Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
Katja's life collapses after the deaths of her husband and son in a bomb attack. After a time of mourning and injustice, Katja seeks revenge.
In the Fade is anchored by Diane Kruger's Cannes-winning performance, which carries the film through its three-act structure covering grief, courtroom drama, and revenge. The plot is competent but fairly conventional in its progression, and the revenge thriller third act is somewhat predictable. Fatih Akin's direction is assured but not visually distinctive. The film's handling of far-right terrorism and its human cost gives it some thematic weight and topicality, though it doesn't reinvent the grief-revenge genre. The ending is provocative and nihilistic but divides opinion on whether it feels earned or abrupt.