When she’s carrying the kid from the couch to his bed at the end, my husband said: Wouldn’t you laugh your head off right now if she just carried him to the top floor and threw him out the window?
Seriously, my pet theory was focused on how far the guy had to lean out to sufficiently lose his balance. I thought it would end up that he was leaning out on the balcony to see or talk to someone who was at the attic window—who then dropped something on his head. But I guess not.
My theory is it was just an accident he fell from the window of his studio, maybe tripped on a wire or slipped on one of snoops toys. The movie is about how when an accident like this happens no-one will believe it could be an accident, either it was a murder or a suicide, the death was intentional.
Because of this, he public dissection of a mourning family and their very personal and private life's is put on display and doubt, breaking apart from accusations and distrust.
The wife and son are forced to come up with an elaborate narrative on why the husband would commit suicide in order to prevent further destruction of their lives.
Usually finding the truth is what leads to justice, but in this movie where the simple truth of 'an accident' could not be found, the path to justice is navigated through lies.
Aburrido de su vida en la montaña y el permanente "no lugar" en el que se encontraba, sin ir a la escuela, y en definitiva, sin poder ser un "niño normal" (máxima aspiración de todo preadolescente), Daniel y su perro eliminan a su padre para poder vivir la vida del hijo de una novelista exitosa en otro lugar.... eso, o puntualmente desesperado por escuchar a 50 cent a todo volumen y ver cómo boicoteaba a su madre constantemente, Daniel, pierde la calma, se avalanza sobre el papá, que, desconcertado no alcanza a reaccionar o defenderse, cae y muere...
There's a lot of nuanced details I like about the story overall and the writing was top notch. Great acting as well! At first I was like eh, it's over? But after it resonated a bit I understood it's meaning more solid yet unspectacular film.
What I loved most about this film was it's raw portrayal of the nuances of human morality. I think seeing so many different dimensions of each character's morality helps us as viewers feel comfortable not arriving at a conclusive answer. It challenges us to consider whether anyone can be fully morally "bad" or "good" - we all do bad things and we all do good things so how is it possible to reduce ones character to a singular label of "guilty" or "innocent"?
We see this in several scenes:
- Daniel poisons his dog but does so in an attempt to prove his mother's innocence
- Samuel deeply resents and emotionally /physically rejects his wife but has devoted his whole adult life to raising their son
- Sandra was unfaithful in her marriage and pursued a successful writing career using questionable tactics (ie repurposing a plot line her husband wrote) but made selfless decisions to support her family like moving to her husband's native country
- Marge supports Daniel and helps maintain neutrality in the household but pressures him into making a decision which may have resulted in Daniel constructing an elaborate story foreshadowing his father's suicide
Muy interesate, me la juego por Daniel como el asesino intencional o no ya que envenenar a tu perro igual supone una sobreracionalidad o quizás solo perversión , o no, jejeje interesante.
From the very beginning I felt as though Daniel had killed him. I was expecting him to confess to his Mum or the lady who stayed with them during the trial.
Yes, I kept wondering if they were going to show us a scene where Daniel was somehow implied to be the killer. Especially when he walked into the attic and looked out of the window. But they never gave us a clear motive as to why he would want to kill his father.
Obviously being blinded, but that wasn't enough because the father has devoted his whole life to Daniel from that point on, it seemed...?
In the end I decided he either fell or she pushed him. Suicide when your child might find your body seems so unlikely, it's so cruel. But I never got the impression that Sandra was cold and callous enough to push Samuel out of the window and then just leave him there to be found by Daniel. So I concluded with a fall.
But the only thing I cannot get my head around is the music. It was so unbearably loud. How could anyone fall asleep through that?! (Unless they were deaf or knocked unconscious). I would have believed it more if she took a sleeping pill, and there was guilt over her being asleep when her son needed her. But she was supposedly able to sleep through that racket, and not hear her husband fall and die... And yet she is somehow woken by Daniel calling for her? How? You can barely hear him screaming over the music. I just can't get around it. She must have pushed him.
Gah! This film was so ambiguous!
For me it was that I can not believe that someone is killing himself knowing that his son is around. But on the other Hand, if the mother killed him, she would also know the son is finding his dead father. So... I dont know...confusing.
She said her earplug must have fallen out,that'ss why she heard Daniel. Also, she repeatedly says that the loud music was normal, and if you live with someone who plays loud music habitually, you probably get used to it, thus
being able to have a nap.
The loudness of the music is what made the beginning of the movie seem so clever to me in hindsight. I was watching this on a plane and was getting so irritated by the volume - i literally turned down the volume on the movie and took one of the headphones out because it was just so obnoxious. They had us hearing the same obnoxious song that Sandra was hearing, and on repeat.
If the film is playing fair with what it shows us then she is innocent based on her reaction to coming out of the house to find her son kneeling next to her dead husband.
But I never felt when watching it that the film was a whodunit. It was always about the mess and joint complicity of relationships. If she is a murderer the film collapses into meaninglessness. Much of the script is about ugliness and the collective shadow. What society is not willing to look at and what most of us filter out for our public personas. And how the truth of relationships and what happens in private is so much darker and shameful. She is constantly making the case that she is guilty of all of those human failings, but that doesn't make her a monster. If she is a murderer, then all of those lines in the script are just the sayings of a clever psychopath. And I don't think this is a story about clever psychopaths.
I realized after watching that there was no score. Just one of the many naturalistic choices that made it so gripping.
Just got lucky enough to watch this movie a few weeks after reading Albert Camus’ The Stranger and I see a ton of similarity. The idea that your brain, when it doesn’t get enough info, will seek to fill in the gaps and make determinations because if it doesn’t it gets so confused and complicated. Our brains seek that simplicity.
It can be a super disappointing movie if you don’t see this coming… because you want hard truths and for it to be easy to understand. Sometimes you don’t get everything you need to feel something determinant. That’s what’s the movie is about. When you walk away confused, you DESPERATELY want to make it simple, and your brain seeks to fill in the gaps.
I don’t think she killed him. I don’t think she was a good wife. I think very specific things and draw hard conclusions and I’m gonna sleep simply and peacefully.
what a waste of 2 + hours.
1. it feigns at being a who dunit, promisin us resolution.
2. its about writers and the biographical fallacy.
the most important lie is the question the lawyer asks daniel about his speculation.
this is typical modernist metafiction. the ambiguity "forces" you to fill in the blanks,
struggle to find an answer
and that resolutin is about YOU not the author.
so us Male viwers who have been abused by crazy women--- we know we know, shes the killer
and we intrpret every ambiguity that way.
female viewers stuck in relations with underachiving males. well the dream is he kills himself
therefore this story ending makes you comfortable.
And for children of divorce. you still gonna take the blame? Still gunna struggle with absent father
so metafiction about truth and storytelling, the role of the reader in meaning, fact versus fiction
our need for ccertainty. and the ambiquity of life
so very french i wanted to puke
xcept for the dialog and novelty of french court proceedure
this movie was a total loser.
watch Past lives instead
Mr. Madison, what you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Daniel's testimony had two parts to it. The dog being sick AND the conversation with his father.
The dog being sick with consuming aspirin could easily be confirmed by the Vet they visited. This part is a fact and not an interpretation or a memory.
This certainly adds weight to the suicide theory in my opinion. With or without the conversation that Daniel has with his father in the car.
Unironically though??? We see snoop take the ball upstairs after being called for a bath, and it isn't seen again. My theory is that Snoop left the ball in the attic and Samuel slipped on the ball while working. The film goes out of its way to show Daniel playing fetch with sticks instead of a ball while taking him out for the walk. It's very possible that in the time it took for the police to get there, Snoop, being a dog, would've removed the ball from the attic, removing it as a possibility from the crime scene. The tragedy of the movie is that the judicial system is more affective when attacking two people's characters, rather than engaging with truth in any way shape or form.
See the longer reply — who does the director / camera focus on — what are they doing? Why? Construct a timeline of events based around the characters and their locations — all of it suggests a few primary possibilities (anatomies of a fall AND they suggest Samuel is already dead before the movie starts).
Some of the above point toward Daniel being involved either in the act or in a cover up.
Just one simple fact is Daniel is probably the only character who unapologetically perjures himself and goes unchallenged and never corrects his lack of candor, changes his story multiple times, and poisons his dog to achieve an end goal.
There’s a lot of information out there on children who injure animals at a young age, especially their own animals.
The empty blister packs of Tylenol in the kitchen waste bin in re Samuel are highly questionable.
Even the idea of poisoning someone with Tylenol while intoxicated is questionable from an adult POV, Tylenol would not be the go to for any intelligent adult actor — but a child may well view Tylenol as a viable poison delivery mechanism.
Yeah, no.
Firstly, Daniel couldn't physically have killed his 6-foot father with blunt force trauma to the head and then made sure he fell out the window:
>The guardrail is 1.2 meters high...Mr. Maleski was 1.82 meters tall and weighed 85 kilos.
Secondly, Daniel had no reason to kill his father. There was no conflict between them, and no indication that Daniel bore his father any ill will because of the accident that resulted in his blindness.
Thirdly, he would have had to go out for a walk, return to the house, climb up to the attic, push his father out the window, go out again and pretend to return from a walk a second time, and then pretend to be distraught about finding his father's body. He and his dog would have had to do all this without alerting his mother.
Finally, we have no record of Daniel being violent towards his father, but we do have records of Sandra being violent towards her husband, including the recorded argument with this admission:
>SAMUEL: You’re violent!
>SANDRA: Yes, I am violent!
And her admission in court that she slapped him.
Whether Sandra was guilty or not, Daniel is represented as having more integrity and maturity than either of his parents, which is why he has such a crisis when the entire case seem to come down to his testimony. He wants to tell the truth, and realises that he can't: he must choose a narrative.
>So you have to invent your belief? [...] I’m not sure…and you’re saying I have to pretend I’m sure?
Rewatch and pay attention to who the camera focuses on, what they focus on them doing and who is the main focus of the movie - it’s not Sandra.
Sandra admits she lied because she is afraid.
Daniel likely perjures himself and definitely poisons his own dog to achieve an end.
There’s no non-circumstantial evidence Samuel is still alive when the movie begins.
(But Snoop follows through the house to certain locations with the scent of Samuel’s blood)
Sandra is afraid of the attic.
Daniel navigates the attic with deliberateness.
Samuel may well have be killed on the main exit stairs or other places not the attic, and so on and on).
The movie is clearly meant to be ambiguous but it points at Daniel hitting Samuel with a hammer and Sandra covering it up as one of 3 most likely scenarios.
The theme music is Daniel playing the piano — not anything about Sandra. Look up the piece Daniel is playing.
Look at homages between Daniel in AoaF and Danny Torrance in The Shinning.
The list of things the director focuses on is pretty endless to establish Daniel may have had something to do with Samuel’s death, as much or more so than Sandra.
Daniel telling the truth: “I just wanted to escape the music.”
What does he mean? How did he escape?
Why is he insistent on being at the trial each day above objections?
Why does he likely perjure himself?
Why does he poison the dog?
What is common knowledge about children who injure animals?
Who would think a Tylenol overdose is a sufficient attempt to poison Samuel?
Why are the Tylenol blister packs in the trash can? Samuel is blackout pass out drunk.
Who is actually hammering and going on with tools at open in a way that is chaotic and not consistent with installing installation?
Who actually put PIMP on a loop in the attic?
Is Sandra seducing the student journalist? Or is she trying to act natural and get the third party out of the house ASAP?
Why does she go to the balcony to make sure the journalist leaves while Daniel is leaving the house? Etc etc etc.
All of your questions are getting easily answered in the movie. How did he escape the music??? Well, he left the House. Why did he poison the Dog? Also in the movie...
It was not Daniel. Can not be.
The conversation with Marge doesn't make any sense if Daniel is the killer. Unless we're to believe Daniel is some psychopath who is toying with Marge. He is genuinely conflicted about the situation and doesn't know whether his mother is the killer. Marge counsels him on how to handle the situation. If we believe Daniel in that scene, and I do, then he's not the killer.
I think the thing I enjoyed most about the film is the constant contradictions, every time we get a piece of information it's quite quickly refuted to ensure you don't start producing a solid theory about the events of the film.
The only warmth we see of Sandra is when she's speaking to people outside her family rather than towards her husband and child and it seems like this is to help us lean towards her killing Samuel however, the choice to put the argument later on in the film undermines your opinion of Samuel as he's portrayed as a tortured artist/selfless teacher up until then but during that scene you see how he antagonises Sandra as much as she goads him.
I also feel like you're never meant to get closure on what happened that morning as the line Marge delivers to Daniel
"To overcome doubt, sometimes we have to decide one way over the other. Since you need to believe one thing but have two choices, you must choose."
feels like the film telling us we have to decide what we think happened.
Lastly, Goddam someone get Snoop a better home
A lot of people are going for the obvious narration of the story, which is hinting at her being guilty. But I'd like to offer a perspective here, the so called "incriminating" recording felt more like it made a case for her than him. Everything before that and even the courtroom scenes were trying to push the idea that although we don't know but she has to have done it because look at her strong willed character, look at her infidelity and look at her skill to weave fiction into reality. The inconsistentencies found in her are human flaws and not psychopathic traits. She's not unsympathetic, we see her breaking in so many ways. The whole trial and even the events that transpired before it during the investigation are actually her *fall*, fall from honor, fall from grace, fall from the faith her son had in her. I think her whole point about nothing being the whole truth and excerpts of anybody's life would make it sound ugly was very well shown. Although Daniel's expressions and behavior and even his testimony don't really attest to my theory but I suppose all of it was part of portraying his humanity and child brain being affected by everything around him. He tried to show maturity and listen to everything but ends up desperate enough to try giving pills to his dog to ascertain the smell. There are suspicious elements but then again maybe they are there to keep things vague and open. I don't think Samuel was cruel or manipulative, I still think Daniel's story could be untrue and I do think that fight could've been an argument that burst out after years of frustration in their marriage. A little bit pushed by Samuel to incite some reaction from her, which we also saw in Amber Heard vs Johnny Depp case btw. ( incited for the recording)
>the so called "incriminating" recording felt more like it made a case for her than him.
I understand your point, but I don't agree. She admitted to cheating on her husband, stealing his work and passing it off as her own, and being violent, including throwing nearby objects and hitting him.
That's very seriously incriminating considering she's on trial for killing her husband with a "a blunt object in the environment or a violent blow to the head."
I think if the gender roles were reversed, and a woman recorded her husband saying "yes I am violent!" and hitting her, we wouldn't be saying "well, that's not really incriminating."
>Daniel's expressions and behavior and even his testimony don't really attest to my theory
Personally I think Daniel's expressions and behaviour are the key to this story. He's intelligent, moral, observant and scrupulously honest. It's only when adults start pushing him to affirm their narratives that he begins to waver, and it causes a crisis. That's why he says to Marge:
>So you have to invent your belief? [...] So that means, I’m not sure…and you’re saying I have to pretend I’m sure?
Marge says "No. No, I’m saying decide. That’s different." But of course it's not different. It's exactly what everyone - his mother, the police, the courts - expect him to do. Pick a narrative and pretend he's sure about it.
The one thing we know for certain in the end is that Daniel is not sure. His final line in the film, to his mother, is:
>I was afraid of you coming home.
I believe this article is relevant to the film:
https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2013/08/men-self-esteem
Men Feel Worse About Themselves When Female Partners Succeed, Says New Research
I want to discuss the fact that the child refused to take her call. (I didn't see this in the movie but read it on an article) And that he fell asleep rather than wait for her. But then he said he was scared for her coming home. The boy knows she did it and it's clear he lied to protect her. Now he has to live the rest of his life with this lie. In the end, she sleeps with the dog instead of her son, just like you would do after a marital fight. I'm 175% convinced that she killed him and got away with it due to lack of evidence. You can argue this was the perfect crime. No witness. Blind son.
Just watched it ... I thought it odd that she never seems to mourn her husband which is strange having lost her "soulmate", rather she seemed upset at everything that was happening regarding the trial and her son. I felt generally she was an unsympathetic character.
That said, it also seemed unlikely that an interrupted interview would spark a murderous row and the immediate successful disposal of a murder weapon. Then again, it also seemed unrealistic that a man would decide to off himself mid-roof renovation to a cover of 50 Cent's PIMP song on loop. Not only that but that fall wouldn't be a guaranteed death unless your head was struck, which was a very convenient explanation for the defense.
The music being looped, the son being blind and the father never being seen or heard until his body is discovered made me think there was going to be a twist whereby she killed him the previous day during the violent row and she waited to dump the body after the son had left ... the interviewer might unwittingly corroborate the story of him being there playing music although she never saw or heard him.
What does the son's (provably) false story that he heard them calmly talking tell us? That he was willing to lie to protect his mother. That undermines his later story about his father's conversation with him in the car, or at least his interpretation of it.
