It is a meticulous study of the characters portrayed brilliantly by Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts, who switch between brutality and tenderness throughout this multilayered story written and directed by Jacques Audiard who also made the unforgettable "Un Prophete". Once again he creates a film that has got me talking about it.

fascinating, poignant and spectacular life message, Rust and Bone plays with the lives of these people in a way enigmatic, offer to a Marion Cotillard providing her best performance from La Môme.

The film is a powerhouse. The emotions it portrays and arouses are raw. The pile-up of bad luck disasters might strain credulity were it not for the performances by Cotillard and Schoenarts, She will win most kudos because she must act with prosthetic limbs, but it's his work that really is remarkable. He is a man who continually disappoints and redeems himself--it's brilliant work.

Sometimes, the most memorable moments in life; the most life lasting encounters you make and the people who affect your life the most, are presented to each person at the most unusual moments and rather misunderstood times. Life is a plethora of unknowns; a catalogue of mysteriousness and uncertainty. Jacques Audiard’s newest film attests to these simple yet rather complicated notions. Rusust And Bone is plagued with beautiful instances of utter truth and stark realities.

Based on the short-story from Canadian author Craig Davidson, the film introduces us to two simple yet complex characters.
Ali Van Versch, played with such force and acting momentum by the dazzling and captivating newcomer Matthias Schoenaerts, is a broke and down to his luck single father. After arriving in Antibes with his son Sam (Armand Verdure), Ali stays with his sister Anna (Corinne Masiero) and her partner, who are both struggling to make ends meet. Without any money or a job, Ali soon finds employment as a bouncer at a local club; a position he was able to attain quickly given his experience as a kick-boxer and his passion for fighting. Stephanie, played by the always impressive Marion Cotillard, is a killer whale trainer and sea-mammal enthusiast.
While breaking a fight, that leaves Stephanie on the bloody end of a fist at The Annex, the club Ali works at, turns into a chance meeting that will change both Ali and Stephanie’s life forever. Disoriented and alone, Ali offers to drive Stephanie home. After the night at the club and meeting Ali, Stephanie returns to work.
The next day, tragedy strikes at Stephanie’s workplace, leaving Stephanie’s world unravelling and crippled—crippled of her passion, crippled of her vigour to live and crippled of her beauty. Unable to deal with Stephanie’s disfigurement, many of the loving people in Stephanie’s life have now disappeared, including her boyfriend. In an act of desperation and impulse, Stephanie calls Ali. Ali, a rough, tough man whose experiences inside the fighting ring and in life, treats Stephanie as if nothing about her has changed at all. Together, the two begin a fantastically revealing and life-changing journey together. A harrowing tale of chance and love, Rust and Bone is the anticipated film following Jacques Audiard’s festival wonder Un Prophète. A stark difference from his previous effort, Auidard opted for the colourful and flaring images of France compared to the grey and cold confines of a prison. Rust and Bone is a film that has no limitations, and if it does, it is shadowed by Audiard’s confidence as a filmmaker. Exploring all the beauty and wonders of the small marvels around us, the film is a refreshingly free cinematic breath of fresh air. Saturated with colourful and grainy montages of beaches, sea-life and water, Cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine does everything in his power to make Rust and Bone a natural visual spectacle.
Lead by two of the most physically powerful performances of 2012, both Cotillard and Schoenaerts’ bring a power to their characters that change your perspective of them, even in their faults. What begins as a friendship, and Ali’s successful attempts to reconnect Stephanie to the beautiful world around her with small acts like: swimming, unemotional sex and strolls along the sun-kissed beach of Cannes, turns into something more. The two begin a love affair, although their relationship is anything but romantic. Rusted with hurt in their hearts and frail by the world around them, the two begin a courtship. Both characters are broken physically. Whether it be Stephanie and the loss of her two legs, or Ali, and his persistence to chase his passion of fighting within the French-Underground world of street prize-fighting, the two characters heal each others pains, both emotionally and physically. Surrounded by pain and hurt, Rust and Bone allows for every colour—every drop of blood to appear more viscous; every solar flare to appear more sun-kissed and every emotion on screen, to resinate with the audience.
Rust and Bone is a fantastic film with overlooked performances. Schoenaerts, who is on my list of actors to watch rise in the next few years, was a personal favourite staple of the film. His chemistry and rawness was the binding factor that interconnected the beauty of France, the elegance of Stephanie and the brutal reality of the economic situation of France (and Europe as a whole), and the attempts of fragile everyday people, trying to overcome it. As the film fades to white and the credits role, Rust and Bone is a long-lasting and hopeful account of everyday people presented with the ability to be the best versions of themselves, as long as hope and acceptance endures.… Expand

