This movie is fairly new so understand that I’m not going to be going to many details of the actual court case or end of the films. Still, spoiler warning. Also, unlike the movie, I’m going to keep this short.
Sandra, a known novelist who takes inspiration from real life, is on trial for the death of her husband Samuel, a university professor who was found dead outside of their isolated French home. I don’t understand the legal system in France, so let’s just focus on the parts about writing.
One of the driving forces in the trial is Sandra’s relationship with her husband being rocky because she was an established author and he was a struggling writer. The day Samuel dies, he’s playing loud music while a university student is trying to interview Sandra about how their son’s accident is a thinly veiled plot point in one of her books. The same accident occurred on a day Samuel decided to stay home writing and sent a babysitter to pick up the son from school. Sandra suggests that the guilt over their son’s vision loss caused Samuel to stop writing for a long time. The court suggests that it was her blaming Samuel causing that guilt. I say - why isn’t anyone mad at the babysitter?
Anyway, before his death, Samuel and Sandra had a loud fight with destruction of property about their roles as writers. Samuel accuses Sandra of forcing him to always be on her creative schedule, leaving him no time for his own writing. Sandra accuses back that he uses her as an excuse not to write. Both sides feel valid to me, yet the whole scene made me very uncomfortable - and that’s something I’m filing away for later counseling.
There is also the insinuation that he is bitter that she used an idea from one of his unfinished novels for one of her published works and now he wanted to go back to it, but it was too late. She points out that he gave her permission to use the idea and this part of the argument made me side a little more with her. Don’t give away ideas, dude. That was on you.
The big thing I wanted to point out was that (and this is a big spoiler to the movie - you have been warned) Samuel had been recording family conversations and transcribing them for the book he was working on. Sandra knew this was a process of his, but when she finds out that he taped their argument about writing in general, she starts to wonder if he planned the conversation for his recording and creative process. I think that would piss me off worse than the idea-take-back-sies. Don’t manipulate your spouse for source material. You’re not F. Scott Fitzgerald. Get over yourself.
