Closing Film

A tender yet heavily de-romanticized love story between a boxer with broken hands and an orca trainer, Rust and Bone serves as an impressive if somewhat overblown exercise in contrasts, starring Bullhead breakout Matthias Schoenaerts and French siren Marion Cotillard as a pair whose daily fight for survival all but overwhelms the spark between them.

Inventing a fresh set of characters suggested by Davidson’s terse pulp tales, Audiard and co-writer Thomas Bidegain continue a long tradition of French filmmakers trying their hand at the more typically American game of gritty, down-on-their-luck portraiture, in which boxers and lowlifes futilely attempt to claw their way upward while fate pushes back with all its cruel might. Schoenaerts’ Ali is one such thug, just the latest in an oeuvre full of unconventional heroes from director Audiard.

Peter Deburge, Variety