Marion Cotillard is even better than I already thought she was. In this understated part she does everything with practically her face alone. Her fleeting expressions, a slight turn of her head or a raising of her chin, or just a deadpan look is virtually as good as any written dialogue. Don't worry, there is dialogue and she does speak words, but in this somewhat purposefully low-brow and low-ball film our expectations are often dashed. There are likelihoods in life as in movies and unlikelihoods, and when an unlikely character forms an unlikely union with another character who is very unlikely to join in this union, we feel certain that it cannot last and that it could end badly. But the way these actors work, the way the director has chosen to shoot and edit it, the way he has given his actors certain freedoms that can really only be given to actors who are superior in their skills, there are no certainties until there are. If these professional criteria are met it is possible to make a film that cuts across the grain of human expectations. A brainy girl who likes a brawny almost-seeming illiterate guy, where can that possibly go? And who does the changing here, or does anyone really change? That's a question that is answered with a minimum of mawkishness and sentimentality. In fact, this movie is more direct and less mumblecore than many other films with a similar theme. I gave it an 8. Four stars on Netflix. I really enjoyed it. I think it is one of those rare movies that doesn't make you feel cheated in some way after it's over. See it.… Expand

Marion Cotillard shine on entertaining Rust and Bone. Compelling, emotional and funny although the subject is serious. Losing legs doesn't mean losing vagina, the movie tell us the basic rule of sincerity with hilarious way.

Marion Cotillard delivers her best performance since La Vie en Rose in this powerful, emotional and raw film, where she shares the screen with a surprisingly outstanding Matthias Schoenarts. The film is great, but it simply shines when she's on the screen. Magnetic, fragile but at the same time strong, her emotionally devastating Stéphanie is absolutely Oscar worthy. The only little "but" I would point out is that she's not exactly the leading character (It's Ali's story), so her plot sometimes appears a bit cut and, while her character developes a lot at the beginning, she's left a little bit behind in the end. Anyway, that helps Matthias to prove himself as an outstanding acting force in the brilliant ice scene (and later in the phone scene, where he shows his fragility).
Mark: 8,5-8,75… Expand

I was going to review this movie in detail-but then I read "lasttimeisaw" thorough review herein and thought: why stay up for the next hour over-analyzing when its done done so well already? Read that review. I will add this: this is a film well worth seeing for its brutal honesty and belief in redemption. I give it a solid 8 for Cotillard's great performance alone.I agree that there is a significant schism in Ali's character-usually men that tough are either very tender with women and children-or they are nuts with everyone-and the director perhaps too cleverly tries to portray Ali as tender with her and too harsh with his son-but its not a fatal flaw. Anyone who watches a Hollywood movie and enjoys them waives the right to even mention the issue in this film.Meanwhile, this is a "romantic" film a guy can take his girl to see and love.… Expand

Favorable

Cotillard and Matthias are two of my favorite actors, so I was looking forward to this film. It delivers on many levels - the visuals are incredible, to say the least. The blunt, animalistic nature of Ali turns out to be the perfect antidote to the recently disabled orca wrangler, which is inspiring. But the Ali's extreme selfishness and lack of regard for his son was a bit over-the-top, and it detracted from the effectiveness of the film as a whole. It was so extreme as to border on the unbelievable. Perhaps the filmmakers could have dwelt a bit more on the circumstances through which the boy's mother left the picture and the fighter's response to it. Cotillard is SO effective in her role that she makes up the film's broader shortcomings. I got the sense that the film could have been so much more with the talent behind it.… Expand

