Rust and Bone - review.

Sophisticated and smartly passionate at its core... Marion Cotillard in Rust and Bone.

It hasn't been since The Five Year Engagement debacle have I seen a smart romantic movie. That film was letdown but the odd couple pairing of Emily Blunt and Jason Segel worked well and the film was reasonably intelligent if a little long and occasionally bland. Rust and Bone is far better than that and its two main players, Marion Cotillard at her best and relatively newcomer Matthias Schoenaerts are as much of an odd couple, maybe even more than the Blunt/Segel partnership. This film is as thoughtful as love story features go. The extraordinary circumstances of Stéphanie (Cotillard) and Ali's (Schoenaerts) meeting are so unbelievable that the passionate love they exude cancels this out and they suddenly become convincing.
After a freak orca-related accident cripples Stéphanie she lapses into a heavy depression that she doesn't resurface from until she meets the emotionally dumb Ali. He is a straggler, just out from a failed relationship with his young son, Sam (Armand Verdure) he finds himself on the doorstep of his caring sister Anna (Corinne Masiero). Landing himself numerous jobs around the small French seaside town he becomes closer and closer to Stéphanie. Soon you are unsure where their relationship is going.
Its touching and sad with a canny ability to make you love it through all its flaws. Rust and Bone succeeds in many levels and when it has the odd mishap, it picks itself up off the ground and amazes the audience.

4/5