User Reviews

There's a moment towards the end of Rust And Bone when something awful happens, and we are about to witness the ultimate tragedy. For that couple of minutes, the rest of the movie becomes irrelevant; we are just totally immersed in this act playing out. It's a brutal but wonderful sequence and, fortunately, it's not the first time we have such a scene in the movie. That's pretty much what Rust And Bone is: a series of wonderfully brutal sequences.

The movie deals with the relationship between two fragile individuals from opposite ends of life. Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) is trying to be a better father and a better man; Stephanie (Marion Cotillard) is trying to rebuild her shattered life after a horrific accident. Their need for each other grows drastically, but their real lives threaten to get in the way.

As far as story lines go, this isn't anything overly special. It's the kind of kitchen sink drama that we've seen Ken Loach and Mike Leigh do for ages. Fragile characters, broken homes, comedy out of tragedy, it's the usual stuff. Only difference here is that we're seeing it all play out in France, with French people speaking French and doing French things. But frankly, nothing is original these days; what matters more is the execution.

And what sets Rust And Bone apart from other similarly-themed movies is the execution. Working class France is shot brilliantly, looking gorgeous and despairing all at the same time. The special effects are top-notch, and there is a somewhat jarring quality to the editing that really works.

But what you really need to see this film for is Cotillard and Schoenaerts. I was trying to decide who I thought was the better actor in the film, but it's impossible to choose. They are both fantastic. I've never seen Matthias Schoenaerts before, but the guy is amazing. He manages to juggle pain and deadpan humour simultaneously, which is quite an achievement. Cotillard, meanwhile, is the usual perfect self that she is. Such an expressive face, and she's able to make even the hokiest of lines come off natural and genuine. I really didn't like her in The Dark Knight Rises but, clearly, she's at her best when she's speaking her natural language. They are what make these sequences brutal and wonderful, through their chemistry and ability to suck the audience in.

The rest of the film is scattered with great supporting cast performances, especially Armand Verdure as Ali's son Sam. The young boy is a joy to watch, and can be added to that ever-growing list of strong pre-teen child actors.

I'm pretty sure Rust And Bone has won a few awards, and deservedly so. It's amazing to watch, just because it's so fun to see brilliant performances. Like I said before, the story itself isn't probably that amazing. It's been done before; but it's done in such a way here, with those two central performances, that it feels fresh and original. You really should check it out.

Co-written by Audiard and Thomas Bidegain, and adapted from a collection of short stories by the American author Craig Davidson, Jacques Audiard's genuinely moving Rust and Bone is the story of two wounded people who form a bond based on recognition and acceptance of the others pain. Supported a lovely score by Alexandre Desplat, the film is marked by astonishing performances by Oscar winner Marion Cotillard as Stephanie, a young whale trainer struggling to recover from a horrendous accident, and Matthias Schoenaerts as Ali, a brutish ex-boxer who is unable to acknowledge or express his feelings.

Rust and Bone is not a film that is easy to describe. It is raw and visceral – a punch in the gut, yet it is also a film of intelligence and sensitivity, certainly an art film but one that is also geared to a larger audience, to anyone who has suffered pain and loneliness. When we first meet Ali, he is a man with dreams of making it big in kickboxing, but who is now at his lowest point. Unemployed, he has just left Belgium with his five-year-old son Sam (Armand Verdure) to live with his sister Anna (Corinne Masiero) and her husband in Antibes, a French resort town on the Mediterranean. As Audiard describes him, "he's nothing, he's a bum, he's nobody. He looks just like the people lining up at soup kitchens."

Though Ali appears to have a good relationship wit Sam, he relates to him more like an older sibling than a responsible father, as someone able to provide unconditional love. That the film allows us to see Ali as both a man of ferocious energy and innate sensitivity, a three-dimensional human being who elicits our empathy, is a major accomplishment. Stephanie, who works as trainer of Orcas at a local marine park, is rescued by Ali from an overaggressive pursuer in the club where he is a bouncer and the two begin a tentative relationship. In a moment of honesty, Stephanie tells him that her greatest pleasure in a relationship is to be observed, "I like being watched," she says. "I like turning guys on, Get them all worked up, but then I get bored."

The nature of their relationship, however, changes forever when Stephanie is seriously injured in an accident at the pool, losing both of her legs and, with them, her reason to live. The scene when Stephanie wakes up in the hospital to discover that her legs have been amputated is one of the most gut-wrenching I've seen. After a period of recovery, Stephanie, now fitted with artificial legs, reaches out to Ali for companionship and finds him open and receptive but brutally honest. For her, he is the only person she can trust to listen to her without judgment even though, in his brutal frankness, he tells her that she is "dressed like a whore," and casually suggests that they sleep together just to see if "she can still do it."

