A young journalist interviews the writer Sandra Voyter in her secluded chalet in the French Alps near Grenoble. Meanwhile, the eleven-year-old son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner) bathes the dog and then takes him for a walk in the snow. The whole time, extremely loud, cheerful, yet ultimately aggressive-sounding, intrusive music plays on a loop, which is disturbing. Quite unexpectedly, the boy sees a man lying in the snow in front of the house upon his return, bleeding from the head and motionless. He calls for his mother. The father and husband, Samuel Maleski, is dead.
The diagnosis is: traumatic brain injury. Samuel (Samuel Theis) had been repairing something on the roof and might have fallen. Or it was not an accident, but intentional, caused by a violent blow. The autopsy report does not provide a clear answer. Suicide is also a possibility, as we learn when Sandra talks about Samuel's medication use and personal crises.
The guest who visits Sandra is, as it turns out, her defense attorney Vincent Renzi (Swann Arlaud). She is suspected, interrogated, charged, released on bail, and remains under one roof with Daniel, the main witness, regularly monitored by a court-appointed guardian.
How do facts and fiction relate to each other? When does memory deceive us, how do we manipulate it? How do perspectives shift? What is the autonomy of imagination? This is a practically everyday question, sometimes even a question of survival.
"Anatomy of a Case" only reveals its information in a measured way. A dramaturgically cleverly braked rollercoaster ride. Gradually, details or claims come to light: for example, that the highly perceptive Daniel has been visually impaired for years due to an accident for which his father feels responsible and for which the mother also holds him accountable. The family had financial problems. Samuel's weakness of character and Sandra's strength of will often collided. A recording surfaces that documents a terrible argument between the couple. Sandra denies its authenticity. We hear - and see (!) - this duel, which connects the directness of John Cassavetes with the depth of Ingmar Bergman.
Sandra Hüller is incredibly good in her unadorned purity, simultaneously showcasing the inscrutable surface smoothness and underlying depth of a Hitchcock heroine in a state of smoldering coldness, resembling humanly blooded marble statues; along with her restrained pain and anger and her emotional ambiguity. Among Hüller's filmic characters in twilight since 2006, this one is the most captivating.
The camera makes extreme close-ups and explores a face in the shot; there are changing narrative perspectives, subjectively filmed flashbacks, and the synchronously overlaid speaking of one voice by another. The nerve-wracking repetitions of police checks, reenactments, crime scene investigations, analyses, theories, hypotheses, and expert opinions contribute to the effect. Thus, a magnificent study of psychological motivation chains, entanglements, and explorations with thriller elements is assembled in its distance-aware closeness. The viewer is compelled to keep their thoughts together, adjusting to the varying speed, sometimes accelerated, sometimes restrained.
