Review of Rust and Bone (2012) by Omar A — 16 Jan 2013

First off, you wouldn't expect the director of 2010's electric gangster flick "A Prophet" to follow shit up with a hard-R love story between an ex-boxer and single dad (Matthias Schoenaerts) and a whale trainer who loses her legs (Marion Cotillard). But the trademarks stand in "Rust and Bone" -- the coldness, the distance, the brutality. It washes over you the way it would stepping into water you mistake for being shallow that immerses itself into an abyss.

All right, you got me, maybe I'm being too fastidious here. But Schoenaerts and Cotillard are mesmerizing as two people inert to thinking only in the sums of their parts. At the very least, it's never not interesting. I like to believe "Rust and Bone" is more than that, though -- it's a movie that takes chances: in pacing, behavior, personality. Just when you're ready to check out something -- or someone -- pulls you back in.