Not a review. I repeat: Not a review. I’ve been writing this, a paragraph at a time, for over 2 months. It’s more like one of my SPN re-caps, where I go scene by scene exploring story and character analysis. It occurred to me as I did this that this was how I used to work when I worked as an actress. Dreaming into every moment, from every possible side, considering backstory and motivations, paying attention what is NOT said just as much as what IS said. I love to riff like this and nobody would ever pay me to write a piece of this length, but I’ve been wanting to write about Rust and Bone – in this way – since it first came out, because I am obsessed. In other words, yes. I know this is long. And I know that “long”, in this case, is an understatement.
Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) and Stephanie (Marion Cotillard), the two lead characters in Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone, both do one thing in their lives really well, better than most, and in every other area, they do almost nothing well. They’re both highly compartmentalized people. Ali has one overriding goal and passion, and he devotes himself to it, but otherwise he can’t think even two steps down the road. His life may be more openly a mess than hers, but what we see of her life before everything happens is pretty bleak as well. Stephanie is already doing what she wants to do in life, and she does it really well, but outside of that one arena of expertise, her life is chaos.
Rust and Bone was one of the best films of 2012. Roger Ebert wrote in his review that he would add it to his Great Movies list, but never got around to it, due to his illness at the time. Audiard said that as he approached this material, telling two separate stories for almost half of the film, he realized that neither character was the protagonist: “The protagonist of the story is the love story. The love story is the hero.” He is so successful at bringing that across that Rust and Bone has one of the most meaningful – if not the most meaningful (off the top of my head I can’t think of another one) – “I love you”s in any movie I have ever seen. When I saw it in the theatre, and heard those words, I actually burst into tears. What the hell. This is not my style. Hats off.
Rust and Bone is one of the most purely emotional love stories of the last 20 years. Longer. Ever. If you described the plot (as I am about to do, at LENGTH), it might sound like some Nicholas Sparks shit. But Rust and Bone, is raw, and – and this is the key – even though it’s a love story it acknowledges that some damage is never undone. Love does not cure all. Love is an amazing miracle in Rust and Bone – a life-saver – but it does not cure all. The sex scenes in Rust and Bone surge with palpable emotion (not just lust: all KINDS of feelings churn around as is true with sex in real-life, but so often not shown onscreen). The act of sex can CREATE love. And nobody is more surprised by that than the two characters participating in said sex.
Rust and Bone is a contemporary story told in the old-fashioned style of melodrama. Melodrama is so out of style that critics and audiences sometimes don’t know what to do with it, and call it “sentimental” or “weepy” or – without even realizing that they are being accurate as opposed to critical – “melodramatic”. This happened when Rust and Bone premiered at Cannes. The opinion was split. Many loved it. But many others thought it was too “obvious”, etc.. I spoke recently about what classic melodrama could actually do, better than other genres, in my review of Ira Sachs’ beautiful Little Men:
Melodrama for some reason has a bad reputation, seeming to suggest soap operas or three-hanky weepers, but melodrama has always been one of the most effective genres for social and economic criticism because down on the ground things really are that important. There is nothing melodramatic about losing one’s home and livelihood. It’s life and death to the people involved.
The obviously presented (Audiard does not try to be subtle) mirroring and repeating thematic symbols in Rust and Bone – physical trauma, sunlight, panes of glass, and water – work in the way symbols do in good literary fiction. In Rust and Bone you can’t get away from them, they’re in every visual. The story is about going from darkness into light. From the womb into self-hood. From cold into warmth. Or from warmth into cold. Plunging to the surface from underwater, or plunging underwater from the surface. Water when frozen turns to ice. The first scene between the two characters involves ice, and one of the final scenes also involves ice. One of the first things he says to her is, “Breathe.” Come to the surface, come up for air.
In melodrama, human emotion is the most important thing.
I want to talk about the film but I should say before moving forward, since much of the movie depends on not knowing much going in (at least that was the case with me. It’s hard, but I try to avoid pre-release publicity):
All the Spoilers Following
Rust and Bone moves from the chilly North (Belgium) down to the sun-baked south of France (Antibes), before moving back up north to the winter wonderland of Strasbourg. Everything in the film is symbolic, metaphoric: the colors, the constant fades-to-black fragmenting the narrative, the heat and then the cold. The characters are adults but they are not “born” yet. The colors are as much a part of the story as the story itself. So is the refracted light coming down, the enormous swoopy lens flares (Audiard often films directly into the sun getting all these crazy effects), and the shadows, too, the deep cold blues, industrial and wintry. These things ARE the story.
