I think it's intentionally unclear. The film purposely leaves it ambiguous to reflect the complexities of legal decisions. I think this was shown in that scene where the French live-in supervisor tells Daniel that he must choose and convince himself of one of the two possibilities. What she said emphasized the theme of making tough decisions amidst uncertainty.
Exactly. That's the key scene.
shareI don't think she did it, because of the car crying scene. That was enough to convince me.
But it's hard to tell. What is certain is that there will not be a Primal Fear-moment in a french film.
I think it's most likely that the father committed suicide. I think his story about the dog to Daniel was a giveaway.
sharebut we know that Daniel's an unreliable witness, changing his mind often, probably making things up as well, and imagining things (the film frequently shows us back-flash type sequences of what he imagined went on, based on the trial hearings)....
shareI agree.
Though Daniel was unreliable at times, there was nothing indicate that he was lying to protect his mother (and she urged him not to). Besides, it’s not the kind of lie a child would come up with. Though it is something that would take time for him to accept.
I disagree that there's nothing to indicate that he was lying to protect her. He told the story about his father after Marge said he needs to decide what to believe. Before that he needed to do the "experiment" with his dog because at that point he wasn't sure what to believe. Even after the initial relief in his face when he finds out she was acquitted the reality seems to come back to him. He has his mother back but he still doesn't know what happened. In his last scene he's saying he was afraid for her to come home. Not literally afraid of her obviously but afraid of never knowing for sure.
I'm not saying any of this means she is guilty but I do believe he made the decision to save her.
It doesn't make sense for a man to try suicide from that low a height since surviving the fall with serious injury was a good possibility . Also, serious suicidal people tend to leave a suicide note which was absent here. So I'm guessing it was some sort of an accidental fall or a murder. I'm not sure that the boy's story of the car conversation was not made up or slanted to save his mother from prison. It was an excellent movie with great acting. 7/10
shareWhen it comes to movies like this, I don't think there is supposed to be an answer. It's just supposed to get us to talk about and analyze.
shareHad I known there was no clear answer at the end, I wouldn't have spent 2.5 hours of my life watching/reading this.
shareyou're one of those that want everything tidily wrapped up in a bow?
shareIn a 2.5-hour subtitled crime movie? Yes. Anyone who sat through this thing deserved a damn resolution.
shareI got you. It was an accident/suicide. He was depressed, but knew the fall probably wouldn't kill him, so he contemplated the idea. But he slipped and fell. The couple actually had an argument (the kid was conflicted about this and lied), and the last thing the wife said to him was an angry "why don't you jump off the windowsill?". Obviously she will regret this for the rest of her life.
Source: I was there and saw the whole thing.
While I'm uncertain if there even is a right answer or not, if there is, I'm more inclined to believe she did it.
One of the biggest reasons is due simply to the fact that her story seemed unrealistic, imo. She says that after Samuel ruined her interview by blaring P.I.M.P. (presumably in reference to Sandra acting like a pimp by cheating on him so much), her reaction was simply to head to her bedroom for a while. Then Samuel eventually pops in and they briefly have a casual conversation about nothing in particular. Then he goes back to working and listening to music and she starts doing some work in her bedroom for another 10 min before she plops in some earplugs and takes a nap. Then she's woken up an hour later by her son screaming.
It seems unlikely, to me, that there wasn't a fight that erupted directly after her husband embarrassed her and ruined her interview like he did. This is the same woman who, the day prior, nearly burst a vein in her neck screaming at him and who began physically hitting him during an argument. But she didn't say a word to him about THIS humiliation? And why would he keep playing it so loudly even after the interviewer left? And KEEP playing it throughout their casual conversation together? Then keep playing it for at least another 10 minutes while continuing to work on the house? For fun? I doubt even 50 Cent could tolerate the song on loop for that long. Granted, of course, I guess this could be argued as what drove him to suicide.
Add onto this her having lied about the wounds on her arm to both the police and her lawyer; her failing to mention their prior argument until a recording of it was unearthed; and the fact that right after the lawyer implies to her that a suicide is their best alternative explanation to his death, Sandra conveniently remembers an attempted suicide that literally no one else (including Samuel's shrink) has ever heard hair of before.
You are not saying correct things.
She was actually very calm and collected through the first option of the discussion. The husband was crying like a baby, blaming her for everything, and she still took it, said to chill and for him to do whatever he wants.
Only later, after he started with low blows - like saying Daniel hates her and calls her a monster - she lost her temper. But even then, she slapped him, only.
So it's actually understandable that she didn't even confront him on the loud music. Because she denoted that she was fed up with him and his childish excuses for his constant failures. It seems she just wanted to do her own thing and was ignoring his behaviors.
No. They're correct things. What I said was:
This is the same woman who, the day prior, nearly burst a vein in her neck screaming at him and who began physically hitting him during an argument.
We do have some proof, as it is known that he was regularly hitting walls, even breaking one of his fingers.
Since the beginning she didn't want to go down a road where she would put a bad light on Vincent.
The argument they were having is like many other couples have.
No. That stuff is certainly not "known". We know she said that he was regularly hitting walls and that she said that's how he broke his finger. But that's it.
What she says, though, without corroborating witnesses/evidence, means very little. She has obvious reason to lie and it's already been established that she'll do so when it's convenient for her narrative. We see a couple of photos of holes in the walls, of course, but none are obviously from someone punching them (some appear very tiny, in fact, and there's no info about them other than the fact they exist). We see an x-ray of a time he hurt his finger years prior but, again, there's no corroborating evidence of how he hurt that finger. For all we know, she's the one who hurt it (very Depp/Heard reminiscent, btw). No one else is talking about him behaving like this, though. Daniel isn't mentioning it, his shrink isn't mentioning it, no one is mentioning it other than Sandra — the person who has something to gain from people believing this story.
All we know is that she hit him, that she lied, and that she behaved violently toward him as little as a day before the murder. Also, I suppose, we know she'd been drinking a lot during both of these days and she, apparently, is capable of sudden bursts of rage-filled violence.
As far as her not wanting to go down a road where she put Samuel in a bad light (I'm assuming you meant Samuel), this, again, is just something we have to take her word for. Although, I don't know what relevance this is anyway. What are the things she lied about for his sake? Because it all seemed to be for her own benefit, from what I could tell.
Yes, she cold-bloodedly killed her husband and then played innocent to near perfection. After winning the trial, she believes she deserves some kind of reward for it. That’s when her lawyer friend, who was never convinced it was a suicide, warned her against being too greedy.
The Aspirin overdose incident was her initial attempt to murder her husband. Subsequently, her husband secretly recorded their arguments as potential evidence and confided in his doctor about how cruel his wife was. If anyone in the audience doubts her true nature, consider this: she turned her son’s tragic experience into a 300-page popular fiction book. In her own words, she justified that as “Money is better than crying in the car.”
Her son Daniel knew what she had done but chose to save her without lying in the court. Because in a murder trial, "reasonable doubt" is all she need to walk free.