Relocated from its American-border setting in the short story source material of the same name, Audiard places us on the south coast of France and the allure of the Cote d’Azour, home to Stephanie (Cotillard); an Orca whale trainer at a local sea life centre whose life is changed irreversibly by two events of vastly varying severity. The first is her chance encounter with the physically imposing Alain (Schoenaerts); a new resident and single father looking to tie down regular employment in a mixture of security jobs trying his hand as a bouncer when his doorman duties collide with the partying Stephanie at local nightclub The Annex. The pair begin a quasi-relationship which only begins in earnest after the horrific accident that befalls Stephanie while working at Marineland, an event that invariably forces a change in lifestyle.
Without becoming reliant on Ali, Stephanie finds in him a companion whose candid approach to life and sex enables her to re-evaluate her own life and values and gently encourages her to start living once again. Eschewing the air-punching, life-affirming delight of other works like the recently released Untouchables, Rust and Bone’s success comes from its tone steeped in almost Dardennes levels of realism and, as you’d expect from an Audiard film, there is little room for sentimentality. At no point are we asked to pity either lead despite their various and very real challenges. Alain’s single father is light-years apart from a Will and Jaden Smith venture, his gruff barks to son Sam coming from frustration and anger as much as love and affection and there’s little sympathy (offered or given) when he struggles to control this anger. It’s an unforgiving role and one newcomer Schoenaerts takes in his stride turning in a wonderfully controlled performance both menacingly fierce and endearingly gentle in equal measure. Not to be outdone, Cotillard turns what had the potential to be a restricted, self-pitying role into one unlike any other. She has the ability to tell whole stories with the smallest gesture or look, conveying a self-conscious vulnerability alongside stubborn desire and seamlessly flicking between the two.
Audiard’s body of work from Read My Lips through The Beat that My Heart Skipped and A Prophet shows a film maker adept in telling crime stories about tough men in tough situations which allows the more personable approach in Rust and Bone to be brought to the fore while avoiding anything remotely Mills and Boon or TV-movie about a story that in lesser hands could have easily turned that way. On more familiar territory he shows flashes of his nuanced approach to violence; the fighting scenes are simultaneously beautiful and barbaric, taking in slow motion visceral beatings and culminating in a solitary tooth, bloodied and spinning on gravel.
That he so effortlessly marries the tender with the terrifying is testament to a director at the very top of his game, elevating the film to more than the some of it’s parts. It becomes neither an out and out romance nor a stripped down brutally macho piece but instead, much like life itself, a mixture of all different aspects that affect these characters and their relationships. An incredibly powerful yet restrained film.
Matthew Walsh
Rating: 15
Release Date: 2nd November 2012 (UK)
Directed By: Jacques Audiard
Cast: Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenaerts, Armand Verdure
