Few films come along and conquer new territory in the way of cinematic storytelling like Rust and Bone. From the opening sequence—a mosaic of images that circle back to the face of a small boy, his lips and nose traced by some unknown finger—to the final scene of a family that almost wasn’t, Jacques Audiard’s latest feature film is a bold and visionary work of art.
Fans of Academy Award-winning French actress Marion Cotillard may be disappointed to find that Cotillard’s character (Stéphanie) is not exactly the central focus of Rust and Bone’s plot. However, any such disappointment will subside when viewers meet Matthias Schoenaerts’s character Ali. The single father (depicted as equally loving and neglectful of his young son, played aptly by newcomer Armand Verdure) meets Stéphanie in a nightclub where he works as a bouncer. Stéphanie is introduced as a bloodied club-goer, recently punched in the face during a brawl. She is dressed in all black and gets called a slut for the better part of her opening scene. Suffice it to say, this is not the vision of Cotillard to which viewers have grown accustomed.
Rust and Bone remains an exciting film throughout precisely because of how the narrative continuously changes, along with the portrayal of the characters. The “slut” getting escorted out of a nightclub is putting on an orca show for thousands (with Katy Perry’s “Firework” blasting in the background) in the next scene. The homeless father and son (Ali and Sam) from the opening sequence are soon living fairly comfortably among family members, with Ali a member of the working class. Audiard never permits his audience to become fully aware of the type of film they are seeing. And yet, there is little time for confusion, as each scene is so tight and so action-packed (either with the quiet action of little Sam devouring a half-eaten piece of fruit from a small garbage bag on a train, or the live action of a beat-thumping, pulsating stadium of people watching killer whales “dance” to Reel to Real’s “I Like to Move It”), the whole experience of the film—as a romance, as a drama, as a comedy—is a movie-goer’s dream.