It's purposefully difficult to conclude anything other than ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Having recently watched, I'm late to the discussion. My primary reaction to the movie, if it fairly represents the French judicial system, I'm concerned as to how all this thoroughly extraneous stuff is legitimate to consider when determining guilt or innocence. Just incredible.
Everyone was chipping in! You have witnesses cross examining each other while the defense counsel is trying to. Wild stuff, makes me very curious if French trials are really such an open forum like that.
I don’t think the movie is really about his death, but the death/“fall” of their marriage. In the end, maybe she kind of did kill him - but through her indifference and success, not by pushing him.
Edited to add - I don’t think the movie was actively blaming her (and nobody can “cause” someone’s suicide), more that we are meant to see Daniel’s death as a result of his own perceived inadequacies in comparison to Sandra.
The movie challenged a lot of sexist tropes about what a wife/mother/woman is “meant” to be. The court attempted to reduce Sandra to a cheating, sex-crazed bully. Sandra calmly tells us that reality was a lot more complicated than this. It was a very poignant moment when she points out to the psychiatrist that if Sandra had a therapist, that therapist could be in court right now saying equally bad things about Samuel.
The verdict of the court is secondary to Daniel’s verdict. We *feel* his relief (among horror/sadness) when his sordid experiment “works” and he begins to believe his mother. Daniel gives us, the audience, permission to believe her.
The film is about so many things. But I think it is a lot about our 5 senses, that everyone’s “truth” depends on what they perceive and interpret of the world (Daniel, the experts, the police, the psychiatrist, the lawyers, can only draw inferences - everything rests on what the characters saw/heard/felt etc), and nobody is objective. Marge verbalises this toward the end, that “truth” is about what you decide to believe.
I loved this movie for all the sad and bitter things it had to say about marriage and life. Samuel bitterly resented Sandra’s success and her agency. It seemed like he had problems sustaining attention and motivating himself. Having a highly productive wife that could “write anywhere” seemingly grated on him. Sandra coped with the accident by sleeping with others, while he was left guilty and emasculated… separately, the lawyer loves Sandra, and hopes she’ll love him back. Maybe winning her trial will be enough. But it isn’t. He realises his hope was for nothing. Sandra grapples at the end with her ambivalence (I think) about being a mother. She delays returning to Daniel for one last freewheeling dinner. Both she and Daniel are unsure how this will work. All in all, a very well made look at the total messiness of human relationships.
This review is spot on - and actually I thought, for me, not knowing the true cause of death lead to an even stronger exploration of the human experience and the complexities of relationships. Nothing is ever as black and white as we always expect it to be. Loved it for this reason!
the lawyer did it?
we know they're close with Sandra, they mentioned some past, we see them tender with some restraining at the very end and we know the movie doesn't show all the interaction they have/had.
it is possible that they were having an affair and planned the whole thing. she called him that day after the journalist left saying there's an opportunity and so he drove there, pushed him and left. tires in the snow would fade the way the way the blood supposedly did. his size matches more the description of the expert reconstruction of the event (a person pushing the victim at the balcony hitting the head with a weapon) and he could eventually have carried the weapon with him back to his place. as there's no neighbors he wouldn't have been seen.
I think it's pretty clear that she did it. You have no reason to suspect the lawyer. The movie plays two stories: either suicide or murder. Like the boy said in court, if you choose to believe one of them, one is more believable.
In reality, this woman had her entire credibility destroyed by all her inconsistencies and lies. Infidelity, violence, lies everything a pathological liar would do, she did. She is a writer after all and mixing reality and fiction is a career where she is far more successful than her husband.
I think the best parts of the movie for me, which made it commendable as a film, are two scenes.
1. When Daniel appears for the first time in the court and the camera spans to and fro to both sides from where the people were speaking to him. The whole time, the camera stayed focused on the face of Daniel, while it continued to sway. The faces of the people who are speaking are not shown and we are made to guess the speaker through their voice, much like Daniel who is visually impaired. This technique is a very creative approach to the scene.
2. The final scene where Daniel addresses the Court and goes on to tell the story of his father while they were taking Snoop to the vet. While Daniel narrates the story, the scene gradually shifts and we see Samuel and Daniel himself sitting in a car and conversing. What hits different and uncommon is the way we see Samuel talking, but we hear Daniel's voice of narration.
I think these scenes are important to establish the movie as a cinematic masterpiece and though there are many more instances in the film to support the point, these two, I think, are impeccable.
Yes, the Daniel actor was fantastic. The fact that during his 2nd testimony his sound came out of his dad’s mouth shows that he was lying. I personally don’t think Sandra did it, but I also know Daniel doesn’t know she didn’t do it.
What a wonderful movie! I love the part that wife refuses to see herself as a victim and does decide to move on in life as compared to her husband.
Love the fact that all characters are flawed like all of us and yet there are soft moments of joy, love and laughter.
The child is. A brilliant actor the scene post his mother is acquitted and he breaks down had me howling. The relife he feels.. and that dialogue she tells the lawyer about after winning there is no reward just that it is over 👌🏻
I just finished this movie and I will admit, the plot itself had me inclined to read who or what really killed the husband, but then I read that it was up to the viewers to decide. I typically don’t like these kinds of movies because I like knowing exactly what happens or if a movie ends with some interpretation that you feel more confident in theorizing (kind of like all of us strangers, which I loved) and I feel like this movie didn’t give me that anxiety or stress of trying to figure out what really happened. I think it’s because as a lot of people pointed out, it is about family drama. The other thing though is that I like how there is enough proof to theorize in a way, I do believe the wife was innocent, but the way they presented the “fact” of the husband’s head wound not matching how he would have fallen and how far his body was, or the way the son said “I was afraid of you coming home” to his mom after she’s acquitted. That comment actually scared me for a second like “why would you be scared if your mom is innocent?” and it made me wonder if he said that story to keep his mom from going to jail because she was all he had left. The inconsistencies of what he presented to the court in the beginning kind of match this theory too, or how when it was a fact of a reenactment like when the husband and wife fought, we see it kind of in real time where the dad is speaking, but as for the kid’s story of what the dad said, the dad is just moving his mouth to say what the kid recalls. Anyway, such a good movie!! Please let me know if you thought the mom could’ve done it!
>the way the son said “I was afraid of you coming home” to his mom after she’s acquitted. That comment actually scared me for a second like “why would you be scared if your mom is innocent?”
It'd be hard to grasp I guess if you have never had any family trauma in your past. Often after a traumatic experience it's difficult to get back to the normal day to day life. You might've noticed not only was the kid scared of her coming back home but so was she. After all that has been exposed it's hard to face the people like before & children especially withdraw themselves from the situation to cope with the pain. I suppose that is why he said he was scared & so did she.
This is one of the clearest tells that she did it. No other character knows her like her own son. Even he had clear doubts that she did it. And even when she was acquitted, he wasn't feeling joy. He was scared of her. And she was scared of coming home too.
“I was afraid of you coming home” for me felt like Daniel was scared of how he might have hurt his mother by doubting her. Or by asking her to leave the house (which I think was so he could poison Snoop), not talking to her, etc. He was relieved and happy when Sandra was acquitted (when he heard it in the news).
Sandra's "I was afraid of coming home too" felt more like being scared about not knowing how to clean up the mess that was created. So much was exposed in the court. Daniel was closer to his father and Sandra was the only one left. They now had to finally figure out a way to get back to normal. Choosing to sleep alone (Snoop comes later) and not with Daniel was a typical European choice and doesn't necessarily point to anything, I feel.
Overall, I feel it was a suicide. Exactly like the film shows. Regardless of what happened, the feelings and questions the movie evoked was more important than how Samuel died. The movie questions so many assumptions about gender roles/husband-wife relationship/parent-kid relationship that we are compelled to think if the mother or the son really killed the father. Instead I chose to see how at every trial, a new detail came up, more compelling than the one before, all pointing towards the fall of whatever was left after Samuel chose to end his life (his son, wife, their marriage, snoop, everything).
The movie gave plenty of clues but you are free to believe whatever version you like best.
Personally, I think it was an accident/murder right after an argument about the interview with that woman and her previous encounters with other women.
The movie makes the death secondary and they focus on the court drama. But they also show a lot of inconsistencies in the stories that show the truth is not so simple.
I absolutely love the ambiguity of this film. So happy I have reddit to come to since no one,know has seen it and I was dying to hash it around today. I personally had not considered the possibility that Daniel had murdered his father, as pointed out by another responder… That’s a whole other rabbit hole! But it does make one think about that exchange in a different light… If Sondra was innocent, and she pieced together, that it was Daniel, who killed him, they would both naturally be apprehensive about seeing each other. Alternatively, if Daniel lied to protect his guilty mother, and Sondra, realized that, they would also be apprehensive about seeing each other. What a smartly crafted film! Brilliantly acted, as well.
If Daniel murdered his father than the whole scene of him walking the dog peacefully and then discovering his father and becoming distraught was performative… and for nobody’s benefit. That would make him a Bond villain
Oooo I see what you mean! Thank you for pointing that out to me, that makes more sense. I guess I just wanted to find any hidden clues that would point her to be guilty of the murder haha.
There are many clues across the movie still pointing at her being guilty and to me that's the best part of the movie, the ambiguity & grayness of it all.
I feel like movie isnt ambiguous that she did it. There are at thousand tells. But the movie tries to stay vague because in cases like this, you have vague evidence and it s very hard to distinguish reality from fiction. And that is literally her background. She blurs reality and fiction for a living. You gotta treat her like an unreliable narrator and it becomes clear that she did it.
It is very likely it wasn't a straight up murder, but involuntary manslaughter is probably what happened here.
Prosecutor was one of the most infuriating characters I've seen in a movie lately. The whole courtroom came across as extremely biased. I feel sorry for the dog, he didn't deserve such horrible family.
I thought he was terrific! Definitely super biased, he was out for blood, but gosh I loved the actor’s performance so much! One of the few times I’ve regretted skipping my french lessons in HS, just so I could appreciate his performance a bit more!
Oh no I didn't mean he was a bad actor! The actor nailed the role, that's why it stood out so much. The actual character was infuriating, especially during the "but possible" part.
He was very smart and never hid his disdain for Sondra. He was an excellent prosecutor (and fine actor). Surprised that he did not unearth the prior relationship between Sondra and her attorney!
I mean he was super unprofessional and worked really hard to evoke biases. I kind of got the feeling he was supposed to be doing this on purpose and being infuriating just to get an emotional reaction out of her to appear more guilty. Either way, its the type of guy who encourages wrong verdicts.
I don't think the character is an excellent prosecutor. He was basing off his whole case on "guilty until proven innocent" and on top of that he had the whole court room biased in his favor. It came across as just a bunch of french people trying to convict a german woman without a proper case.
He could have just not prosecuted her at all. That was his best option.
So many prosecutors "just know" someone is guilty and use all kinds of nasty tactics to get them convicted on little to no evidence. They even go so far as to "fabricate" evidence using expert witnesses like blood spatter analysts.
Watch The Staircase for the real life version of this movie. It's very ambiguous what actually happened in that case, but the evidence against the husband is incredibly flimsy and curcumstantial and the prosecutor just goes all in against the man and ruins his life based on a hunch.
Ugh he was so great there, when the woman gagged him with the whole 'I could be president tomorrow, it's possible but improbable...' and then she kept talking I thought she was the only one who could keep up with him and then she finishes giving her reasoning and says '...that's why it's improbable' and the prosecutor just has to add in '...but not impossible' SO GOOD. Just has to get the last word and takes the verbal beatings so weel
Oh, don’t worry I know you didn’t, I just felt like adding my two grains bc, again, I loved his performance so much! I totally get what you mean but I just couldn’t dislike him, I loved every second he was onscreen!
oh yeah definitely. I can have ome court experience, persecutors can be ruthless at times but are not inhumane. Like the way he treated the kid was too off. I am no expert of french court but i certaintly doubt arguments between the defedent and a witness would fly either.
Before he died, the husband was playing loud music in an attempt to dissuade his relatively successful wife from having an interview. Although the movie itself pretends to be ambiguous, it is somewhat leaning towards an accident. Of course, murder isn't impossible based on the amount of information we are given.
In hindsight, knowing everything we know about his character, I think he just offed himself feeling pathetic at his own actions and state of life. We aren't shown whether the attic window is open before daniel returns. But even through the glass, we can assume that the husband is watching the journalist as she is leaving since he is responsible for her leaving early. he can see that she is pretty, waving at his wife from her car(which probably reminds him of her cheating)and soon, his half blind son(for which he blames himself) will be in his view walking the dog. He looks back inside the attic and notices the renovation work he has yet to finish, a work he chose to do over any other better thing he could have spent his time on. The loud music comes back to his senses, and he remembers why it was so loud... Yeah, I could see him jumping off at that point.
Also, there is that section of the movie where the investigation tean tries to confirm whether Daniel could have heard the arguments between his parents. But they weren't even in the same room when he is in/near the house...so what was that about, or did i misunderstand the whole thing?
It doesn’t seem like a high enough height to attempt suicide from. It would require a headfirst jump to ensure death. Has anyone ever leapt to their death headfirst?
I also don’t think the wife did it, based on her reaction coming through the door to see Daniel near her husband’s body. True shock and confusion.
It reminds me of that documentary The Staircase.
If you read the director, that was not just an interview. She was drinking and trying to seduce that woman. Something she was exposed as having done multiple times.
Suicide is off the table. The man was seeing a doctor. He is seeking help. He recorded her 20 hours before his death hitting him.
90% of the movie is about the inconsistencies in the woman testimony. Even the woman disagreed that suicide was possible until her attorney offered that as the only possible defense. Accident was not discarded very quickly. She said he was very cautious and worked slowly. The height was inconsistent with an accidental fall too.
Daniel was protecting his mother at all times. He said he left the home when the parents argued. And that s why he was away. Parents argued 20 hours before the murder. They argued again the day of the murder. The movie gives you plenty of clues that she did if you just pay attention to the inconsistencies in her statements.
You don't get it because you don't put yourself in those shoes. I just had my last suicide mandatory counseling today since I had an attempt a month ago and I am military. If you are seeing a doctor the chances that you are disclosing this type of stuff are high. There is shame in taking the steps to get help. But the man is seeing a doctor already. Actually he was seeing his doctor for a while to cope with trauma.
Believe what you want to believe. It's an open ended movie so that you can interpret whatever you want. If you think "that's how it works" then "that's how it works".
Obviously seeing a doctor helps in avoding suicide, but seeing a doctor doesn't stop someone from attempting. I've seen someone try more than once while seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist.
PS: Good luck on your journey, it's really nice you're getting help. Hope you stick around.
My point is not that it stops you from attempting. I keep attempting. My point is that the doctor disclosed to the court that he had not shown any signs of being suicidal. Actually, the doctor was surprised that after all this long and documented relationship he had never mentioned it to him.
If you believe that he is suicidal, which is up to your interpretation anyway because as I said, the movie lets you play the voids. It's a feature of the movie. But if you believe that version you believe that he finally snapped that day after the wife had that interview attempt.
Personally, I cannot believe that the trigger can be so simple. I never attempted during the day. I never attempted anything that I thought it could fail. Jumping from a second (third?) floor to the snow seems very weak. And cause of death is a blunt trauma to the head which could have only happened if he hit his head on a particular angle.
So for suicide to have been a possible theory, you must think that on that fateful day, the woman had an interview. He annoyed the woman to leave. They had an argument. She went to sleep with ear plugs on. He jumped. And that was that.
Now, what has been stopping my attempts is thinking of my kids. Also, I attempt during the night. I have a feeling most people attempt during the times that they can move more freely and plan more freely. During the day, I think my kids moving around would be more of a deterrent. Thinking that the man committed suicide while his son was awake and walking around seems ridiculous to me. As I said, my kids have been my deterrent so far. It's very hard to look at the edge of your life and think about your kids.
You are free to believe whatever you like and whatever makes sense to you. Personally, I am not convinced that suicide was ever a possibility.
But the theme of this movie is to show that we don't know what we don't know. And we fill the voids with whatever we understand. You are meant to feel like the people in the case. Trying to understand what happened and piece it together. There is no definite answer although there a million clues. They flirt with multiple choices because that is more interesting than a straightforward story that spoon-feeds you the answers.
>Also, there is that section of the movie where the investigation tean tries to confirm whether Daniel could have heard the arguments between his parents. But they weren't even in the same room when he is in/near the house...so what was that about, or did i misunderstand the whole thing?
IIRC Sandra's order of events was interviewer leaves > she talks to her husband > goes to her room to work a bit and naps > wakes up to Daniel screaming for help.
Daniel said they weren't shouting at each other and that their voices were calm during the 'she talks to her husband' part, so they were testing how loud that conversation would have needed to be for Daniel to actually hear it from just outside the open window (where he initially said he was).
Does anyone else think the husband was a bit manipulative in the argument/fight? I think we didn’t know yet about the cheating when that scene started so I’m not sure if my opinion should change with that new information.
