Review of Rust and Bone (2012) by Matt O — 13 May 2013

Rust and Bone is a difficult film that's something of an emotional endurance test. While the themes and approach couldn't be more European, there's universality to the complexity of people on screen here and both Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts give stirring performances.

Director Jacques Audiard deals exclusively in shades of grey and even when the audience is led to be down on someone, Audiard never abandons them to the wolves and pulls them by the bootstraps out of their own emotional mires. Without revealing any of the critical plot points, Rust and Bone deals not only with loss but with recovery proposing that maybe it's not the fall that matters but how we choose to pick ourselves up afterwards.