Despite showing concern for her needs, Ali has moments of cruel insensitivity when he picks up a girl for a one-night stand even when Stephanie is with him, prompting her to ask him, "Am I a friend, a pal, a buddy like the others? If we continue, we have to do it right. I mean consideration." Ali is determined to become a professional fighter and becomes engaged in illegal activities such as street fighting and doing surveillance work for his sleazy friend Martial (Bouli Lanners), an activity that damages his relationship with Anna and forces Stephanie to be a spectator from the sidelines. Although the film is raw, there are some moments of exquisite lyricism as captured by cinematographer Stephane Fontaine, in particular, the scene where Stephanie interacts with a killer whale through a glass partition in an underwater tank.

Despite the fact that there are some contrivances and melodrama in the plot that do not mesh with the film's gritty naturalism, Rust and Bone is a stunning achievement. As Eli moves to a new level of growth, not only with Stephanie but also with Anna and Sam, a haunting picture emerges of two people whose inner strength allows a crisis in their life to turn into a spiritual awakening, an opportunity to experience a new sense of being alive. As the Greek tragedian Aeschylus expressed it, "Pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

Jacques Audiard's films are always so frustrating for me. They are always marred by the violent male protagonists and his love of violence. The lead character loves his son, yes, but he's a horrible father and should not have custody of him. I kept wishing he would be arrested for his various crimes and put in jail. The extreme fighting scenes were unnecessary - he could have the same basic problems without the extreme violence.

Marion Cotillard gives a really interesting performance but I can't say I "liked" her. I found the special effects surrounding her missing legs very distracting. She was very contradictory.

It will be interesting to see on Thursday if the academy nominates 2 french actresses - I vastly prefer Emmanuelle Riva and if only one gets a nomination I hope it will be her. They should both get Cesar nominations; they are both Prix Lumiere nominees already.

In the 1994 film Forrest Gump Gary Sinese played a double amputee. He didn't actually cut off both his legs for the role (that would've been TOO extreme) but thanks to the marvel of special effects, he was able to go around in his wheelchair and even take a swim seamlessly. Now, flash forward nearly 20 years (Gosh, how time flies) and we have Marion Cotillard getting her legs bitten off by a killer whale, and the technology is even more amazing. There isn't a single scene where we're not 100% convinced she's lost her limbs, and the stakes are raised even higher when she's fitted with artificial ones. How they managed to insert this footage so completely into the movie is anyone's guess. I kind of don't want to know, as this would spoil the illusion.

Her characterisation, as a young woman who has to learn to start again after a life changing incident, is a beguiling one. It would probably be enough to carry the film by itself, but combined with Matthias Schoenaerts devil-may-care trained fighter (with a well hidden heart of gold) it becomes a great one. Their tempestuous relationship is the backbone here, and it is never less than captivating. These are two very different people; and yet they are perfect for one another... as long as both are willing to make sacrifices along the way. It is also my pleasure to report the rest of the cast are imbued with the same level of complexity as the two leads... These are REAL individuals we get to know, not dull cyphers. It all adds to a multi layered drama which is a true pleasure to watch. 7/10

I tremendously enjoyed this movie. Some people think this is a story about a girl who loses her legs. It's not. The story isn't about her. The real main character in this story perhaps is Ali, played by Matthias Schoenaerts. Well maybe it's not about him as well. What this story is definitely about is fighting. This story is not meant to be touching, it is all about coping strategies. With Ali it's really fight or flee, for Marie it's getting back on your feet after a devastating blow.

Matthias does an excellent job, acting a lower class man with no real education. He is simple minded and he is quite rude, but he has a gentle side to him.

I like the ink that Marie gets done, marking the stubs of her legs 'droit' and 'gauche', left and right. To me that is a subtle way of showing that she is beginning to accept her situation.

I found the casting for this movie refreshing. The looks of the characters aren't perfect. I find that I am getting tired of what seems that all actors and actresses are looking less distinctive than ever.

The setting is there, the cast well chosen, the topic of a provoking and infinite nature. Yet, this film, blind to all this, manages using rusty clichés to overturn the table.

"De rouille et d'os" simply does not succeed neither in making you feel unsettled nor in cinematographically encaspulating the harshness of the situation in which the actors find themselves.

A flat character (Ali), whose punches and sexual intercourse outnumber his personality tonal palette, fails to go further the character of a brutal(ish), new age, macho. The character development there, just is not.

Furthermore, the inefficiently "shaped" character of Stephanie makes do with presenting more her physical needs rather than the emotional torrent of feelings and sadness one goes through after having his both legs amputated.

The whole is, rather, wrapped with rusty clichés, cinematographical Hollywoodesque (sic) clutter that obstruct the viewer from diving into the character interaction, etc.

That was a great, yet missed, opportunity to produce a work of art.