There are a number of “motifs” in the film, including the most omnipresent one, the lens flares. The motifs are used specifically, and carefully – yes – but Audiard is not afraid to be as obvious as possible using these things. “Obvious” is a dirty word in some circles. Not in mine. The suspicion of the “obvious’ is a very recent phenomenon. People who are suspicious of the obvious – critics among them – look askance at plot coincidences, overt visual metaphors and color schemes, anything that seems “on the nose.” But there is nothing more “obvious” than the plot machinations of one of Shakespeare’s plays. A Streetcar Named Desire is obvious. I mean, the title alone. Long Day’s Journey Into Night is obvious. It doesn’t mean they’re not deep or profound. In the case of Rust and Bone, Jacques Audiard doesn’t use these visuals subtly or sparingly (it is not a subtle film, visually or otherwise.) He puts it all out there. In every scene. Each lead character has a repeating “motif” (and in some cases their motifs overlap, showing the growing connection between the two people). Her motif involves leaning her face into the sunlight. His motif involves staring through windows. Both have enormous reverb in the plot and theme of the film. Both characters also share a “motif”, one of the ongoing looks of the film: shots of the backs of their heads. Sometimes the backs of their heads fill almost the whole screen.
I think some critics felt that all of this was too self-conscious and “arty”. I 100% disagree. These motifs are used sensitively, purposefully: they are not stylistic “tics”. They are story and character elements. It’s the kind of film you could watch with the sound turned off and still understand what is happening.
“Oh. She clearly is looking for warmth in every area of her life because she lacks it.”
“Oh. He is an outsider, always, staring through the ‘window’ at the rest of the human race.”
“Oh. They both are trapped by what is happening in the backs of their heads, staring out at the world they want to join.”
Audiard and his writing collaborator Thomas Bidegain became entranced by a collection of short stories by Canadian writer Craig Davidson called Rust and Bone. Davidson’s stories feature tough people living in sub-cultures involving vicious dogfights, boxers, amputees, drug addicts, pained and ruined loners. Two stories in particular interested Audiard/Bidegain: “Rust and Bone” about a boxer who breaks all the bones in his hand and “Rocket Ride” about a guy who trains orcas at a MarineLand and loses his legs when one of the whales attacks. Audiard and Bidegain’s idea was to combine the two stories.
One of their first challenges in adapting the stories was to transfer the action to France. Every society manifests class issues in different ways. The film has a lot to say about class differences. Their other idea was to change the orca trainer to a woman. So. What would happen if the boxer somehow met the orca trainer? What would THAT be like?
Matthias Schoenaerts, the superb Belgian actor who made such a giant impression in the Oscar-nominated Bullhead (which he had helped develop over a period of about 6 years), got the role of Ali, the boxer. He had to audition for it. (Schoenaerts is already almost beyond having to audition for anything.) Marion Cotillard, Academy Award winner, was the only one Audiard wanted for the role of Stephanie. She fell so in love with the script and with the character that she still sounds emotional in interviews when she discusses it. Here’s a fascinating insight into how the actress works and thinks about her characters. She has said that, like most actors, she hates nude sex scenes, they’re awkward and terrible. The only exception were the sex scenes in Rust and Bone because: “I was so happy for her.” Her comment shows the great empathy and understanding that she has for her characters. I love, too, the distance evident in “I was so happy for her.” She connects herself fully with her roles, but she is also able to see the character from afar, to understand what story she is part of. Very important in understanding WHY she is so good.
Rust and Bone starts off following Ali. Stephanie doesn’t enter into it until about 15 minutes in (Audiard and his collaborator went back and forth a lot on that. Should we introduce her first? Show her at her Marine Lane job? Show what happens to her? But they sensed that this would not start off the story properly. Very smart.) In a wintry grey light, Ali and his young son Sam (Armand Verdure) take a train and then then hitchhike their way, presumably south. We don’t know where they are going, and we assume that this guy is the father, although there are disturbing glimpses that maybe this bruiser is not quite … ready? … to be a Dad? It’s freezing and the boy is wearing sandals.