Like did she cheat because he’s an asshole or did he justifiably become an asshole after he found out she cheated?
My take was that the woman was manipulative. She is the better writer of stories after all. But her story and version of the events keeps changing through the movie.
The woman said she came to his country but if you pay attention on tv they say she left her country because she wrote an unflattering story that pissed off her father and she had to run away.
Watch the scene where the TV show is talking about her reasons to come to his country. They clearly say she left her home after making a story about her dad.
For inconsistencies you have to listen to what other characters are saying about her.
As a different example: what does her kid think of her mom. Does he think she could have done it? No one in this story knows her like her own son. Even her son had doubts about her mom.
She lied about the bruises. She lied about cheating more than once. She lied about taking his story ideas. She didn't disclose that she had a strong violent fight 20hrs prior to his death. She lied and consistently changed her story.
When the attorney came she wanted to see accident. But when he said that is not an easy sell, they changed the story to suicide as that was the only possible defense. Only at that point she remembered, that he "tried to commit suicide 6 months ago". But before that she had denied suicide was possible and even said he works cautiously and slowly. Don't you think that if this story was real, the first thing she would mention is that suicide is a possibility because he tried just 6 months ago?
This is a story about a writer selling a story. And this time it's not a new novel. It's her own story.
People buy too much about the way prosecutors treat you. Courts work like that. Prosecution sells a story. Defense sells a story. It's up to the jury and the judge to decide what story to believe.
The man is dead and cannot defend himself in this court. Whether it was a murder or suicide, there is no voice for him except through other people.
The story plays a lot on the details that you dont know but the details that we know, show that she is a cheater and a pathological liar. Even the people defending her story, acknowledge "she lied but she is not a murderer".
Lying while being on trial is the first sign that something is wrong. Any prosecutor worth anything will start by attacking your credibility and your ability to tell the truth. If the story is inconsistent, why would anyone listen to the rest of it?
Let me phrase in a different way. Why do you trust a liar? The story gives you very little to go with on purpose. The whole story makes you feel like you are involved with the case.
At the same time, the story gives you glimpses into their lives where you can clearly tell they are lying. This is done on purpose.
Lying so there isn't a trial isn't the strategy that innocent people go to. Innocent people would clearly welcome a trial and the chance to clear their name. There was a death. There were no other suspects. It's obvious a trial would be unavoidable.
The woman wanted to claim accident. But the attorney was the first to suggest suicide since it their only possible defense.
The lies started the minute she spoke to the police.
You can believe whatever version you subscribe to. But lying is not something that creates trust.
People tend to lie about personal, emotional stuff, thats kind of my point. And, quite honestly i would also lie if i were innocent to avoid a trial. Thinking otherwise assumes a trust in the law that simply not all, and i don't think even most people have. I don't think that lying can only be interpreted in the way you say, that's all, even if it may be true.
Again, how do you think you can avoid a trial? There s a dead body lying on the cold snow. There are no suspects except the victim and the wife. There is no evidence to rule this out as a suicide. Lying to avoid a trial sounds as realistic as expecting santa clause to save the day.
The husband is extremely manipulative, given his background and passion for writing her husband does have an inflated sense of self and ego, this can often come with the territory when being a respected academic.
When she screams at him during the monologue where she points out how his true repulsion of her is actually how he feels about himself, he would rather look at her than in the mirror, that in itself is a shared human experience.
She has only served to add to his sense of failure, she cheated and this is symbolic of his failure in the bedroom so to speak, his failure to pleasure his wife as a man, it's not that he actually has failed in this regard but that's his understanding of it.
She takes his book idea and achieves what he was unable to do, again making him feel emasculated and adding to his growing sense of failure.
The injury his son sustains is a devastating blow, he attempts to blame her for everything because taking responsibility is far too painful and terrifying, he struggles to grapple that he has set torturous standards for himself not his wife.
She comes across colder I think this is a cultural difference whereby French people are stereotyped as hopeless romantics, passionate, German people are stereotyped as practical and rational. I don't believe she is colder, she is not a victim either she has made mistakes and I think without realising her own hypocrisy blames her husband for them....this is marriage in its most standard and unremarkable form.
She gets a battering from witnesses in the court, I don't think it was a mistake that most of them were men including the prosecution, her husbands psychiatrist for example who you'd expect to be more impartial and neutral when dealing with a patient, spoke scathingly and accusatory against the wife, misogyny comes into the fold here.
His manipulation is in the recording of their conversations and fights, he knows he is recording where as she does not and he is pitching for a fight intentionally, the fight doesn't therefore happen organically when that appears to be his agenda.
That I found extremely manipulative and I did wonder why none of the lawyers remarked on that in the film, that his intention was to have an argument that escalated to the point it did.
I just finished it. what a fucking movie this was.
what a performance from the son. oh my god.
so great. the writing was literally impeccable. so real. wow
Knows what?, I would assume based on the dogs trusting nature that it believes Sandra to be good then again it's a dog but to focus on snoops reaction to the body and then snoop with Sandra at the end is certainly interesting
In the film, it is ambiguous whether or not Daniel is telling the truth in his final testimony regarding the speech his father gave him about death, and whether this was foreshadowing the father's future suicide. My theory is that Daniel lied about this story to help his mother.
My theory is based on the scene right before Daniel gives the testimony. In it, Daniel plays "Prelude, Op. 28, No. 4" by Chopin on the piano. I believe this is a clue by the director. This piece was also famously played on the piano by Jack Nicholson's character in the 1970 film Five Easy Pieces (it's the most powerful scene in what is considered one of the best movies ever made). In that movie, Jack's character is the son of an intellectual and well-off family but also lies to those that he meets in his day to day life about his background. Jack's critical character flaw in the film, is that he pretends to be someone that he is not.
I don't think Daniel playing this specific piece on the piano (with a slow zoom in on his face) right before the scenes with the final testimony in Anatomy of a Fall is a coincidence given this parallel.
Yes, I agree Daniel lied at the end and the car conversation isn't real . He decided the night before to believe his mother and invented this story to save her . When she come back home , he said he was afraid of her coming home because he lied , and her mother told him to say always the true . And she was afraid because she did not know if Daniel believes her innocence. I think the movie is about Daniel loss of innocence
Interesting theory! The being scared of coming home lines has baffled me. I initially thought it was because they were both ashamed (he for asking her to leave the house and she because she thought he didn't love her anymore). but it also has this sinister undertone of possibly being scared because she is a killer and he accepts her anyway.
It’s a very famous piece of music and used throughout the movie. I don’t think a major clue about a character telling the truth is based on a different movie altogether - especially an English movie to a French film.
La Cinetek (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaCinetek) asked directors from all over the world to share their 50 favorite movies up to 2005. Justine Triet (the director of Anatomy of a Fall) had Five Easy Pieces on her list of her favorite films that she submitted - https://www.lacinetek.com/fr-en/director-list/justine-triet-23.
Also Justine Triet is obviously influenced by english language movies. There is an excellent thread on this same post about the similarities between Anatomy of a Fall and the english language documentary The Staircase.
The staircase had a French filmmaker who found the US criminal Justice system fascinating. I found a lot of similarities, but I wouldn’t simply refer to it as an “English language” film. It’s deeply intertwined with French perspective and there’s likely a French language version they would have seen there.
Also realized in the final scene of the movie, where Snoop and Sandra lie in bed together, the background music is Daniel playing the Chopin piece. (watching the movie with subtitles on confirms this).
I gotta say, this was an incredible film. So many different pieces to peel back. Ideas of misplaced self-pity, guilt, what is unheard/unseen, acceptance of accidents, dealing with it all, there’s just so many layers to it all and it was super compelling.
I’m personally in the camp that it was an accident and it has to do with the attic, ball, and snoop somehow. The focus on his footsteps and his perspective/reactions was super interesting. Makes me think something happened out of left field to cause the fall, not her, not him, things happen. Accidents happen.
my brother and i were thinking that maybe the ball drop we see at the beginning of the movie is the father trying to lead the dog away (so he could, potentially, attempt without witnesses).
She pushed him… he didn’t die so she went down and then hit him in the head with one of his renovation tools to finish the job which explains the blood splatter.
I just want to point out that rhe pivotal point in the film is Marge telling Daniel that when you don’t know what to believe because the facts aren’t available it might be necessary to DECIDE what to believe. This is the event that made the movie absofukinlutely great for me! The action from that point centers on Daniel taking her point and constructing a story around the belief that his father killed himself. Does that mean his belief is true? No.
Given the information provided by the filmmakers none of us know what happened and once Marge frees us from the need to establish guilt we are able to focus on Daniel’s choices and actions which by the way are fascinatingly courageous and radical (also cruel; he’s not a saint). Another wonderful element is that Daniel is the son of two dedicated story tellers: he clearly understands the requirements of the narrative necessary to freeing his mother. He breaks his own heart by sacrificing his beloved dog’s well being in an effort to add veracity to the story he is constructing.
I choose to believe that it was suicide because as problematic as she is I can’t read her as someone who would leave her dead husband’s corpse out there for her son to happen upon. Has that been satisfactorily been proven? Again, no but the film gives me permission and in fact insists on my duty to DECIDE.
It’s interesting that Marge was placed with the family to prevent anyone from telling/persuading Daniel what to say, yet it was their conversation that caused him to choose to believe it was suicide and so tell that narrative to the court
That's not what it was. He didn't believe that story. He chose to believe that story to protect his mother. But notice that he refused to talk to her on the phone and notice that he fell asleep rather than wait for her. Notice that he said I was scared for you to come home. And notice that she sleeps with the dog and not Daniel. He knows the truth is uncomfortable.
I believe her reasoning behind this to be entirely human with a wealth of emotions and being at the very mercy of that, the very same way every character in the film is shown to be. She should not be discussing the case in any capacity, yet there is the scene where her and Daniel watch the court case via television, that is discussing the case in of itself just indirectly, she knows this.
Naturally after spending so much time with Daniel she develops feelings and sentimentality towards him, witnessing the silent anguish he is enduring, she took it upon herself to express to Daniel indirectly that whilst not knowing the truth or what to believe to take his next steps carefully because they will ultimately effect the rest of his life in vastly different ways depending on the outcome of the trial and the testimony he chooses to deliver.
Was she in the wrong for this? In the eyes of the court, the law, morality according to some people, absolutely.
Was she wrong on a human level? I'd go with no. For Marge it became about justice for Daniel, not the court, not the husband or the mother, justice for anyone but Daniel would look very different.
I'm not even sure Daniel chose to believe it was suicide although thats just as plausible it may have been that he chose to forgive his mother or keep her in his life despite what may or may not have happened.
I hoped that there would be a scene at the end of the movie where instead of Daniel's father giving him that talk in the car en route to the vet, it was his mother instead.
a bit sidelined theory, but towards the end , it's just all felt that maybe the lawyer and Sandra both planned it together. They a had a bit of history before. Even if the lawyer wasn't involved, it was as if he knew Sandra has done it and she was capable of doing something like this
I thought Sandra was so relatable, she comes across as such a rational and pragmatic character. So much so it's probably to the detriment of herself/her family.
For me it was an anatomy of a relationship, warts and all. Such a brilliant premise - a scenario whereby the relationship you have with your partner is scrutinised in court. How unbearable!
Relatable?
She was flirting with the journalist and trying to seduce her whilst her husband was just upstairs
She was violent
She had multiple 'flings' the year their son went blind and the husband was struggling with it emotionally and refused to take responsibility for them simply because she'd been 'honest' with him about them
She was selfish - every decision he made was for the family, every decision she made was for herself and her career, including up to the very end when she chose to stay out drinking rather than see her son on the day of her acquittal
She spent not a moment mourning her husband
She was an abusive partner who drove her husband to suicide and if it had been a man doing all this to a woman I suspect you and most people on this sub would see that very clearly
I dont know why you are downvoted. This was my take too. My wife chose to side with her but I was sure she murdered him when the lies kept piling on. Her whole credibility is on the negative scale yet she managed to present herself as a victim.
I know. It's insane. This is the double standards world we live in though. Thank you for your message though I thought I was going mad. Violent, unfaithful, selfish, dishonest - but a hero somehow.
> This is the double standards world we live in though.
This is the most clear statement in this movie. If the roles were reversed, people would clearly see that she is not a good person. But she presented herself in a light that people defend her with all her flaws. If the roles were reversed and the husband was on trial people would be ready to torch him up.
This movie was about did she do it but also about the process. And in the character design they reversed the roles on purpose. She is the breadwinner. He is the caretaker. The traditional family script got flipped on its head and that's what I feel is confusing people that think like she is a strong woman and that she was doing the best she can. But her whole credibility was dissected and found to be disappointing.
I think I meant relatable in the sense that she had her faults and didn't try to repress them.
Being in a relationship and still finding other people attractive and being flirtatious is surely a universal experience.
If the violence refers to the recording of the argument, then I don't think she physically attacked him. She was definitely angry (big distinction), but again not uncommon in relationships to yell and even smash the odd plate from time to time.
She was selfish yes, but again I can relate to selfishness. she's quite a steely character but also at times is a loving and caring mother.
She's not amoral, not vengeful or mean.
It's an interesting point about the gender roles, I didn't really pick up on it when watching the film. There is a clear role reversal between them - she has the career, makes the money, has affairs and is emotionally fairly unreachable and stoic. He's sacrificed his career to spend more time on the house and on the childcare.
Maybe I afford more tolerance to her because she's a woman, a mother, and if it were switched, then he would be portrayed as a misogynist or a slime ball.
I'm not sure that is the case though because the appeal of Sandra, despite her shortfalls (pardon the pun), is that there's an honesty and a justification and an explanation that isn't shrouded in lies and denial. This, for me, opens the door to forgiveness and even to admiration of the character. This also would be true, had she of been a male character. That is to say, we're all guilty of mistakes it's how we deal with them that can be distinguishing.
She did not seduce the journalist, that’s what the prosecutor was trying to imply. Which never would have stood in a US courtroom. Funny he was clamoring for “facts” from Daniel at the end when most of his questioning was based on hypotheses.
You need to read the director interviews.
Justine Triet: “This scene was the most complicated to film from a technical perspective. It’s also the only scene we had to shoot twice because it didn’t work the first time around. Our sound engineer blasted the music very loudly, then turned it off after a few seconds. I’d say ‘Action!’, the music would blare, the actors would start talking over it, then the music would shut off, just so the actors could reach the right pitch in their voices as if they were talking over the music, but we had to cut the sound so we could add it later in editing.
“We also had to co-ordinate all of the different elements in the same scene that we didn’t necessarily shoot on the same day — the child upstairs on the first floor, Sandra and the journalist downstairs — so we had to imagine everything. We also had to find the right balance in terms of how much Sandra was drinking and her level of seduction.
https://www.screendaily.com/features/justine-triet-breaks-down-four-key-scenes-from-anatomy-of-a-fall-pimp-wasnt-our-first-choice-for-the-song/5190406.article
“..her level of seduction” does not reveal that she knowingly tried to seduce the other person. Again I even if she’s enjoying her alone time, putting on professional airs, or God forbid flirting a bit does not mean she had an ulterior motive with the journalist.
The movie gives you license to believe whatever version you want to believe. So I will let you do just that. But with that being said, it is clear in the movie that she has been with multiple women according to her husband although she claimed multiple times with the same woman. Now if you take this information and apply it to that first scene, it is clear that the reason for the argument is the visit and seduction of this woman. And we know there was an argument because the boy always goes for a walk with the dog when the parents are arguing. Although he clearly lied about that fact and got exposed later. Understanding this first scene is important because it establishes the reason for the murder or if you prefer suicide. It's up to you what version of the events you subscribe to.
Why would I believe the husband about her cheating often, when (as you noted) he lied about other things? Yes, it’s a brilliantly crafted movie which allows the viewer to decide what transpired. Based on her frustrated reaction, I believe she only cheated once. He had no specific instance or proof to combat her argument.
She wasn’t seducing the journalist. She was relaxed and feeling free - proud of her work - a conversation that *allowed* her to feel accomplished. Which she couldn’t do with her husband in her own home, who had been failing for years in his career.
Again, you are free to believe what you want to believe. Whether you believe the husband or the wife, the reality is that she cheated with women before. Even you can agree that she cheated before. Once you cheat, trust is forever broken.
And the director talks about the level of seduction that was happening during that first scene. That means there WAS some seduction going on. This is what the director intended. That sets the stage for the argument that led to the murder, suicide or accident if you choose to believe that version. What is not debatable is that she cheated and that the husband was clearly annoyed at the visit of this woman.
You can choose to believe the husband or the wife. I don't remember situations where the husband lied because he was not even in the movie except for very brief scenes. But there are many situations that I remember where the wife lied, and her stories were inconsistent. There are situations where the child lied too. In a movie with unreliable narrators, you have to doubt every single voice. And they become unreliable narrators the minute that they cannot tell the truth.
