Review of Rust and Bone (2012) by Kilo D — 06 Jun 2013

"Rust and Bone" is no more than that movie Hollywood (in this case, the French) shoves into cinemas around Christmas for the sole purpose of dominating at awards season. It's that movie that is shoved on us that we feel pressured to like, no matter how inane, for the story is true -- this really happened to someone I know's cousin's friend, goddamnit, how could you be so insensitive in not praising it?-- only in this case the story is the work of bad fiction.

The number of cliche's is only outnumbered by the number of instances of manipulation. The content is nothing we haven't seen in a Dougles Sirk, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, or Wes Anderson movie (only the three mentioned made/make movies with honesty and beauty), the idea of love, no matter the obstacle, class difference, or disability the chemistry of two humans in love enables the two lovers to prosper and be happy.

And one may be, say, like in this case, different for having legs amputated whereas the male, the "normal" one, enjoys throwing young children into tables and not realizing he has a son -- what a pairing! I mean, who wouldn't be rooting for the lovely Stephanie to not be doing anything but running from, wait for it Fassbinder fans, Ali? I understand loneliness can drive people to make the wrong choices but this one is too blatant to ignore; dating child abusers is not romantic and alienates the viewer from any care they may have developed for the characters.

And so the romance is tragic in the wrong way and the unfolding events that play out to grainy, high-contrast photography is a movie that feels like a product made for Cannes and the Oscars and as such is uneventful and unexciting, in terms of drama, and a uniform bore from the start to the how-many-yawns-has-it-been-now contemplation that one experiences as the end credits (finally) roll down the glowing rectangle.