A writer’s life is placed damningly under the microscope in this Hitchcockian thriller which, following another excellent Gallic courtroom drama, Alice Diop’s Saint Omer, makes much of the idiosyncrasies of France’s legal system. Helmed with an unflinching, interrogatory eye by filmmaker Justine Triet, Anatomy Of A Fall was the recipient of the prestigious Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The phenomenal Sandra Hüller (best known for Maren Ade’s unforgettable comic epic Toni Erdmann) plays German novelist Sandra Voyter, the woman at the centre of this story. Sandra lives an unhappily secluded existence in the French Alps with her morose teacher husband Samuel (Samuel Theis, who appears in photographs and flashbacks), and their blind, 11-year-old son Daniel (the excellent, fully sighted Milo Machado Graner). As an act of compromise, the trio have settled in Samuel’s hometown and, when the film opens, we witness Sandra complaining of her isolation to a student who has dropped by to conduct an interview about her work.

When an unseen Samuel begins childishly cranking his music up and playing it on repeat (the track in question is an instrumental version of 50 Cent’s ‘P.I.M.P.’, a choice which will come under comical scrutiny later), this interview falters and the student departs. We then see Daniel take the family dog for a walk, returning to find his father dead, face down in a blanket of snow, having mysteriously plummeted from a third-floor window.

Following an investigation, the enigmatic Sandra emerges as a suspect and most of the film takes place during her ensuing trial. She’s represented in court by an old friend, Vincent (Swann Arlaud), who clearly has romantic feelings for her, and there’s amusing work from Antoine Reinartz as an annoyingly self-righteous, thin-skinned and patronising prosecutor. 

An audio recording made without Sandra’s knowledge could be the prosecution’s trump card, while poor Daniel is torn this way and that, and starts to distrust his mother. Sandra has been granted bail, so Daniel is assigned a guardian (Jehnny Beth’s very matter of fact Marge) to protect his interests and shield him from his mother’s influence for the duration. Although he’s inconsistent in his initial recollection, his evidence will eventually prove crucial.

The title nods to Otto Preminger’s 1959 classic Anatomy Of A Murder, though the film boasts a distinctly modern sensibility, with Sandra’s career accomplishments and disinterest in domesticity a bone of contention with a dissatisfied Samuel. There are other interesting dimensions to the story: Sandra is forced to defend herself in her third language, French, limiting her ability to put across her side of things. And, despite his tender years, we see how Daniel ends up confronting the reality of his parents’ miserable marriage. When he chooses to remain in court during some very frank disclosures, he unintentionally becomes privy to some harsh home truths.

As it takes us meticulously through the legal process over 180 riveting minutes and combines this with uncertainty over Sandra’s guilt, Anatomy Of A Fall weaves a complex web and, though the conclusion is satisfying, to an extent it leaves us to make up our own minds. By poring over the titular fall, Triet (whose previous films include Age Of Panic and Sibyl) and her co-writer Arthur Harari draw a parallel between the fatal descent of Samuel’s body and what appears to be a terminal decline in the couple’s relationship. They zero in on the minutiae of domestic life, with the smallest details reframed as damning, including heated but hardly extraordinary feuds, while Sandra’s fiction is brought controversially into play too, as the prosecution take her words and twist them. 

In many senses, it’s a classic filmic depiction of the material, fuelled by the mystery at its core and reserving its biggest reveals for late in the game. However, Anatomy Of A Fall also thrives on its relatability and the chillingly mundane context in which Samuel plunges to his death. By lifting a veil on every aspect of the couple’s relationship and showering it in public shame, it’s both fascinating and appalling, and makes us wonder how any of us would survive under such scrutiny.

Anatomy Of A Fall is in cinemas from Friday 10 November.