Rust & Bone (A- or 3.5/4 stars)
'Rust & Bone' (a gritty french drama directed by Jacques Audiard, A Prophet) begins by showing Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) & his 5 yr. old son hobo-ing their way from Belgium to the south of France; thumbing rides, hopping trains, & stealing for food. Ali is heading to his estranged sister's home, where he hopes to unload his boy & go searching for work. Ali has a rough life & dreams of making it big as a mixed martial arts boxer. In the meanwhile, he lands a job as a bouncer in a nearby nightclub. And that's where crosses paths with Stephanie (Marion Cotillard), who works as an Orca trainer at a Seaworld-like park.
She & Ali have an initial spark, but her spiky personality & his guarded reserve lead us to believe that their crossing paths won't likely lead anywhere. But after Stephanie suffers a horrific accident at work (with the film's most terrifying set piece), she reaches out in desperation to Ali. With her spirit shattered by the tragedy that took her legs, Stephanie slowly finds the courage to keep on living trough small, but meaningful moments spent with Ali. 'Rust & Bone' tracks these 2 souls - his life rooted in violence, hers marked by a sort of emptiness - as they discover how much they challenge each other, as well as need one another. This unlikely pair falls into a strange, tentative, if tender courtship that unfolds in ways that are unexpected, honest, & intimate.
Director/co-writer Audiard hurls his characters into whirlwind scenarios that are filled with fateful turns of events. But there's also a truthful-ness here in the way Ali & Stephanie latch on to each other out of need ... and then start to realize they are in love. You know, 'Rust & Bone' has a tricky emotional tone. The movie offers blunt, bleak naturalism throughout, yet culminates in well-earned uplift. This film is also one of those that never give we, the audience, a clear sense of where it's going. But thanks to the skilled Jacques Audiard, 'R&B' turns out to be surprising & executed with unsentimental compassion for the main characters & their plight.
The 2 leads generate strong chemistry in their very strange romance. Schoenaerts, as we saw in Bullhead, has that wonderful, yet rare combination of an imposing presence + vulnerability. Ali is a fairly unsympathetic character, yet Schoenaerts reveals unexpected layers in him; imbuing enough shades of humanity so that we come to care for him (especially after a 3rd act near-tragedy). After falling into a callous world of illegal boxing & dealing haphazardly with his son ... it took someone like Stephanie to iron him out, a bit. Speaking of Stephanie, she isn't warm & fuzzy either ...
But through Marion Cotillard, we come to understand where she's coming from. Thanks to the aid of visual effects, Stephanie's absent limbs are wholly believable, as are the prosthetics she gets fitted with later on. But it is what Cotillard does with her body & her expressive eyes that bring real believability & unleashed emotions to Stephanie. It's a superbly nuanced performance (the seismic shock she experiences in the hospital when she discovers she has no legs; the exhilaration of the moment when Katy Perry's "Firework" plays and she reenacts the dancelike gestures she used when she worked with the whales).
So we harbor misgivings about these scrappy characters. But thanks to this acting duo, we come to care for them as they learn to fight their physical/psychological wounds. This is a tough little movie about tough people and most audiences may not tap into all that it's about. But for me, the director displays an unconventional yet deeply felt study of human frailty; a raw love story between a boxer with broken hands & a whale trainer with no legs who bring each other back to life. What could have been bizarre, sentimental or contrived here becomes absorbing. So 'Rust & Bone' - quite surprisingly - has become one of my favorite films of the year.
She & Ali have an initial spark, but her spiky personality & his guarded reserve lead us to believe that their crossing paths won't likely lead anywhere. But after Stephanie suffers a horrific accident at work (with the film's most terrifying set piece), she reaches out in desperation to Ali. With her spirit shattered by the tragedy that took her legs, Stephanie slowly finds the courage to keep on living trough small, but meaningful moments spent with Ali. 'Rust & Bone' tracks these 2 souls - his life rooted in violence, hers marked by a sort of emptiness - as they discover how much they challenge each other, as well as need one another. This unlikely pair falls into a strange, tentative, if tender courtship that unfolds in ways that are unexpected, honest, & intimate.
Director/co-writer Audiard hurls his characters into whirlwind scenarios that are filled with fateful turns of events. But there's also a truthful-ness here in the way Ali & Stephanie latch on to each other out of need ... and then start to realize they are in love. You know, 'Rust & Bone' has a tricky emotional tone. The movie offers blunt, bleak naturalism throughout, yet culminates in well-earned uplift. This film is also one of those that never give we, the audience, a clear sense of where it's going. But thanks to the skilled Jacques Audiard, 'R&B' turns out to be surprising & executed with unsentimental compassion for the main characters & their plight.
The 2 leads generate strong chemistry in their very strange romance. Schoenaerts, as we saw in Bullhead, has that wonderful, yet rare combination of an imposing presence + vulnerability. Ali is a fairly unsympathetic character, yet Schoenaerts reveals unexpected layers in him; imbuing enough shades of humanity so that we come to care for him (especially after a 3rd act near-tragedy). After falling into a callous world of illegal boxing & dealing haphazardly with his son ... it took someone like Stephanie to iron him out, a bit. Speaking of Stephanie, she isn't warm & fuzzy either ...
But through Marion Cotillard, we come to understand where she's coming from. Thanks to the aid of visual effects, Stephanie's absent limbs are wholly believable, as are the prosthetics she gets fitted with later on. But it is what Cotillard does with her body & her expressive eyes that bring real believability & unleashed emotions to Stephanie. It's a superbly nuanced performance (the seismic shock she experiences in the hospital when she discovers she has no legs; the exhilaration of the moment when Katy Perry's "Firework" plays and she reenacts the dancelike gestures she used when she worked with the whales).
So we harbor misgivings about these scrappy characters. But thanks to this acting duo, we come to care for them as they learn to fight their physical/psychological wounds. This is a tough little movie about tough people and most audiences may not tap into all that it's about. But for me, the director displays an unconventional yet deeply felt study of human frailty; a raw love story between a boxer with broken hands & a whale trainer with no legs who bring each other back to life. What could have been bizarre, sentimental or contrived here becomes absorbing. So 'Rust & Bone' - quite surprisingly - has become one of my favorite films of the year.