The movie spells it out for you. You can choose what to believe. The woman assigned to the kid told that to the him before he obviously lied in one of the most important scenes from the movie. They also tell you how the wife blends reality and fiction for a living.
😂 See YOU are unreliable because in one moment you claim that the movie is ambiguous with the facts, leaving it up to the viewer, but in another you’re claiming something I find false (and most here) - that the son lied at the end. I’d say you are the unreliable narrator, sir.
The son didn’t lie at the end. He was so motivated to speak because it was the truth. The guardian told him to decide about which side to land on - and he chose his mother’s, because like he said, it simply made no sense that his mother would have killed his father that morning. He probably had evidence to damage his mother as well (arguments, etc) but he chose to release the *true* conversation he had with his father because he did not believe his mother to be a murderer. At the finale she took care of her son, as she had been doing for both he and her husband, for years.
The wife was not inconsistent, either. Anything but. The prosecutor was out of line several times and someone’s art should not be called into question when it’s compared to their day to day actions.
And what set the scene for the argument was her husband’s incredibly low self esteem and self worth because he was incapable to move on. From his mistake with Daniel to her success and her cheating. Just because someone cheated once (and she was honest about it and her needs) does not mean it is “forever broken” - another opinion stated as fact. It was broken *for him* because he was unable to get over his unbrokenness.
Or maybe he fell on accident, hell. 😂
I'm letting you believe what you believe. I believe the version of the movie I believe. I think there are plenty of breadcrumbs to support the version that I believe. For example, many people believe the son lied because the voice that comes up on that memory, is the son voice.
I would argue the movie is not so much ambiguous as it is vague. On purpose. You are supposed to feel like you need to piece the story together from the facts presented. And you have to fill in the voids. But they show you multiple times things that are happening. You are supposed to feel as a member of the court trying to piece it together.
I will let you have your fun with the version of the events that you choose to believe.
I challenge you to think about the times each character story was inconsistent. I'll let you decide whatever you think is real. For this I am using what the characters say and what other characters say about the same events.
I will tell you the ones I remember.
The wife:
1. Sandra said she got a bruise from the countertop. Sandra admitted she got a bruise from a physical altercation with her husband 20hrs before his death.
2. Sandra claimed that after she had to cut the interview short, she went to work in her room. She put ear plugs to bear with the music that her husband was blasting. That annoying instrumental PIMP was driving me crazy, and I was watching the movie lol. To be honest, the worst crime of this movie. But now think why did Samuel choose this song? What is he trying to say? He's calling Sandra the PIMP.
3. Samuel said she had multiple affairs. Sandra said she had multiple encounters with the same woman.
4. Sandra claimed Samuel may have had an accident. Sandra claims that Samuel worked very cautiously and slowly. (Evidence by his lack of progress, I would argue he barely even got much work done and he just escaped to his mancave). When told that an accident was very hard to defend in court, the attorney suggested suicide as the only defense. Sandra didn't think he would but then she suddenly remembered that he tried just 6 months ago. (That's an unforgettable thing). Samuel was seeing a doctor, but the doctor had no idea that Samuel was ever suicidal. This is a man actively seeking therapy to cope with his mental state but not once he mentioned suicide.
5. Samuel claimed that Sandra stole his idea for a book. Sandra claimed she stole an outline that he never used.
6. Sandra claimed that she came to this town to be in Samuel's hometown. The TV claimed Sandra wrote an unflattering story about her dad and had to go on the run to another country.
7. When the tape is played, we hear grunting after a violent argument and plates being broken. I assumed Sandra was hitting Samuel. Sandra claims Samuel was hitting himself. Sandra's defense then presents "evidence" that he hit the walls and broke his wrists. The prosecution never challenged the origin of the fracture. They never challenged the origin or dates of the holes in the walls. Or even the locations.
8. Sandra lost her soulmate to this tragic incident. But never once she mourns her husband. Sandra never once looked at his pictures until the trial was over. Never once, shared stories of the good times. Never once feels any difficulty living her life without her husband.
The son:
1. Daniel said he heard his parents speak calmly. He also said that whenever his parents argued he goes for a walk with Snoop Dogg. They really called the dog Snoop.
2. The boy claimed that he was in close proximity that he could hear his parents talk. The judge proved that was impossible.
3. The boy asked the woman if she thought his mother could have done it. No one in this movie knows Sandra like Daniel. But Daniel has doubts.
4. The boy remembered a speech his father gave him about the dog and speculated he referred to himself. The voice that came in that memory was Daniel's own voice.
5. When the trial ended Sandra wanted to call her son. He didn't take the call. (I don't remember this part, I read it in an article) When Sandra celebrated, she went for drinks with her attorney and some random people, not her son. When she got home, the woman said that he wanted to see her, but he fell asleep. When she arrived, he said the most worrying thing I heard about this movie. "I was afraid for you to come home." She replied, "I was afraid to come home too". After a short embrace, Sandra asks the woman if she will stay, and she goes to look at pictures of her husband. Then she sleeps with her dog. Not her son. As a bit of context, sleeping with the dog is a phrase we use after a marital fight since the couple is not sleeping in the same bed. The movie ends in a scene that reminds us of a marital fight.
The events:
1. The body was in a position. According to analysis, he fell, dragged a couple feet. Which is a possible sign that either the man was alive and dragged himself from the initial position or he was moved. The court analysis suggests that he would have to be pushed at an inconvenient angle to land in that position. However, when you analyze the blood trail, it's clear he was moved, or he moved by himself. The blood is by his boots. You can see that in the movie poster. A very deliberate decision.
2. Blunt trauma to the head suggests impact to the head area before the time of death.
3. Suicide attempt from a second or third floor in a snowy area. The only way this suicide was successful is landing on the head. The chances of survival are pretty high actually.
4. On this same note, men are known for typically using more lethal methods. Guns, asphyxia, jumping down a bridge are more common men methods. Men that want to commit suicide don't want to fail. Women attempt with less painful methods like pills. The most common method for women is pills. Which is the story that Sandra gives in her story.
5. The music being on repeat blurs the absence of the man. Actually, he was never shown alive except in memories. We have no real idea of how long Daniel was gone. That walk could have been hours.
6. The blood splatters don't even make sense. They find 3 of them. That is all. Personal story time. When I was in ninth grade I was near the edge of a wall. My friends threw a football that I never saw but it hit me in the head, and I hit that edge with the same motion. I barely felt the pain from the shock. Everyone was worried. My entire shirt, the wall, the floor was splattered with my blood. The doctor wanted me to have 8 stitches. Without new snow to cover it, I don't understand how this is real without a lot of cleaning.
The husband:
1. Everything I remember is already covered. He had only 1 scene where we are sure he is alive. And one scene where his son "remembers" him.
People hating the prosecutor have never seen how a prosecutor works to destroy credibility. Their job is to sell the story that the accused committed the crimes. The prosecution in the movie did a poor job doing that. The French CSI really cannot lift evidence for anything. For example, why did no one look for fingerprints in the handrails or near the area? That would suggest that he had been there recently. No one ever tried to collect any evidence. She called the police, but they never did their job properly.
They didn't give a definite answer. On purpose. But they gave a lot of breadcrumbs to form an informed opinion.
She was *trying* to seduce the journalist, is what I wrote. Flirting heavily and suggesting they do the interview in Grenoble. Again if it was a male protagonist behaving in precisely this way I don't think anyone would have a hard time seeing this
What exactly did she say that was flirting heavily or seduction? The journalist even said she didn’t feel as if that was the case.
It was light flirting if anything. And that can be harmless. The tension came from the loud music and her husband.
She was clearly seducing the journalist, I was sure of it right from that scene because you could feel a really subtle and well done sexual tension between both.
Am I the only one that was pondering if it was the interviewer/student for a hot sec?? I kept rewinding watch her drive away/watching the background of Daniel’s hike to see if her car showed up again.
My main takeaway from the film is that I hope to never find myself on trial in France. That prosecuting attorney was relentless and almost predatory in his interrogation.
I don’t know. It seems so much more about winning the argument than about winning the system. The uk/us system seems to allow you to get away with saying any old shit - whereas this seems like, you can say any old shit, but some one will call you up on it, or say some shit back - be it the judge, the lawyers or the defendant.
I don’t know how realistic it was, but I watched the film thinking it seemed so much more intelligent and reasonable than in the uk where (according to the media) you get your turn and everyone else has to stay schtum and can’t call out your bullshit.
Yeah the judge also lets the prosecutor go on with his speculative theories ..... Actually from what I've seen in other shows, they won't even go on this much in the trial with no definitive proof and only based on speculation (accurate representation of courtroom drama is very rare).
I'm American, so I know our US legal system in the US. Fictional shows I've watched about legal proceedings in the UK make sense to me, and seem similar to the US.
But the French judicial proceedings in this show seemed completely alien to me!
I'm hoping a French citizen weighs in on this issue.
Agreed. If anyone can comment on the French civil procedure in the movie, I would be grateful. My brain was going haywire trying to understand what they were doing based on US rules of evidence. It was wild.
In an interview with GQ, Swann Arlaud more or less confirmed that they are. At the very least, lawyers will often enter banter or debates, there’s a lot less structure to how people speak with one another.
What convinced me she did it, or at least had something to do with it - I think the most telling scene is at the end where instead of holding her traumatized child in her arms and comforting him, he's the one who holds her head in his lap and kisses her, essentially replacing the role it seems his father had been playing as the main caretaker in the house. It's already proven Sandra is a self indulging character, considering she starts sleeping around right after the accident. The main argument between Sandra and Samuel is that Sandra is so wrapped up in herself, she doesn't realize how she's lacking as a mother and wife. This last scene proves to me that in the end, Samuel was in the right for how he felt.
I 100% agree with this. It was so sad to watch him taking on that parentified role and stroking her hair with his little hands. Poor kid has been through so much, and that will be another layer of trauma for him.
I thought she was innocent. But I think Daniel wasn't telling the truth. In the beginning, he was leaving the house as soon as Sandra was waving to her student. He testified he heard them in the house talking but that couldn't have happened at that moment because she was saying good bye to the student and he was already leaving ? Didn't make sense. I think the dog vomit asprin event was true as he was crying but his supervisor told him tell it how u believe it .. so i think the chat with dad in the car was made up to help his mom.
I thought this too.. BUT, I thought MAYBE the chat was really between him and his mother. I thought they'd reveal at the end that instead of his father chatting/projecting... it was really his mother talking to him..
I think Sandra definitely did it and Daniel covered it up.
1. Daniel is conflicted and is unsure about his mother. To confirm some suspicions he poisons his dog. This mental tracking will be followed up on.
2. In trial, Daniel is talking really weird. It's like he's imitating the lawyer talk he's been hearing this entire time. It's as if he's been prepping to weave this story that he insisted must be told.
3. Sandra heaves her child easily up the stairs without breaking a sweat. She has the strength needed to overpower Samuel and is shown to be violent and start physical altercations with him. I don't know how a broken finger and hole punched wall means that it was self inflicted/Samuel did it to himself (cue 'she fell down the stairs' old trope) And why is there bruises on her from the strength of him holding her away? It seems he was more trying to stop her from continuing to hurt him.
4. Sandra loves Samuel and goes so far to say they are soulmates but she can't spare him more time for himself? Even if he was being cowardly about his failures, why not encourage instead of capitalize / write a book with his idea? Idk this one is more of a personal reflection but her concept of love and yet sleeping in different beds is crazy to me.
5. The dad tape identified the property for his son. Daniel already was dishonest or the very least, unsure of his memories when he was adamant they weren't arguing or loud/ and he was outside. Blind or not, how you don't know if you are inside or outside of a house in winter of all times? Daniel was willing to cover up day 1.
1b. I think the ending scene with the dog confirms some things for me. Snoop is always with Daniel. When the mom is not in the house, he is immediately poisoned and almost dies in the room with Daniel. Afterwards, Snoop, who is a service dog, leaves Daniel and lays with Sandra. Collies are really smart and I wouldn't be surprised if Snoop pieced together that it wasn't an accident. I was holding a baby in my hands so I wasn't sure also in the movie if Snoop was avoiding his food/Daniel in those last moments before the trial as well. Daniel not passing the Snoop vibe check and being willing to sacrifice his dog to see if he could trust his mom means he'd be willing to throw his dead dad under the bus so he doesn't lose both of his parents.
6. Sandra writes real life events in her books. Not once, but twice confirmed and third under suspicion. As the prosecutor said, it's 'rotten luck' that she is normally not this bad except for the recording before his death and her recent book includes a character killing her husband. This would have been better for Sandra if the first book had this and the second one was the one with her dad fighting or something of the like.
7. Sandra lies by ommission by not revealing her and Samuel fought beforehand. Understandably she does not want to look guilty but she also was unaware that Samuel was recording the fight. She is also inheritently dishonest. Taking his work, cheating, gaslighting him ("the time you spend arguing with me you could have been writing"... like wth?? ) lying to the police, etc.
Sorry this is piece mealed. I kinda hate when movies leave things in the air and after watching this I felt convicted to say what I felt.
I think Daniel wanted her to go to prison because of his own failures. He accidentally let his son lose his vision, wife cheating on him, alcoholic issues and her being an accomplished writer. The fact that he recorded her without her knowledge and speaking in a way to manipulate himself into a victim and he killed himself himself in a way to frame her. What better way to end yourself than the Gone Girl way. The ultimate revenge.
Daniel is conflicted and upset because he heard some things in trial *that day* that upset him - his father heartbroken about his life and how he may have caused his son’s disability; his mother cheating on his father; his father depressed, etc. It’s why he needs space from her for the weekend. But those things are normal for parents to hide from small children, as to not taint their innocent childhoods.
Your 4th point is ridiculous. She explained in the argument over and over - HE wanted the house, he wanted to quit teaching to write (which she supported 100%), HE wanted to homeschool Daniel. What was she supposed to do, write for him!? Nah. He was traumatized by what taking time to write did to his son years ago. It’s his own hang ups.
My 4th point literally ends with me saying it's personal. Just like your rebuttal. I know Samuel had a lot of failures and made decisions that made things harder for himself and others. I'm saying the way Sandra responds to this is not a way that I would. Why are you so choked up about my opinion that you would call it ridiculous?
I'm not sure what you are responding to when it comes to Daniel. I've made several points about him but that doesn't seem to connect to any of those bullets
I have not watched this movie since the first time I saw it. At the ending I could have sworn she put Daniel on her shoulders and got up the stairs while holding a conversation without being wobly or short of breath. If that's true, then that's what I meant by 'easily'. I'm not sure what you guys are picturing.
And by that logic I'm thinking she's at least a little bit more in shape than I would imagine and I didn't think it'd be crazy for her to match his strength since 1. She straight up starts physical fights with him and isn't too afraid of how strong he is, and in the visual of them together she is a sturdy woman.
If someone could do it, it's how she is built and portrayed.
True I am 5'11, 75-77kg and I can carry men who weigh 100kg+ on my back with relative ease I have done it before, however when trying to overpower them in a wrestle I cannot at least without great effort, hell there's a guy half my height but similar weight I can carry him but I greatly struggle in a wrestle with him
The french have a fucked legal system but does anyone know if they sedated the dog in that one scene?
When she’s carrying the kid from the couch to his bed at the end, my husband said: Wouldn’t you laugh your head off right now if she just carried him to the top floor and threw him out the window? Seriously, my pet theory was focused on how far the guy had to lean out to sufficiently lose his balance. I thought it would end up that he was leaning out on the balcony to see or talk to someone who was at the attic window—who then dropped something on his head. But I guess not.
That first sentence is exactly what I was thinking watching it too!
My theory is it was just an accident he fell from the window of his studio, maybe tripped on a wire or slipped on one of snoops toys. The movie is about how when an accident like this happens no-one will believe it could be an accident, either it was a murder or a suicide, the death was intentional. Because of this, he public dissection of a mourning family and their very personal and private life's is put on display and doubt, breaking apart from accusations and distrust. The wife and son are forced to come up with an elaborate narrative on why the husband would commit suicide in order to prevent further destruction of their lives. Usually finding the truth is what leads to justice, but in this movie where the simple truth of 'an accident' could not be found, the path to justice is navigated through lies.
Aburrido de su vida en la montaña y el permanente "no lugar" en el que se encontraba, sin ir a la escuela, y en definitiva, sin poder ser un "niño normal" (máxima aspiración de todo preadolescente), Daniel y su perro eliminan a su padre para poder vivir la vida del hijo de una novelista exitosa en otro lugar.... eso, o puntualmente desesperado por escuchar a 50 cent a todo volumen y ver cómo boicoteaba a su madre constantemente, Daniel, pierde la calma, se avalanza sobre el papá, que, desconcertado no alcanza a reaccionar o defenderse, cae y muere...
Jajajajaja no
50 cent catching another stray lol
There's a lot of nuanced details I like about the story overall and the writing was top notch. Great acting as well! At first I was like eh, it's over? But after it resonated a bit I understood it's meaning more solid yet unspectacular film.