Sam whines he’s hungry when they’re on the train. Ali trolls the aisles, stealing food people left behind in their seats. Later, while Sam waits outside an electronics shop, Ali steals a camera, and races away from the security guard, leaving Sam stranded on the sidewalk. There isn’t a lot of affection between them, but although Ali shows some irritation (“Come on, hurry up…” ) he is also not unkind. As their journey progresses, the light slowly gets warmer and warmer. The sun pours down around them. While Sam plays on the beach, Ali leans against a concrete wall, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette, lost in whatever kinds of thoughts a guy like this would have.
They arrive at their destination, a ratty friendly apartment complex in Antibes, where Ali’s sister Anna (Corinne Masiero, excellent) and her husband Richard (Jean-Michel Coreia, also excellent) live. Anna is a cashier in a supermarket and Richard is a truck-driver. (Frozen goods. Of course. Because ice.) Ali starts out as a solitary figure, trailing a little kid behind him. By moving south, into the warmth, he steps into community. Just how alone Ali is, how trapped in a way of being, is maybe not even felt until the 2nd or 3rd time seeing the film because Ali exhibits no self-pity. Maybe that’s why his isolation is not immediately apparent. He’s got self-loathing, for sure, although it takes a while for us to see that, but self-pity/self-loathing are not his default personality characteristics. He’s too busy trying to survive to be introspective. (Audiard is drawn to stories about the tough-ness of survival for the marginalized and peripheral and poor, like his latest Dheepan, and his earlier film Prophet.) You need to be self-absorbed to be a brooding loner. Ali IS self-absorbed, in the way most athletes are. He’s a boxer (a solitary sport), and it’s the only thing he can focus on 100%. If you think of Ali as a moody hormonal adolescent as opposed to a brooding self-absorbed loner, the character makes sense. And that’s how Schoenaerts plays it.
There’s a shot in the first scene in the apartment, when Sam wanders off into the apartment by himself, leaving Ali and Richard talking in the kitchen. The TV is on in the next room, and Sam – who has come from a pretty brutal environment, living in some druggie house with his druggie mom – is drawn to it. Sam is seen through an intervening fish tank, fish floating through the “air” in between. Sam is both on the surface and underwater at the same time. It’s powerful, considering the role “fish” will play in the film, and in the life of the woman Ali has not even met yet, the woman who will change everything for him. It’s powerful, considering the role water will play in Sam’s future. Water and a pane of glass. Here they are already, fish, harbingers of what is to come.
Ali and Anna have not seen one another in 5 years. It’s not explained why. Anna asks Ali rudimentary questions about Sam and Ali doesn’t know the answers. We don’t know when Ali decided to swoop in and carry Sam away from his drug-addict mother, or who this “mother” was, but we can assume that Ali has zero experience in parenting. He doesn’t at all “get” that he has to adjust his behavior when dealing with a 5-year-old. Sam calls his dad “Ali.” There are some painful scenes later in the film when Ali screws up, big, with Sam, but his overall vibe is brotherly, a casual and sometimes irritated acceptance of Sam’s presence, an assumption that Anna will help him out with the kid, and another assumption that the kid is totally fine, when Sam – at least by the looks of it – is obviously not fine. He misses his mother, and is slightly scared of his father, who is tall and big, rough, and unpredictable.
Disturbing things aside, Ali and Sam settle into the new community. Sam plays with the dogs in Aunt Anna’s pen. Richard and a neighbor help Ali fix a broken-down scooter in the garage. The neighbors gather at a table in the courtyard for a cookout. It’s a good set-up for Ali and Sam (it also takes the pressure off having to be conventional Father and Son. It works great for Ali, too, because the neighbors end up being built-in – free – babysitters). Sam asks Ali when “mom is coming.” Ali says, “Soon.” Mom is never mentioned again. Mom was never coming.
During Ali’s interview with a security company, he’s asked “Give me one good reason why I should hire you?” There’s a long moment where he looks taken aback. Scared and needy. It’s very vulnerable. All he says is, “Trust me.” It’s a glimpse, just a glimpse of his essence, something we haven’t seen yet. This is the sincerity that is the key to Schoenaerts’ performance (more on that in a bit), and the sincerity that is key to the often maddening character of Ali. He wants to be trustworthy. To not let people down. He’s good at it, and he’s also horrible at it. All of his need – to be perceived in a certain way – is on his face in that cold blue office. It’s startling.
