Rust And Bone (2012) Review

The French are known for making great films and when you look at the foreign films getting world-wide attention there often is a good French film in there somewhere and in 2012 there have been quite a few French films being critically acclaimed world-wide, but why this film?

The film is about Stéphanie, a killer whale trainer, who suffers a tragic accident while working. As she is trying to recover from the accident she meets Alain, a man who is very beastly in his nature, enjoying fighting and sex and not very much else. The two connect and then there is some stuff with his son. The big problem of the film is that the story feels very sloppy and unfocused. You can´t really get a sense of whom the main character is, as it opens with Alain as the clear main character and focuses a lot on his problems, as well as his relationship with his son. However then we are introduced to Stéphanie and all of sudden it just seems like Alain´s problems become irrelevant and the film solely focuses on the after-math of her accident and their relationship. I enjoyed these parts, however as the film goes on, I started getting really annoyed with Alain, as his character never really developed or learned, but just remained this dumb brute and it didn’t work for me because I couldn’t buy that she would forgive him for all he does and support him fighting so much.

Yes I do get the whole Alain symbolises the killer whale metaphor they got going and I completely see the idea behind it, however it just doesn’t work.

While watching the movie I was thinking the end was going to tie it nicely together, however the ending just came off as lazy to me. The last half-hour or so, shifted focus from Stéphanie again and she didn’t really matter anymore. Of course I won´t say what happens, but it felt pretty useless. It really felt like they had no idea how to end the story and just had to come up with something and hope it worked, but it really didn’t as firstly, it changed tone and felt like a different film entirely, borderline melodramatic, secondly, it felt like they didn’t properly resolve the relationship between Alain and Stéphanie, or her character at all for that sake, and thirdly, it didn’t finish Alain´s character at all. Alain (sort of spoiler) doesn’t in any way get punished for his behaviour throughout the film, he doesn’t learn anything and if anything I would say he gets a happy ending without earning it in any way.

It may sound like I hate this film, but I don’t, there are many good factors to it, the main aspect being Marion Cotillard. She gives a truly extraordinary, vulnerable performance and I did really get into her character. Whilst Alain didn’t get enough development I felt she developed really well throughout the film, despite suddenly just disappearing from the film, and I did enjoy the film whilst focusing on her.

It also worth noting that cinematography and music is very good however that along with two good, one great, lead performances really isn’t enough too overlooked a very flawed script. There was much potential, but they just didn’t know where to go with it and so it became uninteresting too often since it just didn’t have enough focus. I see what the filmmaker was trying to do at times, but I don’t think he accomplished a whole lot of what he tried to do and ended up with an uneven drama with moments of greatness, but undeniably mediocre in the end.

2.5/5