It turns out that Stéphanie is not a whore, but an orca trainer. Soon afterwards, while performing at a water park, she loses both her legs in a freak accident. Recently my friend had his hands bitten off by an alligator, so this brought up some painful memories. Some time later, Stéphanie is at a low point, and calls Ali. They enjoy each other’s company, and start spending more time together, obviously.
The film has a lot to say about male and female bodies. Stéphanie struggles to regain her sense of womanhood after the accident. Ali, with his straightforward manner and lack of embarrassment or cloying pity, puts her at ease and helps her feel beautiful again. (Although casting Marion Cotillard is kind of cheating – even with no legs she’s easily the most beautiful thing in the film.) The first time they meet up, Ali takes Stéphanie swimming at the beach, and she gets naked in public for the first time since the accident.
For his part, Ali has problems accepting responsibility, and in many ways he’s too flawed to like. Time and again he’s shown to be a terrible father, neglectful and quick to anger. Of course, I could quibble about gender stereotyping and the like, but the whole thing is handled with such awareness and sensitivity that that would be missing the point. Unlike so many irresponsible male leads, Ali is appropriately punished for his anger and thoughtlessness. He doesn’t “redeem” himself by “saving” Stéphanie; their relationship is far too nuanced and real to be reduced to such simplistic terms.
Rust and Bone is an utterly brilliant film. Beautifully shot, the settings and characters tumble out of the screen in a dreamlike haze, an evocative and intimate jumble. The love story slowly grows and swells, without ever reverting to a Hollywood cookie-cutter romance. It’s a fundamentally honest story: there are no hysterics, no artificial spanners cast into the works, no impassioned monologues or implausible feats of eloquence. It may sound boring, but it’s not. The actors are so good and the characters so real that it’s impossible not to be drawn in.
It could have been a horrible, “worthy,” mawkish monstrosity, but Rust and Bone never looks for the obvious emotional angle, it avoids cliché like the plague (see what I did there?), and it builds to a tremendous and unexpected payoff as powerful as any I’ve seen. A contender for the Palme d’Or, it also picked up a deserved slew of acting awards.
Go see this film, it’s fucking good.
Rating: 5/5