The reflexive response while watching this film is an over-stressed anguish-stricken tone which could be elicited from another French-speaking melodrama OUR CHILDREN (2012, 7/10), a thrilling familial calamity engendered by the neglectful repercussions of a mother's puerperal melancholia from director Joachim Lafosse, which has been named as Belgium's entry of the upcoming Oscar season, while RUST AND BONE ruefully missed the quota from France (the 2011 box office monolith THE INTOUCHABLES, 8/10, surprisingly nabbed the opportunity, which is very auspicious to be nominated among the final five). As the masterly Jacques Audiard's follow-up after the awards-sweeping A PROPHET (2009, 9/10), a riveting prison drama about a rookie Arab's staggering ascendency as the big wheel among the confronting mafias, which heralds the prime period of his career, RUST AND BONE has inherited the narrative's forceful impetus, with staples like altercations, violence (the brutal black market boxing), accidental tragedies and post-trauma syndrome successively strike throughout the main characters' lives and being graphically thrust in front of viewer's retinae, sparking off a quite sophisticated bitterness with certain quantity of compassion. From BULLHEAD (2011, 8/10), a hefty Matthias Schoenaerts proceeds on adroitly with his rough diamond bearing, and utterly radiates his masculinity with his hunky stud physique, seamlessly accomplishes his (rite-of-passage) portrayal of a blood-thirsting but benevolent, playing-the-field but innocent, sometimes irresponsible but ultimately devoting single father with a 5-year-old son; so to speak for the Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard, as the co-lead, a orca-trainer lost her legs during a live-show, thanks to a praiseworthy green screen capture technique and Audiard's deliberate generosity which gives her prolonged lingering close-ups to refract a rehabilitating journey of a despondent heart; Cotillard is almost impeccable in carefully moulding her role's nuanced yet protean traits (please sticking to your mother tongue instead of meddling with American hot stuffs). Although this time, the character is much thinner than her Oscar-snatching one-man show LA VIE EN ROSE (2007, 8/10), Cotillard's chance of a second nomination is quite possible (currently she is my No.4 of the year), but for Mr. Schoenaerts (my No. 2 of the year notwithstanding), his competition will be much more portentous (a lower repute does hurt). By and large, the film is far less intriguing than A PROPHET, there are some palpable (tedious) moments which one may sense the camera really overstays its welcome (e.g. the drama between the brother and sister is awfully cliche), since the script adapted by Craig Davidson's original novel is quite straightforward, it replies too much on the emotional curves of the two leads (in spite of the superb performances) when grappling with their debacles in life to propel the film through its pleasing ending, which is a blunt maneuvre judging by Audiard's talent. But in another way, there are remarkable and mesmerising shots aplenty (a great Steadicam work from DP Stéphane Fontaine), the scenes of Marion and orca re-connecting alone are beyond any ineffable beauty a film could present. Last but not the least Alexandre Desplat's original score has its subtle but competent existence which hones up the film's many theatrical episodes (the ice surface rescue part, to wit).… Expand

Jacques Audiard's newest film is a beautifully subtle character study, carried by the wonderful and realistic performances of Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts. The film tells the story of an emotionally distant and tormented man who meets a woman who's had an accident and has lost both her legs. The entire film is a slow-paced and detailed study of both characters, who grow closer and eventually overcome the problems of their lives and move on. Despite its bleakness, 'Rust and Bone' is an optimistic film. Audiard creates an anti-romantic tale. The circumstances and the relationship between Ali and Stephanie are unconventional, fresh and deeply intriguing. The film's cinematography is fluid and kinetic, creating an awe-inspiring canvas of feelings and moods. Despite the rawness and the subtlety of the film and its lead performances, though, the film is flawed. The film's third act is contrived and manipulative, which was a surprising disappointment for me, because the first two acts were low-key and realistic. Also, the screenplay is kind of fragmented, never fully focusing on each of the two characters, never really deepening into their psyche. There are also subplots which feel unnecessary and strangely dull. There are flaws here, but the result is quite rewarding. Led by two wonderful performances, this is a poignant, humane and unsentimental film that is worthy of the attention of cinephiles and fans of European cinema.… Expand

Marion Cotillard stars as a whale trainer who loses her legs (thanx to some impressive CGI) and Matthias Schoenaerts plays a street fighter (and father of a young boy) who can't seem to get his act together. This French import develops thru their relationship, which unfolds in typical European episodic style (less narrative, fewer words). The performances are solid, but it's never particularly moving or forceful. A well-told character study.… Expand

This is not a happy film. Marion's legs get chomped off by the Orcas she trained herself, lands in a wheelchair and befriends Schoenaerts who plays a rather unlikeable bouncer who does bare knuckle boxing fights with other degenerates for cash money and also he has an annoying kid. Maybe it sounds funny in a certain way but it surely isn't. That being said, it's well acted, Marion realy seems to have no legs so kudos to the VFX guys and the cinematography is quite good but the film maybe somewhat overrated. It popped-up in nearly every best films of 2012 list, but it won't be in mine.… Expand

Honestly, I'm not impressed with this movie that much. And it may be the weakest contender in the Golden Globe Best Foreign Language Film category because other nominees are too damn brilliant. Marion Cotillard's performance is good, she portrays a damaged person wonderfully, all that inferiority complex and those expressions when people are showing pity on you, seem downright flawless at times. The plot of the film has been dealt with in so many films in different ways that it has lost all its freshness and originality and every time I watch a movie like Rust and Bone, I don't feel moved at all. It's very rare when it happens, like this year Amour did to me, now that's one hell of a film. Rust and Bone may not be a great drama but the performances are really great, I give them all the appreciation for performances.… Expand