Rust and Bone is new film by Jacques Audiard known largely for his breakout success A Prophet and concerns the burgeoning relationship between whale trainer Stephanie (Marion Cotillard) and street fighter Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts). If you can avoid it, it's probably best to avoid much of the plot, but given it's been fairly publicised this is fairly difficult, but this is a film that deals with disability, image and to some extent, class. It's been mentioned a lot, but what's really wonderful about this film is it's complete sidestepping of exaggerated sentimentality it could so easily fall prey to. In the wrong hands, this could be a feel-good, motivational tale of a disabled person overcoming their hardships and finding love and personal confidence with a emotionally crippled partner who learns to overcome his own shortcomings in a fantastical fairy-tale rather like another rather successful French film that was released earlier this year. In all honesty too, what I just described isn't completely far-off the narrative arc in Rust and Bone. The way the film handles its characters' emotionally however is so much more satisfying due, partly to the brilliant performances by both Cotillard and Schoenaert, but also in Audiard's writing and direction. After all, Rust and Bone is a feel-good tale eventually, but it takes a really long time to get there and doesn't revel in it. The two leads do overcome their physical and emotional traumas through their relationship but it is a slow process of recovery, one that is instantly recognisable in every day life. For a film with such a potentially over-the-top synopsis, it does incredibly well to stay focused on this small set of characters it presents us as believable and relate-able figures. It poses some fascinating questions; is street fighting really any more or less cruel than training beautiful orcas to perform tricks for our pleasure? Why do this father and son move in the first place? We only have to assume that whatever was going on before the narrative was worse than what is happening on screen. What was Stephanie like before her accident? And, like in Beasts of the Southern Wild, is being tough with your child sometimes necessary? These questions leave the film open, even though the main narrative is fairly straightforward. All in all, the sheer range of emotions this film produces is testament to it's strength. It is difficult and charming, brutal and beautiful, melancholic and humorous throughout, exactly when and where it needs to be. My only real criticism is that the narrative dips a tiny bit in the third act, once the central relationship is finally consummated (which again, takes along time and initially is very matter-of-fact in a suitably amusing scene), the narrative begins to drag its heels a tiny bit, as the film seems to completely forget about Ali's son (though his character seems to for a bit as well) but the final coda remains to avoid sentimentality in an excellent closing few scenes. The cinematography and soundtrack are pretty beautiful too, completing a fantastic triumph of an understated film.

Rust and Bone follows the story of Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts), a single parent struggling to provide for his young son, Sam, who develops a relationship with Stephanie (Marion Cotillard), a killer whale trainer, which grows stronger after she suffers a horrible accident.

Rust and Bone is a film that opened in limited release this past weekend and recently received a nomination for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. It is carried mainly by the performances of its two stars, Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts, both deliver excellent performances filled with emotion and heart break as their relationship goes through its ups and downs throughout the film. The story is very unpredictable and does a great job of getting the audience to invest in these characters and getting the audience to sympathize for them as the film progresses.

However, be warned, Rust and Bone is hardly a film for the faint of heart. Our heroine endures a devastating injury that is depicted and shown afterwords several times throughout the film. On top of that, the film contains several rather bloody kick boxing sequences that may intrigue some of the male audience into possibly going to check this film out. Also, the actors speak French as English subtitles are displayed on the bottom of the screen.

All this being said, Rust and Bone is a truly excellent picture that features great performances and an unpredictable story. If you're looking for something a little more than just your average romantic date night movie, I would definitely recommend checking this one out.

After the astonishing "Un prophète", Jacques Audiard brings us "De rouille et d'os", a completely atypical love story that he himself jokingly described as "a melo-trash", which perfectly pictures the overall tone of the film and the social classes on display.

By the end of the film, you will understand the meaning of the title "De rouille et d'os" (Rust and Bone), as both the elements mentioned in it portray the characters' respective adversities and the constant emphasis on their flaws as human beings.

So this is a love story, but like Audiard said himself, the social classes on display are not your typical Colgate-smiled, suit-wearing, warm-hearted yuppie or Beverly Hills blondie shop-a-holic bimbo finding out she's got a heart just as big as her beachside house.

This is no Hollywood romance in any way, whether you think of the people we see interact, or the way this whole story unfolds...it's just plain different, and very refreshing.

While a majority of female viewers seemed to dislike the character of Ali, as a man, I can tell you, this is a guy most of us can relate to in some ways. Irresponsible, poor, rough, opportunistic with the ladies, questionable manners, not really a good father, but, deep inside, a good human being nonetheless.

Stéphanie, on the other hand, starts off as a very narcissistic young woman, who enjoys teasing guys to admittedly revamp her self-esteem.

So we've got two characters that will get us to scratch our heads, thinking : "How can I possibly find any of these two people likable?" And the answer lies within the next two hours, where Audiard and his sublime cast organically bring two ordinary characters going through extraordinary circumstances together in what ends up being a beautiful and rewarding fight to becoming better people who love each other.

