Friday 12 April 2013

ONE TO WATCH: RUST AND BONE (DVD)



Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) is a bum who dreams of becoming a professional boxer. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Trouble is, Adrian has nothing on Stephanie (Marion Cotillard), a beautiful and confident woman who trains killer whales at Marineland. When Ali lands a job as a bouncer, he meets Stephanie, gives her his number and then forgets about her. 

She would probably forget him too, despite his kindness, but a tragic accident leaves the poor girl in a wheelchair and she turns to him for support. The odd couple begin to find new hope, but then Ali decides to enter the dangerous world of underground boxing and everything is ruined. Fear not, Richard Curtis and Guy Richie are nowhere to be seen. 

Billed as a French-Belgian romantic drama, Rust And Bone is anything but. Directed by the brilliant Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, The Beat That My Heart Skipped), this is a beautiful but at times brutal story that will stay with you long after the credits roll. 

Superb performances from the always watchable Marion Cotillard and Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts (equally brilliant in Left Bank), gritty realism and a superb score catapult a potentially humdrum story into one of the most heartwarming studies of human relationship submitted to screen, fully deserving of all of its accolades. Haneke take note. You may have the Oscar, but the scene in which a pretty girl seeks concillation with the whale that ruined her life belongs to Audiard, and that will stay etched in my mind forever more. DW


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