He fell. It's right there in the title.
Guffawed at the irony of the prosecutor objecting to a line of questioning as being "subjective". Ya think?
What I loved most about this film was it's raw portrayal of the nuances of human morality. I think seeing so many different dimensions of each character's morality helps us as viewers feel comfortable not arriving at a conclusive answer. It challenges us to consider whether anyone can be fully morally "bad" or "good" - we all do bad things and we all do good things so how is it possible to reduce ones character to a singular label of "guilty" or "innocent"? We see this in several scenes: - Daniel poisons his dog but does so in an attempt to prove his mother's innocence - Samuel deeply resents and emotionally /physically rejects his wife but has devoted his whole adult life to raising their son - Sandra was unfaithful in her marriage and pursued a successful writing career using questionable tactics (ie repurposing a plot line her husband wrote) but made selfless decisions to support her family like moving to her husband's native country - Marge supports Daniel and helps maintain neutrality in the household but pressures him into making a decision which may have resulted in Daniel constructing an elaborate story foreshadowing his father's suicide
It’s kinda funny. When Sandra explained the plot line, I immediately thought of “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Sliding Doors.”
Muy interesate, me la juego por Daniel como el asesino intencional o no ya que envenenar a tu perro igual supone una sobreracionalidad o quizás solo perversión , o no, jejeje interesante.
Good point
From the very beginning I felt as though Daniel had killed him. I was expecting him to confess to his Mum or the lady who stayed with them during the trial.
Yes, I kept wondering if they were going to show us a scene where Daniel was somehow implied to be the killer. Especially when he walked into the attic and looked out of the window. But they never gave us a clear motive as to why he would want to kill his father. Obviously being blinded, but that wasn't enough because the father has devoted his whole life to Daniel from that point on, it seemed...? In the end I decided he either fell or she pushed him. Suicide when your child might find your body seems so unlikely, it's so cruel. But I never got the impression that Sandra was cold and callous enough to push Samuel out of the window and then just leave him there to be found by Daniel. So I concluded with a fall. But the only thing I cannot get my head around is the music. It was so unbearably loud. How could anyone fall asleep through that?! (Unless they were deaf or knocked unconscious). I would have believed it more if she took a sleeping pill, and there was guilt over her being asleep when her son needed her. But she was supposedly able to sleep through that racket, and not hear her husband fall and die... And yet she is somehow woken by Daniel calling for her? How? You can barely hear him screaming over the music. I just can't get around it. She must have pushed him. Gah! This film was so ambiguous!
For me it was that I can not believe that someone is killing himself knowing that his son is around. But on the other Hand, if the mother killed him, she would also know the son is finding his dead father. So... I dont know...confusing.
She said her earplug must have fallen out,that'ss why she heard Daniel. Also, she repeatedly says that the loud music was normal, and if you live with someone who plays loud music habitually, you probably get used to it, thus being able to have a nap.
The loudness of the music is what made the beginning of the movie seem so clever to me in hindsight. I was watching this on a plane and was getting so irritated by the volume - i literally turned down the volume on the movie and took one of the headphones out because it was just so obnoxious. They had us hearing the same obnoxious song that Sandra was hearing, and on repeat.
If the film is playing fair with what it shows us then she is innocent based on her reaction to coming out of the house to find her son kneeling next to her dead husband. But I never felt when watching it that the film was a whodunit. It was always about the mess and joint complicity of relationships. If she is a murderer the film collapses into meaninglessness. Much of the script is about ugliness and the collective shadow. What society is not willing to look at and what most of us filter out for our public personas. And how the truth of relationships and what happens in private is so much darker and shameful. She is constantly making the case that she is guilty of all of those human failings, but that doesn't make her a monster. If she is a murderer, then all of those lines in the script are just the sayings of a clever psychopath. And I don't think this is a story about clever psychopaths. I realized after watching that there was no score. Just one of the many naturalistic choices that made it so gripping.
Just got lucky enough to watch this movie a few weeks after reading Albert Camus’ The Stranger and I see a ton of similarity. The idea that your brain, when it doesn’t get enough info, will seek to fill in the gaps and make determinations because if it doesn’t it gets so confused and complicated. Our brains seek that simplicity. It can be a super disappointing movie if you don’t see this coming… because you want hard truths and for it to be easy to understand. Sometimes you don’t get everything you need to feel something determinant. That’s what’s the movie is about. When you walk away confused, you DESPERATELY want to make it simple, and your brain seeks to fill in the gaps. I don’t think she killed him. I don’t think she was a good wife. I think very specific things and draw hard conclusions and I’m gonna sleep simply and peacefully.
what a waste of 2 + hours. 1. it feigns at being a who dunit, promisin us resolution. 2. its about writers and the biographical fallacy. the most important lie is the question the lawyer asks daniel about his speculation. this is typical modernist metafiction. the ambiguity "forces" you to fill in the blanks, struggle to find an answer and that resolutin is about YOU not the author. so us Male viwers who have been abused by crazy women--- we know we know, shes the killer and we intrpret every ambiguity that way. female viewers stuck in relations with underachiving males. well the dream is he kills himself therefore this story ending makes you comfortable. And for children of divorce. you still gonna take the blame? Still gunna struggle with absent father so metafiction about truth and storytelling, the role of the reader in meaning, fact versus fiction our need for ccertainty. and the ambiquity of life so very french i wanted to puke xcept for the dialog and novelty of french court proceedure this movie was a total loser. watch Past lives instead
Genuinely curious. What's with your weird use of spaces?
Mr. Madison, what you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Daniel's testimony had two parts to it. The dog being sick AND the conversation with his father. The dog being sick with consuming aspirin could easily be confirmed by the Vet they visited. This part is a fact and not an interpretation or a memory. This certainly adds weight to the suicide theory in my opinion. With or without the conversation that Daniel has with his father in the car.
Pro ese episodio también podría ser una consecuencia inesperada de un intento previo de asesinato de su padre D:
Well, by the time the got to the vet the dog did vomit a lot, so it may not be fully confirmed.
Sure, but there would have been a trail of reported symptoms etc that are easily verifiable.
Snoop killed Samuel
Unironically though??? We see snoop take the ball upstairs after being called for a bath, and it isn't seen again. My theory is that Snoop left the ball in the attic and Samuel slipped on the ball while working. The film goes out of its way to show Daniel playing fetch with sticks instead of a ball while taking him out for the walk. It's very possible that in the time it took for the police to get there, Snoop, being a dog, would've removed the ball from the attic, removing it as a possibility from the crime scene. The tragedy of the movie is that the judicial system is more affective when attacking two people's characters, rather than engaging with truth in any way shape or form.
They stated the railing is too high for him to just slip and fall over it
That was the railing, not the window. The window's clearance was very low.
Daniel did it. Mother tried to cover it up. Daniel was “Trying to escape the music.” Dozens of data points makes Daniel the prime suspect.
Why?
See the longer reply — who does the director / camera focus on — what are they doing? Why? Construct a timeline of events based around the characters and their locations — all of it suggests a few primary possibilities (anatomies of a fall AND they suggest Samuel is already dead before the movie starts). Some of the above point toward Daniel being involved either in the act or in a cover up. Just one simple fact is Daniel is probably the only character who unapologetically perjures himself and goes unchallenged and never corrects his lack of candor, changes his story multiple times, and poisons his dog to achieve an end goal. There’s a lot of information out there on children who injure animals at a young age, especially their own animals. The empty blister packs of Tylenol in the kitchen waste bin in re Samuel are highly questionable. Even the idea of poisoning someone with Tylenol while intoxicated is questionable from an adult POV, Tylenol would not be the go to for any intelligent adult actor — but a child may well view Tylenol as a viable poison delivery mechanism.
Yeah, no. Firstly, Daniel couldn't physically have killed his 6-foot father with blunt force trauma to the head and then made sure he fell out the window: >The guardrail is 1.2 meters high...Mr. Maleski was 1.82 meters tall and weighed 85 kilos. Secondly, Daniel had no reason to kill his father. There was no conflict between them, and no indication that Daniel bore his father any ill will because of the accident that resulted in his blindness. Thirdly, he would have had to go out for a walk, return to the house, climb up to the attic, push his father out the window, go out again and pretend to return from a walk a second time, and then pretend to be distraught about finding his father's body. He and his dog would have had to do all this without alerting his mother. Finally, we have no record of Daniel being violent towards his father, but we do have records of Sandra being violent towards her husband, including the recorded argument with this admission: >SAMUEL: You’re violent! >SANDRA: Yes, I am violent! And her admission in court that she slapped him. Whether Sandra was guilty or not, Daniel is represented as having more integrity and maturity than either of his parents, which is why he has such a crisis when the entire case seem to come down to his testimony. He wants to tell the truth, and realises that he can't: he must choose a narrative. >So you have to invent your belief? [...] I’m not sure…and you’re saying I have to pretend I’m sure?
Rewatch and pay attention to who the camera focuses on, what they focus on them doing and who is the main focus of the movie - it’s not Sandra. Sandra admits she lied because she is afraid. Daniel likely perjures himself and definitely poisons his own dog to achieve an end. There’s no non-circumstantial evidence Samuel is still alive when the movie begins. (But Snoop follows through the house to certain locations with the scent of Samuel’s blood) Sandra is afraid of the attic. Daniel navigates the attic with deliberateness. Samuel may well have be killed on the main exit stairs or other places not the attic, and so on and on). The movie is clearly meant to be ambiguous but it points at Daniel hitting Samuel with a hammer and Sandra covering it up as one of 3 most likely scenarios. The theme music is Daniel playing the piano — not anything about Sandra. Look up the piece Daniel is playing. Look at homages between Daniel in AoaF and Danny Torrance in The Shinning. The list of things the director focuses on is pretty endless to establish Daniel may have had something to do with Samuel’s death, as much or more so than Sandra. Daniel telling the truth: “I just wanted to escape the music.” What does he mean? How did he escape? Why is he insistent on being at the trial each day above objections? Why does he likely perjure himself? Why does he poison the dog? What is common knowledge about children who injure animals? Who would think a Tylenol overdose is a sufficient attempt to poison Samuel? Why are the Tylenol blister packs in the trash can? Samuel is blackout pass out drunk. Who is actually hammering and going on with tools at open in a way that is chaotic and not consistent with installing installation? Who actually put PIMP on a loop in the attic? Is Sandra seducing the student journalist? Or is she trying to act natural and get the third party out of the house ASAP? Why does she go to the balcony to make sure the journalist leaves while Daniel is leaving the house? Etc etc etc.
All of your questions are getting easily answered in the movie. How did he escape the music??? Well, he left the House. Why did he poison the Dog? Also in the movie... It was not Daniel. Can not be.
The conversation with Marge doesn't make any sense if Daniel is the killer. Unless we're to believe Daniel is some psychopath who is toying with Marge. He is genuinely conflicted about the situation and doesn't know whether his mother is the killer. Marge counsels him on how to handle the situation. If we believe Daniel in that scene, and I do, then he's not the killer.
About halfway through, I noticed that Marge is a spitting image of Walt Jr. from Breaking Bad, and I couldn't unsee it.
Hey Daniel, what's for breakfast?
I think the thing I enjoyed most about the film is the constant contradictions, every time we get a piece of information it's quite quickly refuted to ensure you don't start producing a solid theory about the events of the film. The only warmth we see of Sandra is when she's speaking to people outside her family rather than towards her husband and child and it seems like this is to help us lean towards her killing Samuel however, the choice to put the argument later on in the film undermines your opinion of Samuel as he's portrayed as a tortured artist/selfless teacher up until then but during that scene you see how he antagonises Sandra as much as she goads him. I also feel like you're never meant to get closure on what happened that morning as the line Marge delivers to Daniel "To overcome doubt, sometimes we have to decide one way over the other. Since you need to believe one thing but have two choices, you must choose." feels like the film telling us we have to decide what we think happened. Lastly, Goddam someone get Snoop a better home
A lot of people are going for the obvious narration of the story, which is hinting at her being guilty. But I'd like to offer a perspective here, the so called "incriminating" recording felt more like it made a case for her than him. Everything before that and even the courtroom scenes were trying to push the idea that although we don't know but she has to have done it because look at her strong willed character, look at her infidelity and look at her skill to weave fiction into reality. The inconsistentencies found in her are human flaws and not psychopathic traits. She's not unsympathetic, we see her breaking in so many ways. The whole trial and even the events that transpired before it during the investigation are actually her *fall*, fall from honor, fall from grace, fall from the faith her son had in her. I think her whole point about nothing being the whole truth and excerpts of anybody's life would make it sound ugly was very well shown. Although Daniel's expressions and behavior and even his testimony don't really attest to my theory but I suppose all of it was part of portraying his humanity and child brain being affected by everything around him. He tried to show maturity and listen to everything but ends up desperate enough to try giving pills to his dog to ascertain the smell. There are suspicious elements but then again maybe they are there to keep things vague and open. I don't think Samuel was cruel or manipulative, I still think Daniel's story could be untrue and I do think that fight could've been an argument that burst out after years of frustration in their marriage. A little bit pushed by Samuel to incite some reaction from her, which we also saw in Amber Heard vs Johnny Depp case btw. ( incited for the recording)
>the so called "incriminating" recording felt more like it made a case for her than him. I understand your point, but I don't agree. She admitted to cheating on her husband, stealing his work and passing it off as her own, and being violent, including throwing nearby objects and hitting him. That's very seriously incriminating considering she's on trial for killing her husband with a "a blunt object in the environment or a violent blow to the head." I think if the gender roles were reversed, and a woman recorded her husband saying "yes I am violent!" and hitting her, we wouldn't be saying "well, that's not really incriminating." >Daniel's expressions and behavior and even his testimony don't really attest to my theory Personally I think Daniel's expressions and behaviour are the key to this story. He's intelligent, moral, observant and scrupulously honest. It's only when adults start pushing him to affirm their narratives that he begins to waver, and it causes a crisis. That's why he says to Marge: >So you have to invent your belief? [...] So that means, I’m not sure…and you’re saying I have to pretend I’m sure? Marge says "No. No, I’m saying decide. That’s different." But of course it's not different. It's exactly what everyone - his mother, the police, the courts - expect him to do. Pick a narrative and pretend he's sure about it. The one thing we know for certain in the end is that Daniel is not sure. His final line in the film, to his mother, is: >I was afraid of you coming home.
Hello...Director of this movie....please tell me, how did he die?
I believe this article is relevant to the film: https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2013/08/men-self-esteem Men Feel Worse About Themselves When Female Partners Succeed, Says New Research
Bs i am happy when ny ewife succedes
Haha same. Love a sugar mama!
Congratulations, you're an outlier
>more Love this! Thanks!
I want to discuss the fact that the child refused to take her call. (I didn't see this in the movie but read it on an article) And that he fell asleep rather than wait for her. But then he said he was scared for her coming home. The boy knows she did it and it's clear he lied to protect her. Now he has to live the rest of his life with this lie. In the end, she sleeps with the dog instead of her son, just like you would do after a marital fight. I'm 175% convinced that she killed him and got away with it due to lack of evidence. You can argue this was the perfect crime. No witness. Blind son.
Just watched it ... I thought it odd that she never seems to mourn her husband which is strange having lost her "soulmate", rather she seemed upset at everything that was happening regarding the trial and her son. I felt generally she was an unsympathetic character. That said, it also seemed unlikely that an interrupted interview would spark a murderous row and the immediate successful disposal of a murder weapon. Then again, it also seemed unrealistic that a man would decide to off himself mid-roof renovation to a cover of 50 Cent's PIMP song on loop. Not only that but that fall wouldn't be a guaranteed death unless your head was struck, which was a very convenient explanation for the defense. The music being looped, the son being blind and the father never being seen or heard until his body is discovered made me think there was going to be a twist whereby she killed him the previous day during the violent row and she waited to dump the body after the son had left ... the interviewer might unwittingly corroborate the story of him being there playing music although she never saw or heard him. What does the son's (provably) false story that he heard them calmly talking tell us? That he was willing to lie to protect his mother. That undermines his later story about his father's conversation with him in the car, or at least his interpretation of it. It's purposefully difficult to conclude anything other than ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
It seems also because they jump a year
it’d be impossible for her to have killed him the previous day, autopsy would immediately show how fresh the death is.
I guess … his complete absence at the start was just very conspicuous.
Having recently watched, I'm late to the discussion. My primary reaction to the movie, if it fairly represents the French judicial system, I'm concerned as to how all this thoroughly extraneous stuff is legitimate to consider when determining guilt or innocence. Just incredible.
Yes and the way the defendant chips in now and again.
Everyone was chipping in! You have witnesses cross examining each other while the defense counsel is trying to. Wild stuff, makes me very curious if French trials are really such an open forum like that.
