (Sandra Hüller, incredible); 11-year-old son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner, excellent); and of course, Samuel himself. Although a fascinating element of the storytelling here is how little we actually see Samuel onscreen. Aside from two scenes in which we see his dead body, he has only two flashback scenes, only one of them with his own audio—a visualization of the aformentioned argument, which ultimately cuts back to the courtroom when the audio becomes violent but ambiguous. In the second, Daniel is recounting a conversation with him in the car, and we see him, but his lips match Daniel’s voice quoting him as he tells the story. Beyond these spare examples, Samuel exists only in the abstract, as we follow Sandra and Daniel as they face Sandra being put on trial for murder.

I feel compelled to mention the dog, Snoop, again. I don’t want to get too close to spoiler territory here, but Snoop ultimately becomes one more key player, a pivotal part of the final days of the trial, the details of which make that earlier tracking shot from the dog’s perspective make sense. I’ll tell you that Snoop is fine in the end, but there is still a scene in the film involving him that is arguably the most horrifying in the movie, and if you love dogs, watching it might prove tricky. Side note: I can’t speak to any such intentions on Triet’s part, but this sequence is also provocative in regards to the notion that, when push comes to shove, people are more important than animals.

Broadly speaking, the genius of Anatomy of a Fall is how it skirts any of the details that might give us concrete answers about Sandra’s guilt or innocence—we are left to struggle with the same questions as the prosecutor (Antoine Reinartz), or Sandra’s old lawyer friend brought in to defend her (Swann Arlaud), or the judges, or the jury, or indeed even Daniel. There’s a moment in the film when Daniel is told that sometimes, when there are two possibilities that seem equally plausible, but it can’t be both, you just have to make your own choice. Such is the case with Anatomy of a Fall, which answers all the right questions and the right times, but also has just the right amount of ambiguity, leaving just enough questions unanswered to keep you guessing.

If you have limited patience with subtitled foreign films, Anatomy of a Fall might be a workable compromise: because Sandra is German and Samuel is French, but neither has mastered the other’s language, they speak to each other at home in English, making that the spoken language roughly half the time—even though it’s technically a French film. Rarely do you see films in which so many characters so casually switch back and forth between languages, sometimes from sentence to sentence. Here, it also proves to be a pertinent plot point, a source of resentment between Sandra and Samuel, as is the decision to relocate the family from London to Samuel’s hometown in France.

What this brings us back to is how, in Anatomy of a Fall, every detail matters. Sandra Hüller’s performance in particular is stellar in its ambiguity, easily gaining empathy but with an undercurrent of doubt, obstinately stoked by the prosecuting attorny, and indeed the inconclusive evidence itself. When all this ambiguity is the result of such deliberate intention, the result is a masterful achievement.

There’s a lot more to discover beyond the margins.

Overall: A

PRISCILLA

Directing: B
Acting: A-
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B
Editing: B-

When I left the theater after seeing Priscilla, my moviegoing companion addressed the elephant in the theater: “How many movies can Sofia Coppola make about bored white ladies?”

It made me laugh. It’s also a legitimately valid question. And Priscilla takes that notion to the extreme, an odd sort of accomplishment in that it’s incredibly well made, excellently acted, well shot, and is also incredibly slow. Coppola has a long history of dealing in cinematic subtleties, but virtually the entirety of Priscilla feels like an extended prologue to Priscilla Presley’s life after Elvis—none of which do we get to see.

It’s a bit fascinating to have Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis come out just last year, and Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla come out this year. Elvis had far too much going on; Priscilla doesn’t have enough going on. Evlis features a depiction of Priscilla but makes no mention of the fact that they met when she was fourteen and he was twenty-four; Priscilla is not only all about that fact, but subtly depicts the ways in which Elvis groomed both her and her parents. Elvis featured a truly unfotunate Tom Hanks performance as “The Colonel” who was depicted as the villain who controlled his life; Priscilla features Colonel Tom Parker only as someone Elvis speaks to occasionally over the phone, and shows Elvis himself as kind of an asshole.

There are some additional narrative choices in Priscilla that are, let’s say, compelling topics for discussion. Once Priscilla is of legal age and living with Elvis, she’s frustrated by his lack of sexual interest in her. Suddenly she’s having a baby, and then another—evidently they had sex at least twice. What are they, the protestants from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life?

This is an odd idea to layer onto Elvis’s clear grooming of an underage girl, only to have eventual affairs with costars in the movies he finds increasingly unsatisfying to be a part of. I can’t quite make sense of Elvis Presley’s sexuality as depicted in Priscilla. Add to that another layer: Jacob Elordi is is so gorgeous, and so perfectly cast as Elvis (dare I say, even better than Austin Butler in Elvis), it’s almost unbearable. And yet, Priscilla has absolutely nothing to say about his scandalously sexy live performances, the signature swinging of his hips. Indeed, it has nothing to say about his excess of fame, although at least it acknowledges it—when it comes to wealth, forget it. Coppola seems interested only in the story of a young woman who is seduced by a star and then systematically robbed of all her agency.

