On first sight, the eccentric and melodramatic premise of Jacques Audiards Rust and Bone is a hard sell. However, his follow up to A Prophet is gathering significant nominations, including the Palme dOr, and awards, winning best film at the London Film Festival last month.
Audiards second writing collaboration with Thomas Bidegain (who co-wrote A Prophet) is an inventive adaptation that combines stories and redraws characters from Canadian writer Craig Davidsons collection of shorts of the same name. Transplanting the location to the South of France, the script weaves complex studies of marginalized character with subtle and moving observations that invest humanity in brutal and brutalized individuals.
The film follows penniless Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts), who travels from Belgium with his five-year-old son, Sam (Armand Verdure), to live with his distant sister and start afresh on the Cote DAzur. Ali struggles to provide for Sam, whose custody has recently been forced on him by his exs prison sentence. On the train ride south, he scavenges through trash for leftover food.
A former amateur boxer, Ali secures a job as a bouncer at a popular Riviera club, and there first encounters Stephanie (Marion Cotillard). He rescues her after a fight erupts when she rejects an aggressive admirer. While driving her home, Ali bluntly tells her that if she dresses like a whore she invites such attention. After dropping her off, he gives the bemused Stephanie his number, in front of her angry boyfriend.
Stephanie works as an orca trainer at an aquatic amusement park. While performing as one of the ringmasters with the whales, a horrific accident causes Stephanie to lose her lower legs, after which she retreats into a self-imposed isolation. Frustrated by pitying reactions, Stephanie calls Ali out of the blue. Open for anything, he takes her up on her offer to meet. At first, hes shocked but brutally pragmatic about Stephanies situation, and coerces her to leave her apartment. He reintroduces her to simple pleasures: the beach, the sun on her face, and the freedom of swimming.
They develop a candid relationship. After having vested so much of her identity in her sexuality, Stephanie cant imagine feeling attractive again. Always up for casual sex, Ali offers to see if she is still capable. Initially refusing, she relents, and they begin a sexual relationship with Ali happy to perform whenever she telephones and requests if hes operational.
Directionless, ducking and diving to eke out a living to support Sam, Ali engages in illegal surveillance work with a shady colleague, who also persuades him to fight bare-knuckle bouts. Ali ignores the risks, becoming a worthy contender for the bloodthirsty baying crowd with Stephanies tentative support. Recognizing and accepting each others pain, their relationship evolves beyond the currency of the body that theyve both traded on in the past. Stephanie begins to fall in love with Ali, while her courage to overcome her condition provides Alis inspiration to win each fight.
Schoenaerts effortlessly embodies masculinity in all its complexityviolent but capable of great tenderness and consideration. Marion Cotillard also gives an extraordinary performance, strong and subtle. From the moment of Stephanies agonizing realization that shes an amputee, her condition is seamlessly re-created with visual effects and shown so often that the curiosity fades.
Capturing the sun drenched Cote DAzur, Stéphane Fontaines expressive cinematography contrasts hand-held, raw verité with lyrical compositions, like an orcas gracefully emergence from the cyan depths to court Stephanies touch through the tanks glass.
Audiard continues his tradition of exploring the complexity of unconventional heroes. With assured direction he blends dark humor, tragedy, violence, and suspense with taboo-busting sex scenes. Despite some plot contrivances, Rust and Bone is a stunning visual achievement and an eccentric and enthralling love story that should put its leads in the running for many awards.
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