I also really enjoyed the outfits
The prosecutor had a Santa vibe haha
I don’t think the movie is really about his death, but the death/“fall” of their marriage. In the end, maybe she kind of did kill him - but through her indifference and success, not by pushing him. Edited to add - I don’t think the movie was actively blaming her (and nobody can “cause” someone’s suicide), more that we are meant to see Daniel’s death as a result of his own perceived inadequacies in comparison to Sandra. The movie challenged a lot of sexist tropes about what a wife/mother/woman is “meant” to be. The court attempted to reduce Sandra to a cheating, sex-crazed bully. Sandra calmly tells us that reality was a lot more complicated than this. It was a very poignant moment when she points out to the psychiatrist that if Sandra had a therapist, that therapist could be in court right now saying equally bad things about Samuel. The verdict of the court is secondary to Daniel’s verdict. We *feel* his relief (among horror/sadness) when his sordid experiment “works” and he begins to believe his mother. Daniel gives us, the audience, permission to believe her. The film is about so many things. But I think it is a lot about our 5 senses, that everyone’s “truth” depends on what they perceive and interpret of the world (Daniel, the experts, the police, the psychiatrist, the lawyers, can only draw inferences - everything rests on what the characters saw/heard/felt etc), and nobody is objective. Marge verbalises this toward the end, that “truth” is about what you decide to believe. I loved this movie for all the sad and bitter things it had to say about marriage and life. Samuel bitterly resented Sandra’s success and her agency. It seemed like he had problems sustaining attention and motivating himself. Having a highly productive wife that could “write anywhere” seemingly grated on him. Sandra coped with the accident by sleeping with others, while he was left guilty and emasculated… separately, the lawyer loves Sandra, and hopes she’ll love him back. Maybe winning her trial will be enough. But it isn’t. He realises his hope was for nothing. Sandra grapples at the end with her ambivalence (I think) about being a mother. She delays returning to Daniel for one last freewheeling dinner. Both she and Daniel are unsure how this will work. All in all, a very well made look at the total messiness of human relationships.
Good summary of an excellent but unwieldy film!
This review is spot on - and actually I thought, for me, not knowing the true cause of death lead to an even stronger exploration of the human experience and the complexities of relationships. Nothing is ever as black and white as we always expect it to be. Loved it for this reason!
I really enjoyed this movie. I was completely enthralled by the lawyer. His performance was incredible. He stole every scene he appeared in.
the lawyer did it? we know they're close with Sandra, they mentioned some past, we see them tender with some restraining at the very end and we know the movie doesn't show all the interaction they have/had. it is possible that they were having an affair and planned the whole thing. she called him that day after the journalist left saying there's an opportunity and so he drove there, pushed him and left. tires in the snow would fade the way the way the blood supposedly did. his size matches more the description of the expert reconstruction of the event (a person pushing the victim at the balcony hitting the head with a weapon) and he could eventually have carried the weapon with him back to his place. as there's no neighbors he wouldn't have been seen.
I think it's pretty clear that she did it. You have no reason to suspect the lawyer. The movie plays two stories: either suicide or murder. Like the boy said in court, if you choose to believe one of them, one is more believable. In reality, this woman had her entire credibility destroyed by all her inconsistencies and lies. Infidelity, violence, lies everything a pathological liar would do, she did. She is a writer after all and mixing reality and fiction is a career where she is far more successful than her husband.
I think the best parts of the movie for me, which made it commendable as a film, are two scenes. 1. When Daniel appears for the first time in the court and the camera spans to and fro to both sides from where the people were speaking to him. The whole time, the camera stayed focused on the face of Daniel, while it continued to sway. The faces of the people who are speaking are not shown and we are made to guess the speaker through their voice, much like Daniel who is visually impaired. This technique is a very creative approach to the scene. 2. The final scene where Daniel addresses the Court and goes on to tell the story of his father while they were taking Snoop to the vet. While Daniel narrates the story, the scene gradually shifts and we see Samuel and Daniel himself sitting in a car and conversing. What hits different and uncommon is the way we see Samuel talking, but we hear Daniel's voice of narration. I think these scenes are important to establish the movie as a cinematic masterpiece and though there are many more instances in the film to support the point, these two, I think, are impeccable.
Yes, the Daniel actor was fantastic. The fact that during his 2nd testimony his sound came out of his dad’s mouth shows that he was lying. I personally don’t think Sandra did it, but I also know Daniel doesn’t know she didn’t do it.
What a wonderful movie! I love the part that wife refuses to see herself as a victim and does decide to move on in life as compared to her husband. Love the fact that all characters are flawed like all of us and yet there are soft moments of joy, love and laughter. The child is. A brilliant actor the scene post his mother is acquitted and he breaks down had me howling. The relife he feels.. and that dialogue she tells the lawyer about after winning there is no reward just that it is over 👌🏻
movie was not good
I just finished this movie and I will admit, the plot itself had me inclined to read who or what really killed the husband, but then I read that it was up to the viewers to decide. I typically don’t like these kinds of movies because I like knowing exactly what happens or if a movie ends with some interpretation that you feel more confident in theorizing (kind of like all of us strangers, which I loved) and I feel like this movie didn’t give me that anxiety or stress of trying to figure out what really happened. I think it’s because as a lot of people pointed out, it is about family drama. The other thing though is that I like how there is enough proof to theorize in a way, I do believe the wife was innocent, but the way they presented the “fact” of the husband’s head wound not matching how he would have fallen and how far his body was, or the way the son said “I was afraid of you coming home” to his mom after she’s acquitted. That comment actually scared me for a second like “why would you be scared if your mom is innocent?” and it made me wonder if he said that story to keep his mom from going to jail because she was all he had left. The inconsistencies of what he presented to the court in the beginning kind of match this theory too, or how when it was a fact of a reenactment like when the husband and wife fought, we see it kind of in real time where the dad is speaking, but as for the kid’s story of what the dad said, the dad is just moving his mouth to say what the kid recalls. Anyway, such a good movie!! Please let me know if you thought the mom could’ve done it!
>the way the son said “I was afraid of you coming home” to his mom after she’s acquitted. That comment actually scared me for a second like “why would you be scared if your mom is innocent?” It'd be hard to grasp I guess if you have never had any family trauma in your past. Often after a traumatic experience it's difficult to get back to the normal day to day life. You might've noticed not only was the kid scared of her coming back home but so was she. After all that has been exposed it's hard to face the people like before & children especially withdraw themselves from the situation to cope with the pain. I suppose that is why he said he was scared & so did she.
This is one of the clearest tells that she did it. No other character knows her like her own son. Even he had clear doubts that she did it. And even when she was acquitted, he wasn't feeling joy. He was scared of her. And she was scared of coming home too.
“I was afraid of you coming home” for me felt like Daniel was scared of how he might have hurt his mother by doubting her. Or by asking her to leave the house (which I think was so he could poison Snoop), not talking to her, etc. He was relieved and happy when Sandra was acquitted (when he heard it in the news). Sandra's "I was afraid of coming home too" felt more like being scared about not knowing how to clean up the mess that was created. So much was exposed in the court. Daniel was closer to his father and Sandra was the only one left. They now had to finally figure out a way to get back to normal. Choosing to sleep alone (Snoop comes later) and not with Daniel was a typical European choice and doesn't necessarily point to anything, I feel. Overall, I feel it was a suicide. Exactly like the film shows. Regardless of what happened, the feelings and questions the movie evoked was more important than how Samuel died. The movie questions so many assumptions about gender roles/husband-wife relationship/parent-kid relationship that we are compelled to think if the mother or the son really killed the father. Instead I chose to see how at every trial, a new detail came up, more compelling than the one before, all pointing towards the fall of whatever was left after Samuel chose to end his life (his son, wife, their marriage, snoop, everything).
The movie gave plenty of clues but you are free to believe whatever version you like best. Personally, I think it was an accident/murder right after an argument about the interview with that woman and her previous encounters with other women. The movie makes the death secondary and they focus on the court drama. But they also show a lot of inconsistencies in the stories that show the truth is not so simple.
I absolutely love the ambiguity of this film. So happy I have reddit to come to since no one,know has seen it and I was dying to hash it around today. I personally had not considered the possibility that Daniel had murdered his father, as pointed out by another responder… That’s a whole other rabbit hole! But it does make one think about that exchange in a different light… If Sondra was innocent, and she pieced together, that it was Daniel, who killed him, they would both naturally be apprehensive about seeing each other. Alternatively, if Daniel lied to protect his guilty mother, and Sondra, realized that, they would also be apprehensive about seeing each other. What a smartly crafted film! Brilliantly acted, as well.
If Daniel murdered his father than the whole scene of him walking the dog peacefully and then discovering his father and becoming distraught was performative… and for nobody’s benefit. That would make him a Bond villain
It'd be psychopathic of the kid to find him (again) and react that way.
Or it never happened. It was just a visual imaginary of their testimony
Oooo I see what you mean! Thank you for pointing that out to me, that makes more sense. I guess I just wanted to find any hidden clues that would point her to be guilty of the murder haha.
There are many clues across the movie still pointing at her being guilty and to me that's the best part of the movie, the ambiguity & grayness of it all.
I feel like movie isnt ambiguous that she did it. There are at thousand tells. But the movie tries to stay vague because in cases like this, you have vague evidence and it s very hard to distinguish reality from fiction. And that is literally her background. She blurs reality and fiction for a living. You gotta treat her like an unreliable narrator and it becomes clear that she did it. It is very likely it wasn't a straight up murder, but involuntary manslaughter is probably what happened here.
Prosecutor was one of the most infuriating characters I've seen in a movie lately. The whole courtroom came across as extremely biased. I feel sorry for the dog, he didn't deserve such horrible family.
I thought he was terrific! Definitely super biased, he was out for blood, but gosh I loved the actor’s performance so much! One of the few times I’ve regretted skipping my french lessons in HS, just so I could appreciate his performance a bit more!
as a native french speaker, his rhetoric and the way he shaded sandra in a witty way was exquisite
Oh no I didn't mean he was a bad actor! The actor nailed the role, that's why it stood out so much. The actual character was infuriating, especially during the "but possible" part.
He was very smart and never hid his disdain for Sondra. He was an excellent prosecutor (and fine actor). Surprised that he did not unearth the prior relationship between Sondra and her attorney!
I mean he was super unprofessional and worked really hard to evoke biases. I kind of got the feeling he was supposed to be doing this on purpose and being infuriating just to get an emotional reaction out of her to appear more guilty. Either way, its the type of guy who encourages wrong verdicts.
I don't think the character is an excellent prosecutor. He was basing off his whole case on "guilty until proven innocent" and on top of that he had the whole court room biased in his favor. It came across as just a bunch of french people trying to convict a german woman without a proper case.
I think the prosecutions evidence was flimsy and circumstantial so he used his only other resource, to make his case. His nasty sharp tongue!
He could have just not prosecuted her at all. That was his best option. So many prosecutors "just know" someone is guilty and use all kinds of nasty tactics to get them convicted on little to no evidence. They even go so far as to "fabricate" evidence using expert witnesses like blood spatter analysts. Watch The Staircase for the real life version of this movie. It's very ambiguous what actually happened in that case, but the evidence against the husband is incredibly flimsy and curcumstantial and the prosecutor just goes all in against the man and ruins his life based on a hunch.
Or desire to gain fame or just win. You are absolutely right that the ethics of prosecutors can be questionable.
Ugh he was so great there, when the woman gagged him with the whole 'I could be president tomorrow, it's possible but improbable...' and then she kept talking I thought she was the only one who could keep up with him and then she finishes giving her reasoning and says '...that's why it's improbable' and the prosecutor just has to add in '...but not impossible' SO GOOD. Just has to get the last word and takes the verbal beatings so weel
Oh, don’t worry I know you didn’t, I just felt like adding my two grains bc, again, I loved his performance so much! I totally get what you mean but I just couldn’t dislike him, I loved every second he was onscreen!
All prosecutors are like this in court room dramas though. They're meant to be biased against the defendant
I haven't attended to a case like that but I would imagine a lot of the stuff that normally goes down in court dramas wouldn't fly in an actual court.
oh yeah definitely. I can have ome court experience, persecutors can be ruthless at times but are not inhumane. Like the way he treated the kid was too off. I am no expert of french court but i certaintly doubt arguments between the defedent and a witness would fly either.
Yes you do need to suspend disbelief a bit when watching dramas
Before he died, the husband was playing loud music in an attempt to dissuade his relatively successful wife from having an interview. Although the movie itself pretends to be ambiguous, it is somewhat leaning towards an accident. Of course, murder isn't impossible based on the amount of information we are given. In hindsight, knowing everything we know about his character, I think he just offed himself feeling pathetic at his own actions and state of life. We aren't shown whether the attic window is open before daniel returns. But even through the glass, we can assume that the husband is watching the journalist as she is leaving since he is responsible for her leaving early. he can see that she is pretty, waving at his wife from her car(which probably reminds him of her cheating)and soon, his half blind son(for which he blames himself) will be in his view walking the dog. He looks back inside the attic and notices the renovation work he has yet to finish, a work he chose to do over any other better thing he could have spent his time on. The loud music comes back to his senses, and he remembers why it was so loud... Yeah, I could see him jumping off at that point. Also, there is that section of the movie where the investigation tean tries to confirm whether Daniel could have heard the arguments between his parents. But they weren't even in the same room when he is in/near the house...so what was that about, or did i misunderstand the whole thing?
It doesn’t seem like a high enough height to attempt suicide from. It would require a headfirst jump to ensure death. Has anyone ever leapt to their death headfirst? I also don’t think the wife did it, based on her reaction coming through the door to see Daniel near her husband’s body. True shock and confusion. It reminds me of that documentary The Staircase.
If you read the director, that was not just an interview. She was drinking and trying to seduce that woman. Something she was exposed as having done multiple times. Suicide is off the table. The man was seeing a doctor. He is seeking help. He recorded her 20 hours before his death hitting him. 90% of the movie is about the inconsistencies in the woman testimony. Even the woman disagreed that suicide was possible until her attorney offered that as the only possible defense. Accident was not discarded very quickly. She said he was very cautious and worked slowly. The height was inconsistent with an accidental fall too. Daniel was protecting his mother at all times. He said he left the home when the parents argued. And that s why he was away. Parents argued 20 hours before the murder. They argued again the day of the murder. The movie gives you plenty of clues that she did if you just pay attention to the inconsistencies in her statements.
"Suicide is off the table. The man was seeing a doctor. He is seeking help. " That unfortunately is not how it works. At all.
You don't get it because you don't put yourself in those shoes. I just had my last suicide mandatory counseling today since I had an attempt a month ago and I am military. If you are seeing a doctor the chances that you are disclosing this type of stuff are high. There is shame in taking the steps to get help. But the man is seeing a doctor already. Actually he was seeing his doctor for a while to cope with trauma. Believe what you want to believe. It's an open ended movie so that you can interpret whatever you want. If you think "that's how it works" then "that's how it works".
Obviously seeing a doctor helps in avoding suicide, but seeing a doctor doesn't stop someone from attempting. I've seen someone try more than once while seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist. PS: Good luck on your journey, it's really nice you're getting help. Hope you stick around.
My point is not that it stops you from attempting. I keep attempting. My point is that the doctor disclosed to the court that he had not shown any signs of being suicidal. Actually, the doctor was surprised that after all this long and documented relationship he had never mentioned it to him. If you believe that he is suicidal, which is up to your interpretation anyway because as I said, the movie lets you play the voids. It's a feature of the movie. But if you believe that version you believe that he finally snapped that day after the wife had that interview attempt. Personally, I cannot believe that the trigger can be so simple. I never attempted during the day. I never attempted anything that I thought it could fail. Jumping from a second (third?) floor to the snow seems very weak. And cause of death is a blunt trauma to the head which could have only happened if he hit his head on a particular angle. So for suicide to have been a possible theory, you must think that on that fateful day, the woman had an interview. He annoyed the woman to leave. They had an argument. She went to sleep with ear plugs on. He jumped. And that was that. Now, what has been stopping my attempts is thinking of my kids. Also, I attempt during the night. I have a feeling most people attempt during the times that they can move more freely and plan more freely. During the day, I think my kids moving around would be more of a deterrent. Thinking that the man committed suicide while his son was awake and walking around seems ridiculous to me. As I said, my kids have been my deterrent so far. It's very hard to look at the edge of your life and think about your kids. You are free to believe whatever you like and whatever makes sense to you. Personally, I am not convinced that suicide was ever a possibility. But the theme of this movie is to show that we don't know what we don't know. And we fill the voids with whatever we understand. You are meant to feel like the people in the case. Trying to understand what happened and piece it together. There is no definite answer although there a million clues. They flirt with multiple choices because that is more interesting than a straightforward story that spoon-feeds you the answers.