Now, these two characters are portrayed as fighters, as in most of Jacques Audiard's films. Ali is, literally, aspiring to become a pro MMA fighter, while Stéphanie, following a tragic accident, struggles to feel a slight bit of happiness after losing her legs.

But "De rouille et d'os" isn't about a woman losing her legs or some guy trying to make it to the big leagues of pro fighting...This film is about the power of two united human beings and how they are able to help one another overcome their respective adversities. It does sound very heavy, but Audiard made it clear when shooting the film (if you watch the making-of, you will see) that, at no point, he wanted this film to be overly dramatic, even when some situations that occur would usually send the characters down that path. In many ways, this is a fascinating character study, a quest for positivity unfolding in an emotional wasteland, with glimpses of affection subtly brought to the surface here and there, avoiding clichés at all times in the process.

Visually, "De rouille et d'os" is fabulous. The almost blinding sun crossing paths with the lens, the beach, the ocean, the warm Côte d'Azur setting...If you've ever been to Antibes, you will be amazed at how Audiard was able to capture the essence of that place and take it to the screen.

Some people thought the pace was a little slow, and there is a drastic turn of events that will seem to come out of nowhere a little bit. Some of the subplots do feel a tad undeveloped, but no harm done here, in all honesty. The focus remains on the two protagonists and picturing their daily living, where their relationship deepens its roots.

Also, to those who thought Ali was insensitive : This is exactly why Stéphanie feels strong when she is with him. Ali couldn't care less about her handicap. He just grabs her out of the wheelchair, carries her on his back, and takes her out for a swim after she spent months behind the closed doors of her apartment. There is this subtle moment when Ali takes Stéphanie to his sister's place, and she is all careful with Stéphanie, constantly feels compassionate about her, and suddenly, Ali, a tad annoyed, tells her to stop. This, right there, is what makes Ali so important to Stéphanie : he's the only person who doesn't look at her with pity. And that is where the bold, "insensitive to some" side of Ali becomes the remedy to her sadness.

Matthias Schoenaerts and Marion Cotillard are both amazing. You rarely see such an organic chemistry between two characters. This really is something special that will grow on you.

Fantastic cinematic experience. Rich in both flamboyant and subtle emotions. Again, some tremendous work from Jacques Audiard...and the two protagonists!

This movie has been recommended to me several times, so I thought I'd give it a watch. I have to say, I've spent two hours far more productively with my feet up on my desk and staring at my toenails.

Rust and Bone tells the story of two damaged people that, in finding one another, heal themselves and go on with their lives.

Except... that it doesn't. Whilst the male and female leads are damaged (she even before she suffers the loss of her legs), there is no noticeable character change in either of them. Oh... unless you count the sudden scene at the end - more later.

The male is thuggish, boorish and uncaring almost to a sociopathic extreme. He feeds his child leftovers from strangers and barely seems to care about the boy.

The woman is self-absorbed and dismissive of others, even calling her boyfriend "A small man" at one point early on when he is humiliated in his own home by the thug.

Neither of them is remotely likable. He comes across as a dimwit. She as a narcissist.

Then they meet. We are supposed to think there might be some chemistry between them but, frankly, I've seen more chemistry in a Christian Scientist's bathroom cabinet than these two conjure up. There's just nothing likable about either of them. They have sex. They discuss it in a horribly disinterested manner and basically agree to be each other's "friend-with-benefits".

If there was any chemistry I was hoping to find, it was bleach. Bleach. Thrown into my eyes to prevent me from watching any more of these two's ludicrous antics. But it was not to be, so...

I watched them heal each other. Or at least, I think that is what the story was aiming for. But it just fails dismally at this.

After getting together, both people do not change in even the slightest. He is still a thuggish street-fighter. She is still a self-obsessed prima donna.

The token concession to "everything-turning-out-alright-in-the-end" was the final scene, out of the blue. It shows the thug becoming a world champion martial artist whilst she stands by with the son by her side, his artful manager. A proper family unit at last! It is all ridiculously unbelievable and borderline insulting.

I hate to say this, but if the two characters had been given an ounce more humanity, a smidgeon more personality, and made even slightly likable, then the film would have suceeded very well.

Instead, the story focuses not on the relationship between the two, but on the two as individuals. It is utterly wrong. It's like someone asked Data from Star Trek to write a love story before he got the emotion chip!

Don't get me wrong. I love foreign cinema. The original versions of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo are far superior to the Hollywood remake. Same with Let Me In. But this isn't in that league. Not even close.

SUMMARY: Dull, focuses on individuals, not the relationship. Characters that won't grow on you no matter how much Baby-Bio you force feed them. If you are looking for a romantic drama, give this one a miss.