Stepping into that space – being trustworthy – is one of Ali’s thru-lines in the film. To state the obvious: Ali IS trust-worthy (well, except for stealing a camera, stealing food, taking his son for granted, being late picking him up for school, and all of the other untrustworthy things we see in the film. Except for all of THAT, this is a man BORN to be trusted. He just cannot get his shit together.) In the interview he comes off as totally untrustworthy (watch how he answers the questions “Do you smoke? Drink? Do drugs?” When he says “No” to all of them, he looks like he’s lying, although he’s telling the truth. A couple of hand-rolled cigarettes a day don’t count. But he’s not out getting wasted or doing lines of cocaine. He cares about his body too much to destroy it.) Ali is shy and intimidated by authority figures and so he seems like he’s sketchy when he’s actually not. This is one of the awful interpersonal situations that severe class-differences can create (one of Audiard’s interests as a filmmaker.) Ali does a lot of shitty things, irresponsible things, even cruel things. But there is a pane of glass between himself and who he really can be. It is devastating to him when he lets people down. He cannot tolerate it. So he runs away. Letting people down again. This is the circle of Ali’s life.
Jacques Audiard as well as Schoenaerts spoke openly about the challenges with the character of Ali. If he was too much of an asshole, then the film wouldn’t work. If he was a mouth-breathing brute, the film wouldn’t work. Schoenaerts figured out that if he played Ali as “juvenile” rather than a “brute”, then everything else clicked into place. Ali is a big KID, with all the carelessness and self-involved-ness that that implies. He’s an athlete, so he’s in touch with his body, but not all that in touch with anything outside of his body’s needs. (In practically every scene, eating is involved. Ali is always eating.) Clearly Ali felt enough responsibility for his son to take him out of an exploitive situation. But beyond that, he wants to get back into boxing. He won some championships. There’s still time. But he’s gained weight. He works hard to get back into shape. Lets off steam with sex. Sleeps, eats, trains, fucks, wash, rinse, repeat.
Schoenaerts said that the key to the character was “sincerity,” as odd as that might sound. Ali is not a cynical or a jaded man. He is not purposefully cruel. Ever. Even when he does the wrong thing, he does it because he doesn’t think beforehand. When he is reprimanded, by Anna, by Richard, and later, by Stephanie, he fights back, but in an adolescent, “Get off my back” way, as opposed to a Jake LaMotta way. Actors love to complicate things. (Well, regular civilians do, too.) But here was a role that didn’t require anything other than genuine-ness and sincerity. When Ali eats, he’s sincere. When he boxes, he’s sincere. When he has sex, he’s sincere. When he plays with his kid at the beach, he’s sincere. When he helps Stephanie, he’s sincere. When he screws up, he’s sincerely screwed up (in other words, he doesn’t have a manipulative bone in his body). None of his sincerity, though, is mindful. It’s all “reflex,” another word Schoenaerts used often in interviews about playing the role. Ali’s reflexes lead him to flee the scene when it gets tough, but they also lead him to great acts of tenderness, which he performs automatically and unselfconsciously. When Stephanie says to him later in the film, “You’ve always been so considerate with me”, he looks confused. He barely even know what she means. He’s just helping her out. You see, he doesn’t put two and two together.
It’s a miracle Schoenaerts pulls it all off – without any of the typical grandiosity that so many actors would display when taking on the role. He’s not showboat-ing. The role IS about his body, so we see all of it, all the time, including his dick at one point. Ali understands life through his body. What that means is his strength can knock down an opponent in the ring, but that also means his strength can lift up others, take care of his son, take care of Stephanie. But it also means he has to be careful with that strength, because it can hurt people, too. Bringing that all together, integrating, healing himself (when he doesn’t even know how broken he is), choosing to be kind (as kind as he instinctively already is) – is Ali’s journey in Rust and Bone.
Once Ali is properly set up, it’s time to meet Stephanie.
Ali gets a job as a bouncer at a crazy high-end nightclub, with a velvet rope policy at the front door. He watches the pretty girls go by, a natural and appreciative hound-dog. He breaks up a violent group fight out on the sidewalk, and it’s the first time you see his strength, how visceral it is, how ferocious he is when in movement. (While hauling the rowdy trouble-maker away from the fight, Ali smashes his hand against a window, cracking the glass. He’s about to meet Stephanie in T-minus 2 seconds. A glass breaks right beforehand. Hmmm. Symbolic? Ya think?)