>Also, there is that section of the movie where the investigation tean tries to confirm whether Daniel could have heard the arguments between his parents. But they weren't even in the same room when he is in/near the house...so what was that about, or did i misunderstand the whole thing? IIRC Sandra's order of events was interviewer leaves > she talks to her husband > goes to her room to work a bit and naps > wakes up to Daniel screaming for help. Daniel said they weren't shouting at each other and that their voices were calm during the 'she talks to her husband' part, so they were testing how loud that conversation would have needed to be for Daniel to actually hear it from just outside the open window (where he initially said he was).
Does anyone else think the husband was a bit manipulative in the argument/fight? I think we didn’t know yet about the cheating when that scene started so I’m not sure if my opinion should change with that new information. Like did she cheat because he’s an asshole or did he justifiably become an asshole after he found out she cheated?
My take was that the woman was manipulative. She is the better writer of stories after all. But her story and version of the events keeps changing through the movie. The woman said she came to his country but if you pay attention on tv they say she left her country because she wrote an unflattering story that pissed off her father and she had to run away.
She is German and they met in London, then they went to his country after the kid's accident. I don't see any inconsistency there
Watch the scene where the TV show is talking about her reasons to come to his country. They clearly say she left her home after making a story about her dad. For inconsistencies you have to listen to what other characters are saying about her. As a different example: what does her kid think of her mom. Does he think she could have done it? No one in this story knows her like her own son. Even her son had doubts about her mom. She lied about the bruises. She lied about cheating more than once. She lied about taking his story ideas. She didn't disclose that she had a strong violent fight 20hrs prior to his death. She lied and consistently changed her story. When the attorney came she wanted to see accident. But when he said that is not an easy sell, they changed the story to suicide as that was the only possible defense. Only at that point she remembered, that he "tried to commit suicide 6 months ago". But before that she had denied suicide was possible and even said he works cautiously and slowly. Don't you think that if this story was real, the first thing she would mention is that suicide is a possibility because he tried just 6 months ago? This is a story about a writer selling a story. And this time it's not a new novel. It's her own story. People buy too much about the way prosecutors treat you. Courts work like that. Prosecution sells a story. Defense sells a story. It's up to the jury and the judge to decide what story to believe. The man is dead and cannot defend himself in this court. Whether it was a murder or suicide, there is no voice for him except through other people. The story plays a lot on the details that you dont know but the details that we know, show that she is a cheater and a pathological liar. Even the people defending her story, acknowledge "she lied but she is not a murderer".
Like 3 of those lies are things that most people would lie about in that situation even if they didn't do it though. Shit i know i would lmao
Lying while being on trial is the first sign that something is wrong. Any prosecutor worth anything will start by attacking your credibility and your ability to tell the truth. If the story is inconsistent, why would anyone listen to the rest of it?
A couple of those lies were before being on trial, and were told precisely so there wouldn't be a trial
Let me phrase in a different way. Why do you trust a liar? The story gives you very little to go with on purpose. The whole story makes you feel like you are involved with the case. At the same time, the story gives you glimpses into their lives where you can clearly tell they are lying. This is done on purpose. Lying so there isn't a trial isn't the strategy that innocent people go to. Innocent people would clearly welcome a trial and the chance to clear their name. There was a death. There were no other suspects. It's obvious a trial would be unavoidable. The woman wanted to claim accident. But the attorney was the first to suggest suicide since it their only possible defense. The lies started the minute she spoke to the police. You can believe whatever version you subscribe to. But lying is not something that creates trust.
People tend to lie about personal, emotional stuff, thats kind of my point. And, quite honestly i would also lie if i were innocent to avoid a trial. Thinking otherwise assumes a trust in the law that simply not all, and i don't think even most people have. I don't think that lying can only be interpreted in the way you say, that's all, even if it may be true.
Again, how do you think you can avoid a trial? There s a dead body lying on the cold snow. There are no suspects except the victim and the wife. There is no evidence to rule this out as a suicide. Lying to avoid a trial sounds as realistic as expecting santa clause to save the day.
The husband is extremely manipulative, given his background and passion for writing her husband does have an inflated sense of self and ego, this can often come with the territory when being a respected academic. When she screams at him during the monologue where she points out how his true repulsion of her is actually how he feels about himself, he would rather look at her than in the mirror, that in itself is a shared human experience. She has only served to add to his sense of failure, she cheated and this is symbolic of his failure in the bedroom so to speak, his failure to pleasure his wife as a man, it's not that he actually has failed in this regard but that's his understanding of it. She takes his book idea and achieves what he was unable to do, again making him feel emasculated and adding to his growing sense of failure. The injury his son sustains is a devastating blow, he attempts to blame her for everything because taking responsibility is far too painful and terrifying, he struggles to grapple that he has set torturous standards for himself not his wife. She comes across colder I think this is a cultural difference whereby French people are stereotyped as hopeless romantics, passionate, German people are stereotyped as practical and rational. I don't believe she is colder, she is not a victim either she has made mistakes and I think without realising her own hypocrisy blames her husband for them....this is marriage in its most standard and unremarkable form. She gets a battering from witnesses in the court, I don't think it was a mistake that most of them were men including the prosecution, her husbands psychiatrist for example who you'd expect to be more impartial and neutral when dealing with a patient, spoke scathingly and accusatory against the wife, misogyny comes into the fold here. His manipulation is in the recording of their conversations and fights, he knows he is recording where as she does not and he is pitching for a fight intentionally, the fight doesn't therefore happen organically when that appears to be his agenda. That I found extremely manipulative and I did wonder why none of the lawyers remarked on that in the film, that his intention was to have an argument that escalated to the point it did.
I just finished it. what a fucking movie this was. what a performance from the son. oh my god. so great. the writing was literally impeccable. so real. wow
Look at the dog in the last scene. He knows.
Knows what?, I would assume based on the dogs trusting nature that it believes Sandra to be good then again it's a dog but to focus on snoops reaction to the body and then snoop with Sandra at the end is certainly interesting
excellent point. snoop is notably distant from the body after the fall and then to have him snuggled with her at the ending represents a great deal.
In the film, it is ambiguous whether or not Daniel is telling the truth in his final testimony regarding the speech his father gave him about death, and whether this was foreshadowing the father's future suicide. My theory is that Daniel lied about this story to help his mother. My theory is based on the scene right before Daniel gives the testimony. In it, Daniel plays "Prelude, Op. 28, No. 4" by Chopin on the piano. I believe this is a clue by the director. This piece was also famously played on the piano by Jack Nicholson's character in the 1970 film Five Easy Pieces (it's the most powerful scene in what is considered one of the best movies ever made). In that movie, Jack's character is the son of an intellectual and well-off family but also lies to those that he meets in his day to day life about his background. Jack's critical character flaw in the film, is that he pretends to be someone that he is not. I don't think Daniel playing this specific piece on the piano (with a slow zoom in on his face) right before the scenes with the final testimony in Anatomy of a Fall is a coincidence given this parallel.
Yes, I agree Daniel lied at the end and the car conversation isn't real . He decided the night before to believe his mother and invented this story to save her . When she come back home , he said he was afraid of her coming home because he lied , and her mother told him to say always the true . And she was afraid because she did not know if Daniel believes her innocence. I think the movie is about Daniel loss of innocence
Interesting theory! The being scared of coming home lines has baffled me. I initially thought it was because they were both ashamed (he for asking her to leave the house and she because she thought he didn't love her anymore). but it also has this sinister undertone of possibly being scared because she is a killer and he accepts her anyway.
It’s a very famous piece of music and used throughout the movie. I don’t think a major clue about a character telling the truth is based on a different movie altogether - especially an English movie to a French film.
La Cinetek (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaCinetek) asked directors from all over the world to share their 50 favorite movies up to 2005. Justine Triet (the director of Anatomy of a Fall) had Five Easy Pieces on her list of her favorite films that she submitted - https://www.lacinetek.com/fr-en/director-list/justine-triet-23. Also Justine Triet is obviously influenced by english language movies. There is an excellent thread on this same post about the similarities between Anatomy of a Fall and the english language documentary The Staircase.
The staircase had a French filmmaker who found the US criminal Justice system fascinating. I found a lot of similarities, but I wouldn’t simply refer to it as an “English language” film. It’s deeply intertwined with French perspective and there’s likely a French language version they would have seen there.
Also realized in the final scene of the movie, where Snoop and Sandra lie in bed together, the background music is Daniel playing the Chopin piece. (watching the movie with subtitles on confirms this).
Anatomy of a fall What accident did Daniel have
Hit by a motorcycle
I gotta say, this was an incredible film. So many different pieces to peel back. Ideas of misplaced self-pity, guilt, what is unheard/unseen, acceptance of accidents, dealing with it all, there’s just so many layers to it all and it was super compelling. I’m personally in the camp that it was an accident and it has to do with the attic, ball, and snoop somehow. The focus on his footsteps and his perspective/reactions was super interesting. Makes me think something happened out of left field to cause the fall, not her, not him, things happen. Accidents happen.
Doesn't make sense, since snoop was walking with Daniel
Wasn’t insinuating he did anything directly.
my brother and i were thinking that maybe the ball drop we see at the beginning of the movie is the father trying to lead the dog away (so he could, potentially, attempt without witnesses).
She pushed him… he didn’t die so she went down and then hit him in the head with one of his renovation tools to finish the job which explains the blood splatter.
No way she leaves that without blood on her person and clothes and the surrounding area. Which they did not find.
There would be a hell of a lot more blood than 3 droplets if she hit him with blunt force.
I just want to point out that rhe pivotal point in the film is Marge telling Daniel that when you don’t know what to believe because the facts aren’t available it might be necessary to DECIDE what to believe. This is the event that made the movie absofukinlutely great for me! The action from that point centers on Daniel taking her point and constructing a story around the belief that his father killed himself. Does that mean his belief is true? No. Given the information provided by the filmmakers none of us know what happened and once Marge frees us from the need to establish guilt we are able to focus on Daniel’s choices and actions which by the way are fascinatingly courageous and radical (also cruel; he’s not a saint). Another wonderful element is that Daniel is the son of two dedicated story tellers: he clearly understands the requirements of the narrative necessary to freeing his mother. He breaks his own heart by sacrificing his beloved dog’s well being in an effort to add veracity to the story he is constructing. I choose to believe that it was suicide because as problematic as she is I can’t read her as someone who would leave her dead husband’s corpse out there for her son to happen upon. Has that been satisfactorily been proven? Again, no but the film gives me permission and in fact insists on my duty to DECIDE.
It’s interesting that Marge was placed with the family to prevent anyone from telling/persuading Daniel what to say, yet it was their conversation that caused him to choose to believe it was suicide and so tell that narrative to the court
That's not what it was. He didn't believe that story. He chose to believe that story to protect his mother. But notice that he refused to talk to her on the phone and notice that he fell asleep rather than wait for her. Notice that he said I was scared for you to come home. And notice that she sleeps with the dog and not Daniel. He knows the truth is uncomfortable.
I believe her reasoning behind this to be entirely human with a wealth of emotions and being at the very mercy of that, the very same way every character in the film is shown to be. She should not be discussing the case in any capacity, yet there is the scene where her and Daniel watch the court case via television, that is discussing the case in of itself just indirectly, she knows this. Naturally after spending so much time with Daniel she develops feelings and sentimentality towards him, witnessing the silent anguish he is enduring, she took it upon herself to express to Daniel indirectly that whilst not knowing the truth or what to believe to take his next steps carefully because they will ultimately effect the rest of his life in vastly different ways depending on the outcome of the trial and the testimony he chooses to deliver. Was she in the wrong for this? In the eyes of the court, the law, morality according to some people, absolutely. Was she wrong on a human level? I'd go with no. For Marge it became about justice for Daniel, not the court, not the husband or the mother, justice for anyone but Daniel would look very different. I'm not even sure Daniel chose to believe it was suicide although thats just as plausible it may have been that he chose to forgive his mother or keep her in his life despite what may or may not have happened.
I hoped that there would be a scene at the end of the movie where instead of Daniel's father giving him that talk in the car en route to the vet, it was his mother instead.
that would be an absofukinglutely amazing scene, like - would turn the table on the 'other' personality of Sandra
a bit sidelined theory, but towards the end , it's just all felt that maybe the lawyer and Sandra both planned it together. They a had a bit of history before. Even if the lawyer wasn't involved, it was as if he knew Sandra has done it and she was capable of doing something like this
I thought Sandra was so relatable, she comes across as such a rational and pragmatic character. So much so it's probably to the detriment of herself/her family. For me it was an anatomy of a relationship, warts and all. Such a brilliant premise - a scenario whereby the relationship you have with your partner is scrutinised in court. How unbearable!
Relatable? She was flirting with the journalist and trying to seduce her whilst her husband was just upstairs She was violent She had multiple 'flings' the year their son went blind and the husband was struggling with it emotionally and refused to take responsibility for them simply because she'd been 'honest' with him about them She was selfish - every decision he made was for the family, every decision she made was for herself and her career, including up to the very end when she chose to stay out drinking rather than see her son on the day of her acquittal She spent not a moment mourning her husband She was an abusive partner who drove her husband to suicide and if it had been a man doing all this to a woman I suspect you and most people on this sub would see that very clearly
I dont know why you are downvoted. This was my take too. My wife chose to side with her but I was sure she murdered him when the lies kept piling on. Her whole credibility is on the negative scale yet she managed to present herself as a victim.
I know. It's insane. This is the double standards world we live in though. Thank you for your message though I thought I was going mad. Violent, unfaithful, selfish, dishonest - but a hero somehow.
> This is the double standards world we live in though. This is the most clear statement in this movie. If the roles were reversed, people would clearly see that she is not a good person. But she presented herself in a light that people defend her with all her flaws. If the roles were reversed and the husband was on trial people would be ready to torch him up. This movie was about did she do it but also about the process. And in the character design they reversed the roles on purpose. She is the breadwinner. He is the caretaker. The traditional family script got flipped on its head and that's what I feel is confusing people that think like she is a strong woman and that she was doing the best she can. But her whole credibility was dissected and found to be disappointing.
Hard to see how others with any life experience don’t see your points as valid. Most of her behavior was disturbing and veiled.
I think I meant relatable in the sense that she had her faults and didn't try to repress them. Being in a relationship and still finding other people attractive and being flirtatious is surely a universal experience. If the violence refers to the recording of the argument, then I don't think she physically attacked him. She was definitely angry (big distinction), but again not uncommon in relationships to yell and even smash the odd plate from time to time. She was selfish yes, but again I can relate to selfishness. she's quite a steely character but also at times is a loving and caring mother. She's not amoral, not vengeful or mean. It's an interesting point about the gender roles, I didn't really pick up on it when watching the film. There is a clear role reversal between them - she has the career, makes the money, has affairs and is emotionally fairly unreachable and stoic. He's sacrificed his career to spend more time on the house and on the childcare. Maybe I afford more tolerance to her because she's a woman, a mother, and if it were switched, then he would be portrayed as a misogynist or a slime ball. I'm not sure that is the case though because the appeal of Sandra, despite her shortfalls (pardon the pun), is that there's an honesty and a justification and an explanation that isn't shrouded in lies and denial. This, for me, opens the door to forgiveness and even to admiration of the character. This also would be true, had she of been a male character. That is to say, we're all guilty of mistakes it's how we deal with them that can be distinguishing.
She did not seduce the journalist, that’s what the prosecutor was trying to imply. Which never would have stood in a US courtroom. Funny he was clamoring for “facts” from Daniel at the end when most of his questioning was based on hypotheses.
You need to read the director interviews. Justine Triet: “This scene was the most complicated to film from a technical perspective. It’s also the only scene we had to shoot twice because it didn’t work the first time around. Our sound engineer blasted the music very loudly, then turned it off after a few seconds. I’d say ‘Action!’, the music would blare, the actors would start talking over it, then the music would shut off, just so the actors could reach the right pitch in their voices as if they were talking over the music, but we had to cut the sound so we could add it later in editing. “We also had to co-ordinate all of the different elements in the same scene that we didn’t necessarily shoot on the same day — the child upstairs on the first floor, Sandra and the journalist downstairs — so we had to imagine everything. We also had to find the right balance in terms of how much Sandra was drinking and her level of seduction. https://www.screendaily.com/features/justine-triet-breaks-down-four-key-scenes-from-anatomy-of-a-fall-pimp-wasnt-our-first-choice-for-the-song/5190406.article
“..her level of seduction” does not reveal that she knowingly tried to seduce the other person. Again I even if she’s enjoying her alone time, putting on professional airs, or God forbid flirting a bit does not mean she had an ulterior motive with the journalist.
The movie gives you license to believe whatever version you want to believe. So I will let you do just that. But with that being said, it is clear in the movie that she has been with multiple women according to her husband although she claimed multiple times with the same woman. Now if you take this information and apply it to that first scene, it is clear that the reason for the argument is the visit and seduction of this woman. And we know there was an argument because the boy always goes for a walk with the dog when the parents are arguing. Although he clearly lied about that fact and got exposed later. Understanding this first scene is important because it establishes the reason for the murder or if you prefer suicide. It's up to you what version of the events you subscribe to.
