RUST AND BONE (DE ROUILLE ET D’OS) Galas

RUST AND BONE is Jacques Audiard’s follow-up to A PROPHET, which won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2009. With his new film, Audiard gives us Stephanie (Marion Cotillard) and Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts), two independent and strong-willed souls who bond in the aftermath of a tragic accident. The chemistry between Schoenaerts and Cotillard gives their rocky love story balance. The accident causes the confident Stephanie, a former trainer of killer whales to lose her sense of self, while Ali, a back alley boxer, struggles with having to choose between his own martial arts ambitions, being a good father and pursuing a relationship for which neither of them is ready. Cotillard’s performance grounds the film by giving Stephanie a fiery spirit that, at first, mediates the aggressiveness and testosterone driving Audiard’s tough narrative, and then ultimately fuels the film’s perpetual energy, the fire through which Stephanie must pass in order to emerge as a woman rediscovered and reborn.

– Jacqueline Lyanga