Ali pushes the crowd back, and the first thing he sees is a pair of sprawled out legs.
If you’ve seen the rest of the film then you know that this is pretty obvious foreshadowing, as are the glances he gives her long bare legs later, when he drives her home. It’s not subtle, but then – outside of the behavior throughout – none of the film is subtle. It’s not meant to be.
He pushes the crowd away from her, helps her up, tells her to breathe, shouts aggressively at some off-screen guy who calls her a “slut.” This is Ali’s natural protector side. It’s already there, and Audiard and Schoenaerts both knew that we needed to see that sooner rather than later because Rust and Bone is not the story of an asshole being changed into a good man by a woman. Because spare me with that noise. It’s the story of a messed-up guy with a tender heart and a messed-up woman with a hibernating capacity for joy who would never be together if the circumstances were different – mainly because of the vast class difference between them – and how, by stealth, before they can come to their senses and say, “Wait, let’s slow down, what are we doing here?” find themselves bound to one another.
Stephanie is not fit to drive and after a bit of back and forth, Stephanie barely acknowledging Ali, and certainly not thanking him, Ali drives her home. And on the way home, he tries to make polite conversation, which includes saying, “You’re dressed a little bit like a whore, so what did you think would happen?” Watch how Schoenaerts says that line. I would suggest that very few actors could create a character who could say a thing like that and “come back” from it in an audience’s mind. Most women would write him off. Or blow a gasket. I’d probably blow a gasket if that was, like, the 3rd thing a man said to me. Stephanie doesn’t blow a gasket. She gives him a blurry look and says, “Excuse me?” And then, looking away, “Shut up.”
The commentary track is fascinating on all of this and helped me see deeper into the moment. This is the “class differences” thing that maybe would have been driven into the ground by a jack-hammer in an American film, but it’s subtler here. He’s a bouncer. Stephanie is a nightclub patron. He’s invisible to her. He’s an uneducated muscly guy not even worth her time. When he makes that “whore” observation, she finally looks right at him. Which is probably WHY he said it. Pretty brilliant.
At her place, he wangles a way to come upstairs to get some ice to put on his hand. She’s peremptory with him. Rude. He’s persistent. Once upstairs, he gets to work, pulling down a bowl, opening the fridge, cracking some ice, as though he has been in her kitchen 100 times. Simon, Stephanie’s annoyed and somewhat aggressive boyfriend, wants to know what the hell this big guy is doing in his kitchen, and where was she and what the hell was she doing at that nightclub by herself? The couple argues in the next room, and Ali wanders around, looking at things, as though he’s supposed to be there. His eyes are drawn to a bulletin board covered in photographs of Stephanie in a wet suit, surrounded by orcas, swimming with orcas, orcas leaping through the air, Stephanie standing on a platform, arms raised in command.
When she returns to the kitchen, he bombards her with questions. “Is this you with the whales?” “Yes.” “Is that your job?” “Yes.” Watch for how his expression changes when she says “Yes”. His entire conception of her alters. Instantly. He’s taken aback. He’s super-impressed with the job she has but he’s also … If I had to label it, I would say he is suddenly and swiftly intimidated.
Because he doesn’t think, (he even thinks it is a compliment), he says, “I never would have imagined.” She flat-lines, “You wouldn’t think a whore would train orcas?” He laughs. Maybe he knows he had that crack coming. It looks like he appreciates her feisty hoisting of his comment back in his face. One of the unexpected parts of the character is that although Ali always has cuts on his hands and face, although he has a couple of terribly scary rage-boy moments, he’s a rather gentle person. He doesn’t swagger around trying to prove himself every second. He’s extremely masculine, but he’s not masculine in an embattled or toxic way. He has a lot to prove, in the ring and out, but what he has to PROVE has nothing to do with how manly he is. She is visibly unfriendly, but he laughs and then goes right back to looking at the pictures, ignoring the fact that he has already overstayed his welcome AND ignoring the fact that the boyfriend hovers at the door, glowering. There’s something childlike and charming about it.
There is so much in this scene! Behavior! It tells so much! Stephanie has picked a mean controlling man as a partner. We’ve all done it, but we need to take responsibility for why we pick mean men. She’s not there yet. Ali doesn’t exist to her even though he just saved her ass and drove her home. There’s something emotionally stunted with this woman, and that stunted quality is on her face. She – her soul, her heart, her person – is not in her face.