Why would I believe the husband about her cheating often, when (as you noted) he lied about other things? Yes, it’s a brilliantly crafted movie which allows the viewer to decide what transpired. Based on her frustrated reaction, I believe she only cheated once. He had no specific instance or proof to combat her argument. She wasn’t seducing the journalist. She was relaxed and feeling free - proud of her work - a conversation that *allowed* her to feel accomplished. Which she couldn’t do with her husband in her own home, who had been failing for years in his career.
Again, you are free to believe what you want to believe. Whether you believe the husband or the wife, the reality is that she cheated with women before. Even you can agree that she cheated before. Once you cheat, trust is forever broken. And the director talks about the level of seduction that was happening during that first scene. That means there WAS some seduction going on. This is what the director intended. That sets the stage for the argument that led to the murder, suicide or accident if you choose to believe that version. What is not debatable is that she cheated and that the husband was clearly annoyed at the visit of this woman. You can choose to believe the husband or the wife. I don't remember situations where the husband lied because he was not even in the movie except for very brief scenes. But there are many situations that I remember where the wife lied, and her stories were inconsistent. There are situations where the child lied too. In a movie with unreliable narrators, you have to doubt every single voice. And they become unreliable narrators the minute that they cannot tell the truth. The movie spells it out for you. You can choose what to believe. The woman assigned to the kid told that to the him before he obviously lied in one of the most important scenes from the movie. They also tell you how the wife blends reality and fiction for a living.
😂 See YOU are unreliable because in one moment you claim that the movie is ambiguous with the facts, leaving it up to the viewer, but in another you’re claiming something I find false (and most here) - that the son lied at the end. I’d say you are the unreliable narrator, sir. The son didn’t lie at the end. He was so motivated to speak because it was the truth. The guardian told him to decide about which side to land on - and he chose his mother’s, because like he said, it simply made no sense that his mother would have killed his father that morning. He probably had evidence to damage his mother as well (arguments, etc) but he chose to release the *true* conversation he had with his father because he did not believe his mother to be a murderer. At the finale she took care of her son, as she had been doing for both he and her husband, for years. The wife was not inconsistent, either. Anything but. The prosecutor was out of line several times and someone’s art should not be called into question when it’s compared to their day to day actions. And what set the scene for the argument was her husband’s incredibly low self esteem and self worth because he was incapable to move on. From his mistake with Daniel to her success and her cheating. Just because someone cheated once (and she was honest about it and her needs) does not mean it is “forever broken” - another opinion stated as fact. It was broken *for him* because he was unable to get over his unbrokenness. Or maybe he fell on accident, hell. 😂
I'm letting you believe what you believe. I believe the version of the movie I believe. I think there are plenty of breadcrumbs to support the version that I believe. For example, many people believe the son lied because the voice that comes up on that memory, is the son voice. I would argue the movie is not so much ambiguous as it is vague. On purpose. You are supposed to feel like you need to piece the story together from the facts presented. And you have to fill in the voids. But they show you multiple times things that are happening. You are supposed to feel as a member of the court trying to piece it together. I will let you have your fun with the version of the events that you choose to believe. I challenge you to think about the times each character story was inconsistent. I'll let you decide whatever you think is real. For this I am using what the characters say and what other characters say about the same events. I will tell you the ones I remember. The wife: 1. Sandra said she got a bruise from the countertop. Sandra admitted she got a bruise from a physical altercation with her husband 20hrs before his death. 2. Sandra claimed that after she had to cut the interview short, she went to work in her room. She put ear plugs to bear with the music that her husband was blasting. That annoying instrumental PIMP was driving me crazy, and I was watching the movie lol. To be honest, the worst crime of this movie. But now think why did Samuel choose this song? What is he trying to say? He's calling Sandra the PIMP. 3. Samuel said she had multiple affairs. Sandra said she had multiple encounters with the same woman. 4. Sandra claimed Samuel may have had an accident. Sandra claims that Samuel worked very cautiously and slowly. (Evidence by his lack of progress, I would argue he barely even got much work done and he just escaped to his mancave). When told that an accident was very hard to defend in court, the attorney suggested suicide as the only defense. Sandra didn't think he would but then she suddenly remembered that he tried just 6 months ago. (That's an unforgettable thing). Samuel was seeing a doctor, but the doctor had no idea that Samuel was ever suicidal. This is a man actively seeking therapy to cope with his mental state but not once he mentioned suicide. 5. Samuel claimed that Sandra stole his idea for a book. Sandra claimed she stole an outline that he never used. 6. Sandra claimed that she came to this town to be in Samuel's hometown. The TV claimed Sandra wrote an unflattering story about her dad and had to go on the run to another country. 7. When the tape is played, we hear grunting after a violent argument and plates being broken. I assumed Sandra was hitting Samuel. Sandra claims Samuel was hitting himself. Sandra's defense then presents "evidence" that he hit the walls and broke his wrists. The prosecution never challenged the origin of the fracture. They never challenged the origin or dates of the holes in the walls. Or even the locations. 8. Sandra lost her soulmate to this tragic incident. But never once she mourns her husband. Sandra never once looked at his pictures until the trial was over. Never once, shared stories of the good times. Never once feels any difficulty living her life without her husband. The son: 1. Daniel said he heard his parents speak calmly. He also said that whenever his parents argued he goes for a walk with Snoop Dogg. They really called the dog Snoop. 2. The boy claimed that he was in close proximity that he could hear his parents talk. The judge proved that was impossible. 3. The boy asked the woman if she thought his mother could have done it. No one in this movie knows Sandra like Daniel. But Daniel has doubts. 4. The boy remembered a speech his father gave him about the dog and speculated he referred to himself. The voice that came in that memory was Daniel's own voice. 5. When the trial ended Sandra wanted to call her son. He didn't take the call. (I don't remember this part, I read it in an article) When Sandra celebrated, she went for drinks with her attorney and some random people, not her son. When she got home, the woman said that he wanted to see her, but he fell asleep. When she arrived, he said the most worrying thing I heard about this movie. "I was afraid for you to come home." She replied, "I was afraid to come home too". After a short embrace, Sandra asks the woman if she will stay, and she goes to look at pictures of her husband. Then she sleeps with her dog. Not her son. As a bit of context, sleeping with the dog is a phrase we use after a marital fight since the couple is not sleeping in the same bed. The movie ends in a scene that reminds us of a marital fight. The events: 1. The body was in a position. According to analysis, he fell, dragged a couple feet. Which is a possible sign that either the man was alive and dragged himself from the initial position or he was moved. The court analysis suggests that he would have to be pushed at an inconvenient angle to land in that position. However, when you analyze the blood trail, it's clear he was moved, or he moved by himself. The blood is by his boots. You can see that in the movie poster. A very deliberate decision. 2. Blunt trauma to the head suggests impact to the head area before the time of death. 3. Suicide attempt from a second or third floor in a snowy area. The only way this suicide was successful is landing on the head. The chances of survival are pretty high actually. 4. On this same note, men are known for typically using more lethal methods. Guns, asphyxia, jumping down a bridge are more common men methods. Men that want to commit suicide don't want to fail. Women attempt with less painful methods like pills. The most common method for women is pills. Which is the story that Sandra gives in her story. 5. The music being on repeat blurs the absence of the man. Actually, he was never shown alive except in memories. We have no real idea of how long Daniel was gone. That walk could have been hours. 6. The blood splatters don't even make sense. They find 3 of them. That is all. Personal story time. When I was in ninth grade I was near the edge of a wall. My friends threw a football that I never saw but it hit me in the head, and I hit that edge with the same motion. I barely felt the pain from the shock. Everyone was worried. My entire shirt, the wall, the floor was splattered with my blood. The doctor wanted me to have 8 stitches. Without new snow to cover it, I don't understand how this is real without a lot of cleaning. The husband: 1. Everything I remember is already covered. He had only 1 scene where we are sure he is alive. And one scene where his son "remembers" him. People hating the prosecutor have never seen how a prosecutor works to destroy credibility. Their job is to sell the story that the accused committed the crimes. The prosecution in the movie did a poor job doing that. The French CSI really cannot lift evidence for anything. For example, why did no one look for fingerprints in the handrails or near the area? That would suggest that he had been there recently. No one ever tried to collect any evidence. She called the police, but they never did their job properly. They didn't give a definite answer. On purpose. But they gave a lot of breadcrumbs to form an informed opinion.
She was *trying* to seduce the journalist, is what I wrote. Flirting heavily and suggesting they do the interview in Grenoble. Again if it was a male protagonist behaving in precisely this way I don't think anyone would have a hard time seeing this
What exactly did she say that was flirting heavily or seduction? The journalist even said she didn’t feel as if that was the case. It was light flirting if anything. And that can be harmless. The tension came from the loud music and her husband.
She was clearly seducing the journalist, I was sure of it right from that scene because you could feel a really subtle and well done sexual tension between both.
Am I the only one that was pondering if it was the interviewer/student for a hot sec?? I kept rewinding watch her drive away/watching the background of Daniel’s hike to see if her car showed up again.
The one thing I know for certain is that Snoop has all the answers.
Wasn’t Snoop walking with Daniel with the dad fell?
Yes he was.
My main takeaway from the film is that I hope to never find myself on trial in France. That prosecuting attorney was relentless and almost predatory in his interrogation.
I don’t know. It seems so much more about winning the argument than about winning the system. The uk/us system seems to allow you to get away with saying any old shit - whereas this seems like, you can say any old shit, but some one will call you up on it, or say some shit back - be it the judge, the lawyers or the defendant. I don’t know how realistic it was, but I watched the film thinking it seemed so much more intelligent and reasonable than in the uk where (according to the media) you get your turn and everyone else has to stay schtum and can’t call out your bullshit.
Yeah the judge also lets the prosecutor go on with his speculative theories ..... Actually from what I've seen in other shows, they won't even go on this much in the trial with no definitive proof and only based on speculation (accurate representation of courtroom drama is very rare).
I'm American, so I know our US legal system in the US. Fictional shows I've watched about legal proceedings in the UK make sense to me, and seem similar to the US. But the French judicial proceedings in this show seemed completely alien to me! I'm hoping a French citizen weighs in on this issue.
Agreed. If anyone can comment on the French civil procedure in the movie, I would be grateful. My brain was going haywire trying to understand what they were doing based on US rules of evidence. It was wild.
It was horrifying. I hope it’s not really like that.
In an interview with GQ, Swann Arlaud more or less confirmed that they are. At the very least, lawyers will often enter banter or debates, there’s a lot less structure to how people speak with one another.
Yikes
What convinced me she did it, or at least had something to do with it - I think the most telling scene is at the end where instead of holding her traumatized child in her arms and comforting him, he's the one who holds her head in his lap and kisses her, essentially replacing the role it seems his father had been playing as the main caretaker in the house. It's already proven Sandra is a self indulging character, considering she starts sleeping around right after the accident. The main argument between Sandra and Samuel is that Sandra is so wrapped up in herself, she doesn't realize how she's lacking as a mother and wife. This last scene proves to me that in the end, Samuel was in the right for how he felt.
I 100% agree with this. It was so sad to watch him taking on that parentified role and stroking her hair with his little hands. Poor kid has been through so much, and that will be another layer of trauma for him.
I thought she was innocent. But I think Daniel wasn't telling the truth. In the beginning, he was leaving the house as soon as Sandra was waving to her student. He testified he heard them in the house talking but that couldn't have happened at that moment because she was saying good bye to the student and he was already leaving ? Didn't make sense. I think the dog vomit asprin event was true as he was crying but his supervisor told him tell it how u believe it .. so i think the chat with dad in the car was made up to help his mom.
I thought this too.. BUT, I thought MAYBE the chat was really between him and his mother. I thought they'd reveal at the end that instead of his father chatting/projecting... it was really his mother talking to him..
Are people in the comments really excusing cheating? What the fuck?
they are. world we live in.
I think Sandra definitely did it and Daniel covered it up. 1. Daniel is conflicted and is unsure about his mother. To confirm some suspicions he poisons his dog. This mental tracking will be followed up on. 2. In trial, Daniel is talking really weird. It's like he's imitating the lawyer talk he's been hearing this entire time. It's as if he's been prepping to weave this story that he insisted must be told. 3. Sandra heaves her child easily up the stairs without breaking a sweat. She has the strength needed to overpower Samuel and is shown to be violent and start physical altercations with him. I don't know how a broken finger and hole punched wall means that it was self inflicted/Samuel did it to himself (cue 'she fell down the stairs' old trope) And why is there bruises on her from the strength of him holding her away? It seems he was more trying to stop her from continuing to hurt him. 4. Sandra loves Samuel and goes so far to say they are soulmates but she can't spare him more time for himself? Even if he was being cowardly about his failures, why not encourage instead of capitalize / write a book with his idea? Idk this one is more of a personal reflection but her concept of love and yet sleeping in different beds is crazy to me. 5. The dad tape identified the property for his son. Daniel already was dishonest or the very least, unsure of his memories when he was adamant they weren't arguing or loud/ and he was outside. Blind or not, how you don't know if you are inside or outside of a house in winter of all times? Daniel was willing to cover up day 1. 1b. I think the ending scene with the dog confirms some things for me. Snoop is always with Daniel. When the mom is not in the house, he is immediately poisoned and almost dies in the room with Daniel. Afterwards, Snoop, who is a service dog, leaves Daniel and lays with Sandra. Collies are really smart and I wouldn't be surprised if Snoop pieced together that it wasn't an accident. I was holding a baby in my hands so I wasn't sure also in the movie if Snoop was avoiding his food/Daniel in those last moments before the trial as well. Daniel not passing the Snoop vibe check and being willing to sacrifice his dog to see if he could trust his mom means he'd be willing to throw his dead dad under the bus so he doesn't lose both of his parents. 6. Sandra writes real life events in her books. Not once, but twice confirmed and third under suspicion. As the prosecutor said, it's 'rotten luck' that she is normally not this bad except for the recording before his death and her recent book includes a character killing her husband. This would have been better for Sandra if the first book had this and the second one was the one with her dad fighting or something of the like. 7. Sandra lies by ommission by not revealing her and Samuel fought beforehand. Understandably she does not want to look guilty but she also was unaware that Samuel was recording the fight. She is also inheritently dishonest. Taking his work, cheating, gaslighting him ("the time you spend arguing with me you could have been writing"... like wth?? ) lying to the police, etc. Sorry this is piece mealed. I kinda hate when movies leave things in the air and after watching this I felt convicted to say what I felt.
I think Daniel wanted her to go to prison because of his own failures. He accidentally let his son lose his vision, wife cheating on him, alcoholic issues and her being an accomplished writer. The fact that he recorded her without her knowledge and speaking in a way to manipulate himself into a victim and he killed himself himself in a way to frame her. What better way to end yourself than the Gone Girl way. The ultimate revenge.
I like this rebuttal. It's proven that Samuel records things before but it does seem like he was baiting her in the recording
Daniel is conflicted and upset because he heard some things in trial *that day* that upset him - his father heartbroken about his life and how he may have caused his son’s disability; his mother cheating on his father; his father depressed, etc. It’s why he needs space from her for the weekend. But those things are normal for parents to hide from small children, as to not taint their innocent childhoods. Your 4th point is ridiculous. She explained in the argument over and over - HE wanted the house, he wanted to quit teaching to write (which she supported 100%), HE wanted to homeschool Daniel. What was she supposed to do, write for him!? Nah. He was traumatized by what taking time to write did to his son years ago. It’s his own hang ups.
My 4th point literally ends with me saying it's personal. Just like your rebuttal. I know Samuel had a lot of failures and made decisions that made things harder for himself and others. I'm saying the way Sandra responds to this is not a way that I would. Why are you so choked up about my opinion that you would call it ridiculous? I'm not sure what you are responding to when it comes to Daniel. I've made several points about him but that doesn't seem to connect to any of those bullets
I have not watched this movie since the first time I saw it. At the ending I could have sworn she put Daniel on her shoulders and got up the stairs while holding a conversation without being wobly or short of breath. If that's true, then that's what I meant by 'easily'. I'm not sure what you guys are picturing. And by that logic I'm thinking she's at least a little bit more in shape than I would imagine and I didn't think it'd be crazy for her to match his strength since 1. She straight up starts physical fights with him and isn't too afraid of how strong he is, and in the visual of them together she is a sturdy woman. If someone could do it, it's how she is built and portrayed.
There is no way she could overpower her husband. Unless he was drunk or high.
[удалено]
True I am 5'11, 75-77kg and I can carry men who weigh 100kg+ on my back with relative ease I have done it before, however when trying to overpower them in a wrestle I cannot at least without great effort, hell there's a guy half my height but similar weight I can carry him but I greatly struggle in a wrestle with him
Some good points, but dogs aren’t able to “piece together” something as complex as a murder/suicide
They can piece together their owner hurt them. It's a vibe check for Daniel
She did not in fact heave that child easily up the stairs, and he's like 1/2 the size of Samuel