And Coppola takes her dear sweet time doing it. Here’s another oddity of Priscilla: it’s quite recognizably a Sofia Coppola film, and yet it might be the slowest film she’s ever made. I spent a lot of time wondering if anything of substance was actually going to happen onscreen. Are we meant to be as bored as Priscilla is? Honestly her life, while far from ideal, was clearly a lot more exciting than this movie is.

There are plenty of people who are expressing genuine appreciation for this film, and I can’t say I fault them for it, per se. The performances are exemplary, and 25-year-old Cailee Spaeny delivers a solid, nuanced delivery as the title character. The world it depicts feels lived in, if leaving a lot of things about the Presleys’ lives unexamined. Clearly a great deal of talent went into this movie. That’s maybe what’s the most disappointing about it, how it adds up to less than the sum of its parts. Would this film be getting the same level of acclaim without the Coppola name attached to it? I really wonder.

The untold story of a bored starwife.

Overall: B-

WHAT HAPPENS LATER

Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

For a split second I found myself thinking: wouldn’t it be great if Tom Hanks had been cast in this movie with Meg Ryan? But then I got a few minutes into What Happens Later, Meg Ryan’s second directorial feature film and her first film acting role in eight years, and I realized Tom Hanks wuold have been horribly miscast in the part. For the character of Bill, a man who displays a playful cynicism, David Duchovny is perfectly cast. We can just hold out hope for a another pairing of Meg and Tom in some other movie before they die.

In the meantime, Ryan and Duchovny have fantastic chemistry, and it’s great fun to see them onscreen together, in a film that charms in a way few romantic comedies manage. Some might find What Happens Later to be too cute for its own good, and those people might have solid arguments. Personally, I rather enjoyed it, and found this movie to exceed my expectations.

Granted, Meg Ryan’s direction does eventually take us to a few moments a little too deep into the “magical thinking” that Bill consistently scoffs at, particularly in a scene where Bill and Willa (Ryan) take turns shouting at the universe from inside a snowed-in regional airport. The two characters have indeed endured a long series of irritations up to that point, but the level of outburst on both their parts feels unearned.

Such a moment is just a temporay speedbump, however, in the infectiously engaging dialogue that otherwise permeates What Happens Later, co-written by Ryan, Kirk Lynn, and Steven Dietz, the playwright upon whose 2008 play, Shooting Star, is based. It’s always a delight when a film based on a play actually works, and this one works so well as an adaptation, with filming locations in an actual airport, that it’s difficult to imagine it working as well on a live stage.

Ryan and Duchovny are both casually naturalistic performers, and are thus quite believable as a couple of aging, sometimes cranky ex-lovers who run into each other during passing layovers at the same airport. Usually romantic comedies are amusing at best, not eliciting a lot in the way of genuine laughter, but I laughed more than usual at this one—largely on the strength of its two lead performers. Well, them and the third of only three speaking parts in this film, the airport announcer (“Hal Liggett,” a credit apparently a pseudonym), who consistently respoonds to Bill and Willa’s questions in subtly funny ways.

Holing an audience’s attention for an hour and 45 minutes with only two characters is no easy task, but What Happens Later makes it seem easy. I had a lovely time just hanging out with these two, and appreciating the telling of a story like this with older actors. Although we learn that they had been in a serious relationship in their twenties, we never do learn their current age, although there is a sarcastic reference to Bill being “well into my fifties.” The two actors are in their early sixties, both looking their age and looking good—a rare Hollywood combination.

Ryan, for her part, plays a character less flightly than in her previous romantic comedy parts, in spite of Willa the character being, as Bill puts it, into “magical thinking,” putting her faith in “woo woo,” unscientific ideas. But, at her age, Willa is also hardened a bit, worn by the ups and downs of life, as is Bill, and the two characters catch up on the decades they’ve missed in each other’s eyes, as well as reexamine their previous relationship with each other, what worked about it and what didn’t.

In a fairly refreshing way, What Happens Later—a title that is both frustratingly vague and perfect for this story—ends without the typical burst of romance that ends most romantic comedies. It still ends on a charming note, with a bit of hope for these two and their connection to each other. I’d say it gives me hope for the movies, except that I was literally the single person watching it in the movie theater—because, these days, this is the type of movie audiences see no need to eventize in cinemas. Which is to say: this will be one to watch for when it hits a streamer near you.

It’s a good time just hanging out with these two.

Overall: B+