Rust and Bone

Rust and Bone (De rouille et d'os, 2012) is a French drama you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Jacques Audiard — the filmmaker behind A Prophet and Dheepan. Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts play two people with nothing obvious in common until catastrophe puts them on the same level.

Ali arrives in Antibes broke and unprepared, dragging along a five-year-old son he barely knows and his own fists, which he hires out for cash fights. Stéphanie trains killer whales at Marineland and carries herself like someone used to being looked at. Then an accident on the performance stage costs her both legs. Ali reappears — not with pity, not with romance, just with a kind of blunt, unadorned presence that she finds she can use.

Audiard keeps sentiment at arm's length throughout. What replaces it is physicality: the weight of bodies, their damage, their stubborn insistence on continuing. Cotillard inhabits Stéphanie's recovery scene by scene, without a single moment that feels performed. Stream Rust and Bone (2012) on iFILM.