Anatomy of a Fall - Dead On Arrival

Rent on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Google Play, and YouTube 

    In the 2011 mystery drama The Lincoln Lawyer, one of the best moments is when the titular character comments that the most terrifying client is an innocent one because if you fail to do your job as a defense attorney, your client ends up in prison for a crime he/she didn’t commit, and that guilt will torment you forever. By a similar token, the most terrifying film to review is one that you wish was better or at least liked more than you did because the last thing you want to do is come across as arrogant or unable to enjoy films that make an effort to focus on the essential things like characters, story, and especially the performances. In an age when expensive special effects extravaganzas unfairly rule the cinemas, it’s unnecessarily harder for smaller productions to make an impact. 

    Yet, here we are with the acclaimed mystery drama Anatomy of a Fall. It is a film that should have me firing on all cylinders (usually) about how great the performances are and how admirable the focus on story & characters is. Still, the inexcusable two-and-a-half-hour runtime combined with an overtly static & uniform presentation leaves me bored, agitated, and disappointed. While the performances are indeed admirable, it’s sadly not enough to compensate for the film's shortcomings everywhere else. 

    Set in the snowy mountains of France, the story follows two artists and their blind son. He and his mother find their lives flipped overhead with the discovery that the father’s body had somehow fallen from the top floor of the house. Foul play is suspected but challenging to prove, primarily due to the father & mother's apparently rocky relationship and the son's inability to recall specific events well. As the trial proceeds, certain & seemingly irrelevant details begin to surface that may or may not determine the nature of this unfortunate incident while providing some possibly profound & precocious ponderings about life. Or at least it would if the film hadn’t been so incredibly sleep-inducing. 

    Despite featuring adequate performances, a clever enough mystery, and moments of sharp writing, the overall film is too long, static, uniform, and repetitive to profoundly impact anything other than the number of power naps needed to watch the whole thing. 

    The story can be told in about ninety minutes, but the film drags it out into a two-and-a-half-hour feature for no justifiable reason, padding its runtime with redundant scenes and seemingly drawn-out improvised moments. The cinematography lacks a compelling visual style with overtly broad uniform lighting, a severe lack of shot variety, and poorly motivated camera movement. Plus, while I usually favor ambiguous endings, murder mysteries are typically not the best place for them! 

    Anatomy of a Fall is a sad dud of a film. It is, unfortunately, dull, visually inept, and lacks any compelling or emotionally resonating reason to care. This is one mystery best left unsolved. 

    Don’t waste your time. 

Ladies & gentlemen, I am TheNorm; thank you all for reading.