Stephanie is a handful. What happens to her later does not turn her into a handful. She’s already THERE. She may have an exciting job that she loves that has required years of training. But outside of her job, her life sucks, on an existential level. The whole time Ali talks to Stephanie, the territorial boyfriend hovers, and Ali – who doesn’t question his Alpha-Dog status because Alphas rarely do – doesn’t even acknowledge him. When the boyfriend finally chimes in with, “Okay, you’re done. You can go now”, Ali first glances at Stephanie and then turns his baby-blues on the boyfriend, asking quietly, “You talking to me?” (The moment is minuscule but I love how he glances at her first: she’s who’s important to him: when he looks at the boyfriend it’s deliberate, like: “Oh. Wait. Is someone else talking in this room?”)
Ali is suddenly very scary. He remains calm and quiet. The boyfriend doesn’t say anything, feels the threat from this man, and subsides. A smile plays around Stephanie’s lips. It’s a satisfying moment for her. This particular moment expands out into vast importance once you see the whole film and look back on it. Ali is a protector. It comes naturally to him. He’s clearly attracted to Stephanie, but more than that, she’s a girl with a bloody nose who obviously is not looking out for herself properly, and her boyfriend is clearly a douchebag so he’s ready to handle it if necessary. When things get tough later, Stephanie will remember this moment.
It is too easy and self-help-y to say “Stephanie doesn’t like and value herself.” It is much deeper than that, and it is the engine on which Rust and Bone runs. There is a sexual component, and that’s part of HER main journey in the film, although sex is always more than just sex. She hasn’t been awakened sexually when we first meet her in the film, even though she’s clearly sexually active. She’s performative about her sexuality (something she admits to Ali later), and so Ali’s “whore” comment, however rude and uncalled-for, is rather insightful all things considered. Interesting to consider as well that her chosen job is also “performative,” it’s all about “being watched” (her words). It was the best feeling in the world, in terms of her job, but then it was horrible, in terms of her relationships with men. Rust and Bone doesn’t belabor it – it’s three sentences from her that clue us in to what her sex life has been about before she met Ali. Her conquests are so hollow she can barely keep interested because she doesn’t get anything out of it. She has picked selfish men who don’t seem to care about this, who don’t even notice that the woman in bed with them is “putting it on.” So it’s not just Stephanie being a stuck-up bitch. This is her having internalized the world where men are controlling selfish lovers who barely even seem to LIKE women, let alone give a shit what they want in bed. Or would know how to deliver it even if they did give a shit. In this context, an orgasm is a big BIG deal. If she’s ever had one (and I doubt that she has), it’s probably just been with herself.
So then along comes Ali, in his sweat pants and hoodies, who is selfish in many areas of his life (so much so that he doesn’t even seem to realize that he’s a FATHER), but sexually he is the Platonic Ideal of Generosity. Anything having to do with the body is not complicated to Ali. He ends up offering himself to her. Get back up on the horse. I’m game. Use me. Figure sex out. Her sexual responsiveness has always been underwater. This is where Cotillard’s “I was so happy for her” comment comes from. In the doing of it, in the pleasure of it, old old hurts can be healed. And you don’t even know it’s happening and you may not even be aware of just how hurt and how disappointed you really were until true pleasure – given freely without expectation of anything in return – arrives.
Or so I’ve heard.
You want to see how Marion Cotillard suggests all of that in a scene not even 5 minutes long? A scene that has nothing to DO with it, but also tells us everything we need to know for later? Well, there it is in the scene in that crowded apartment with Ali and her boyfriend, and in the brief scene that follows after Ali leaves. Even how she moves is not awakened. There’s something brittle about her. Rigid but defeated.
As Ali walks out, he leaves his number for Stephanie, and hands the bowl of ice to the boyfriend, as though the boyfriend – the guy who actually lives there – is a lackey-servant. Go, Ali.
Ali then leaves the story for a bit, and Stephanie takes over the narrative. The movie plunges us into her busy job at Marine Land, where she works with a small team of trainers, “directing” the three gigantic orcas through the show for the crowd. If you’re against orcas being used in this manner (and I am), the film is not an endorsement of such practices. It’s neutral, for the most part, but it’s also a reminder that these are wild creatures and not cute trained seals. (Remember Chris Rock’s joke about the Siegfried and Roy tiger-throat-slash? I’m paraphrasing but it went something like this: “People say ‘That tiger went crazy!’ No, it didn’t. That tiger went tiger.”)
