Rust and Bone.
Watching Rust and Bone is like
being on an amazing drive. You know the feeling. It’s everything you need; the
weather is perfect, the sights are pretty and your mind is at ease simply
because of these surroundings. Then, something pulls you out of your trance and
you realize you’re running out of gas and you aren’t really going anywhere.
Ali (Matthais Scheonaerts) has
somehow become a single father of a five-year old boy. We first see him with
his son, Sam, on his shoulders attempting to hitch a ride somewhere. He has no
success and ends up on the train. At this point, Sam voices that he is hungry
and Ali proceeds to search the train for scraps and leftovers they can combine
into a meal.
I began to feel like I was watching
a French version of The Pursuit of Happyness. The film in which
Will Smith is playing a single father who is doing everything he can to support
his son on no income.
However, I soon realized that these
characters have little in common. Of a lot single fathers in film, Ali is among
the worst. He’s emotionally blocked off, temperamental and irresponsible. You
feel really sympathetic toward Sam, worse than you already felt because
apparently he has an absentee mother.
Ali and Sam make it to their
destination: Ali’s sister’s house. She’s everything Ali is not when it comes to
a parent figure for Sam. She is concerned; she arranges to put Sam in school
and find him clothes. Ali, his sister Anna, her husband and Sam are to live in
this house together as a family.
Ali does find a job as bouncer at a
club where he meets a woman named Stephanie (Marion Cotillard) for the first
time after she is hit in the face. He drives her home where he meets her boyfriend.
The encounter is nothing more and doesn’t seem special, but Stephanie apparently
likes the way Ali shuts her boyfriend up. Still the relationship probably would
have turned to nothing if not for the next scene.
We are at Stephanie’s work. She is
a trainer for orcas as one of the people who give signals to the whales so they
do tricks for an audience. Well, something goes horribly wrong and somehow a
whale crashes through the platform the trainers are on and takes Anna out. She
wakes up in the hospital with her legs amputated.
Meanwhile, Ali has found another
security job. This one seems respectable. The screenwriter does a good job of
keeping your feelings about Ali obscure. You feel like things are starting to
go right for Ali and Sam but too many late pick ups from daycare and sex with
random women make you reconsider very quickly.
Stephanie is in a sort of
depression and somehow concludes calling Ali will help, which it does. Still, I
don’t know how believable it is that a woman in her position would call a near
stranger she met at a bar a couple of months ago.
Nonetheless, their bond begins to
form. He forces her out of her house for the first time and they go to the
beach. This becomes a ritual of theirs. They both begin to open up. He says he
used to box and is going to participate in a street fight that weekend and win
some money.
She tags along; he wins. The
excitement on his face triggers her own as she likes to see him that happy. We
see they are developing a deeper relationship. I like it and I almost begin to
wish for them to acknowledge it and proceed further.
He goes home to his son who for
some reason or another is having a tantrum. Ali is on the phone trying to set
up another fight and becomes so frustrated with Sam, he picks him up, shakes
him and slams his head against a table amidst a lot of yelling and swearing.
And just like that, I’m back to
hating him. I understand we are in the age of the antihero but Ali falls too
short for me to sympathize with his character. I want him to leave the film and
never come back. This is not how you should feel about a protagonist.
This is when I notice that no
resolution has or is coming. The story is interesting, the acting is amazing,
but we’re 1½ hours in and the plot just seems to be going no where. At this
point, I don’t even know what resolution I should be hoping for.
The story continues progressively.
Ali continues to screw things up at home or with Stephanie until he does
something so bad at home he just leaves. Doesn’t take Sam or say goodbye to
Stephanie, he’s just gone.
The end proves to be more dramatic
than the rest of the movie as something happens so devastating it pulls Ali out
of his irresponsible ways once and for all.
I want to be happy but at this
point, I’m just tired. I realize this film is really just a depressing film,
creatively so, but still just depressing. It has typical movie plots you’ve
seen before, just presented differently.
Losing your limb to a whale instead
of a car accident still presents the same result. You cannot make a compelling
move just off of really depressing plot points strung together.
I began to feel as I if was just
going in circles while the director was trying to figure out where he wanted to
take me.
Why
Not Productions and Page 114 present a film written and directed by Jacques
Audiard. Produced by Jacques Audiard, Martine Cassinelli and Pascal Caucheteux. Running time: 120 minutes.
Starring Matthais Scheonaerts, Marion Cotillard and Armand Verdure.
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