CANNES, FRANCE—Marion Cotillard’s uncompromising performance as an amputee seeking and resisting love in Palme d’Or competitor Rust and Bone beckons awards attention both here and at the next Oscars.
She’s an early but strong candidate for Best Actress at the 65th Cannes Film Festival, in the role of Stephanie, a trainer of killer whales who is drawn into an unlikely and uncertain romance with hard-nosed street brawler Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts).
Not by a long shot is this a glamorous assignment for France’s Cotillard, who won Best Actress at the Academy Awards five years ago for portraying damaged chanteuse Édith Piaf in La Vie en Rose. She wears no makeup and her amputations of both legs are convincingly rendered by body doubles and CGI.
First encountered at a disco, Cotillard’s Stephanie is the bloodied casualty of a bar brawl. She’s rescued by Ali, a former pro kick-boxer working as a bouncer, but he immediately insults her by telling her she’s dressed like “a whore.”The two part on less-than-friendly terms. But they’re brought together again after a tragedy at Marineland robs Stephanie of both her legs and her desire to live. Long used to life’s hard knocks, Ali has no sympathy for her, but crucially, he also has no pity. An affair of the body ensues; the heart will take longer.
Ali has a 5-year-old son from a failed relationship, so he’s not immune to love. He’s not inclined to long attachments, however, and Stephanie is still too fragile to completely commit herself.
Applauded at its Thursday morning press screening, where it showed prior to an evening world debut at the Palais des Festivals, Rust and Bone is a turn toward melodrama for French director Jacques Audiard. He won the second-place Grand Prix at Cannes in 2009 for the stark prison drama A Prophet, which many thought should have taken that year’s Palme d’Or.
The Palme seems unlikely for Rust and Bone, but Cotillard’s quiet intensity in a difficult role demands consideration for acting gold both at Cannes and the Academy Awards.
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