Just to implicate myself: Like Ali, I was surprised that that drunk woman with the bloody nose had such a major job, requiring so much training and knowledge, that she had something in her life that she loved that much. To see her in action at her job, authoritative, confident, creates an atmosphere of unpredictability in the film, a “You just never know about people” environment that is KEY to the story. As “obvious” as Rust and Bone is, you never know what is going to happen next, because people do not behave according to “type.” Unfortunately, so many movies and unimaginative scripts go that route, and so audiences may feel anxious watching Rust and Bone, wondering, “Wait … how am I supposed to be feeling about her/him now? Is he/she good or bad?”
Audiard shot a couple of shows at Marine-Land. They only had 4 cameras going (extraordinary, when you see the complicated sequence). Marion Cotillard trained with the orca trainers for a week or so and actually performed with them in the show (and nobody in the audience even knew she was up there on that platform, because all they were looking at were the orcas). There are shots of the cheering crowd, doing the “wave,” and the Marine Land cheerleaders as an “opening act,” and the trainers getting ready behind the platform, and opening the gate so the orcas can swim into the show-pool. The opening of the sequence is a full immersion of Stephanie at work, her competence, her confident body language, she’s strong and expressive, no evidence of the brittle quality in the scene with Ali.
Katy Perry’s “Fireworks” is the song for the performance, and there are three orcas flipping and diving and hovering by each trainer, their toothy mouths opened for the fish-reward. Something then shifts. It’s imperceptible, but it’s in the shot sequences, the switch from slo-mo to regular speed (which Audiard uses a couple of times in the film to great effect). Maybe the timing of the show is slightly off and the orcas sense it. It’s not clear. There’s a shot of Stephanie where it looks like she, too, might feel that something’s not right.
Audiard didn’t want it to be clear what exactly happens. When Audiard shows the three whales doing backflips in unison, and he shows it in gorgeous slo-mo, water pouring off their fins in a cascade, you know something terrible will happen. When the film speeds up, everything careens out of control, a whale lands on the trainer platform, and crashes back into the water, taking down half of the platform and all of the equipment with it.
We see that go down from deep beneath the surface of the water. The whale crashing down, the speakers and wires crashing down, blotting out the light, until it subsides and we see a small figure far above floating in the water facedown.
Cut to Ali, jogging, earplugs in his ears, as emergency vehicles scream by him. A nice moment, connecting the separate experiences, and also moving back into Ali’s life. We’re picking up the trail with him, what he’s doing as all of this is going on in the life of that random drunk whorish girl he met a couple nights before..
He comes back from this run to find Sam playing around with the dogs that Anna “babysits” for extra cash. Ali orders Sam to get out of the dog pen. Twice. It’s not clear why. Sam is not doing anything wrong. He’s having fun. But it bugs Ali. Ali’s rage explodes at not being obeyed, and he bangs on the top of the dog pen in frustration. It is terrifying. Finally, he drags Sam out, hauling him over to the garden hose, where he makes the kid strip down, pointing the hose on him to wash off the dirt. Ali is openly rough as he does all of this, extremely scary, and Sam starts crying hysterically. Ali shouts, “Don’t cry!!” Because yeah, that’ll work with a hysterical 5-year-old.
Audiard said that working with a child that young was very difficult, because the child really didn’t understand what the hell was going on half the time, and what a “scene” was about. Audiard said that he ended up not having to “direct” the kid at all because both Cotillard and Schoenaerts took over. The two actors would hang out with him, and literally coach him on what to do AS the scene was going on (their voices removed later). The kid bonded with Schoenaerts so much that when the actor showed anger – like here, and in another scene, worse than this one, the kid was devastated. Why is my friend yelling at me all of a sudden?? It ends up working so well (as upsetting as it must have been for the child, and I sure as hell wouldn’t put my child – if I had one – through this). The child is so attuned to everything Schoenaerts does, and is easily affectionate in some moments, putting his head on Schoenaerts shoulder, etc., wanting to “get back” to how close they were off-camera.
