Massive traffic on the bridge leading from Marin County to Berkeley kept me from seeing my second film of the day, so I only saw one. It was a marquee title, though. Anatomy of a Fall won the Palme d’Or (the top award) at the Cannes Film Festival this year, so anticipation was high and the theater was packed. While I think it the Palme d’Or was a little bit of a reach, it was a satisfying courtroom drama about peering into the the darkest corners of a relationship.

German actress Sandra Hüller, who already wowed the festival with twisted domesticity in The Zone of Interest, plays Sandra, a writer who seems to have a little bit of stress in her marriage. When her husband winds up dead from a fall from the top floor of their house, we find out there was a lot of stress in their marriage. Sandra wind up charged with his murder; the prosecution claims she struck him in the head and pushed him. Sandra believes it may have been suicide. The vast majority of the film plays out in a French courtroom, where the layers of the couple’s complicated relationship are peeled back. The case may come down to the memories of the couple’s young, blind son. Was it murder, an accident, or suicide? We eventually get a verdict, but do we actually get an answer?

Anatomy of a Fall is a very good courtroom drama…even if, as a lawyer, the freewheeling process of a French trial was crazy to watch. Some of it may have been exaggerated for dramatic purposes. It worked; the trial is entertaining even at about an hour and a half of the movie. But the big draw is Hüller’s performance. She plays Sandra with enough ego and emotional distance to make us believe that she may be a killer even as she insists she’s not. It’s a wonderfully human performance with just enough chilliness to match the snowy French Alps setting.

I didn’t think Anatomy of a Fall was a startling new achievement in the craft of filmmaking or anything like that (although the filmmaking is quite good). But, as a courtroom drama and character study, it more than does the job of engaging and keeping up the suspense.

Anatomy of a Fall will be in select theaters starting on October 13.

(Photo credit: NEON)