A neighbor (who had been looking after Sam while Ali was on his run) comes rushing out and scoops up the sobbing Sam, taking him away from Ali. Ali is still pissed off – but her entrance, her cuddling of Sam, Sam’s sobs – plus the fact that the two of them hustle away from him as though he is scary and awful – have made Ali feel like a big giant asshole. Which he is. It’s hard to tell, because Ali’s adrenaline is still pounding, but he is ashamed of himself. We’ll see this look again.
The film then moves back to Stephanie, to the aftermath of the accident, and the entire style and mood changes. The lights in the hospital are blue and cold, monochromatic. There’s a dreamlike quality to the stillness, the nothingness. There is no natural light. It is not until the end of this sequence that there is light, and when it comes, it pours through the windows like molten gold. As I said: every scene contains the “spine” of the film. This isn’t “obvious.” This is Elia Kazan-like specificity.
Stephanie, cloaked in the blue of the hospital, wakes up from her coma, alone. In a terrifying moment, she realizes for the first time that both of her legs have been amputated. Marion Cotillard’s work when she discovers her legs are gone is the best work of her career. According to the commentary track, it was the first scene she shot in the film. Just think about that for a second.
Then follows a hallucinatory sequence where she lies in her hospital bed, comatose and devastated, unresponsive, except for when she grabs a nearby scalpel off the nurse’s table and hides it under the covers. She is either in tears or lifeless. She has many visitors but they hover in the background, fuzzy, their voices coming to her from a distance.
There’s an interesting dichotomy in the look of the film: For the most part, the style is totally realistic with not a lot of fakery. Scenes play out with hand-held cameras catching the action, giving it an immediacy. Rust and Bone is also highly composed with specific colors and camera angles and backs of people’s heads and fades-to-black, etc. Ali’s fight scenes are awe-inspiring, sometimes happening in slo-mo, but more often at full speed, with these amazing athletes “performing” incredibly vicious fights, every move choreographed, but the end result looks so violent you can’t believe it’s fake. However: the one CGI effect – an effect that probably took up the majority of the budget – is Stephanie’s amputated legs. There’s a featurette on the DVD about how they did it. The technology is so much more sophisticated now that they actually were ABLE to pull it off. The apex of the accomplishment for me is when she goes swimming, and you can see her amputated legs flailing beneath the translucent water. I forget that it’s an “effect.”
When the story eventually goes back to Ali, you’ve forgotten he existed because the Stephanie sequence is so harrowing. Stephanie’s post-accident sequence is filmed in slo-mo, dream-like, fragmented, with constant black-outs, distorted language, a mournful score playing over all of it. (The music in the film is extremely emotional: there’s an original score by powerhouse Alexandre Desplat, who does all of Wes Anderson’s films, and then there’s memorable use of extant music: Katy Perry’s “Fireworks”, one sequence with the B-52’s “Love Shack” and – my favorite – a long sequence that uses Bruce Springsteen’s primal “State Trooper” as background, and finally the gorgeous use of “Wolves” by Bon Iver over the final scene, a choice that left me breathless in the theatre.)
With the return of Ali, the movie’s style jolts back to gritty hand-held realism, and it’s going from freezing cold to hot water. It’s inconceivable (even more so now) how these two people will ever connect. With no warning, we jump from Stephanie comatose and slack-jawed in the molten gold, to the pow pow pow of Ali boxing with his sparring partner and coach at the gym. It’s such a jostling and healthy male environment, that it’s an insult, considering the illness and immobility and fragility we just saw.
As he struts down the hall of the gym after his workout, he stops suddenly and stares through a window at an aerobics class. What Ali wants is always seen through a window. This time, what he wants is the aerobics teacher at the head of the class. He can’t even see her face, just the tattoo unfurling on her back, and his face says: “Me. Me want that.” We haven’t seen how Ali operates yet with women, but this is pretty much what is expected. There’s a tiny scene after this where he stands in a doorway at the gym, eating an energy bar or something, and she stands in the alley, smoking. He keeps his cool. Glances at her and says, “Ça va?”
Quick cut, immediately, to this:
… which I think is HYSTERICAL. This is probably about 10 minutes after the “Ça va?” in the alley. This is Ali’s sex life. The sex is INSANE. You feel like someone’s going to get killed. In the middle of all of this, Ali’s phone rings … and he answers it. He does not stop fucking while he takes the call. And it’s not like it’s this slow event, where MAYBE you could get away with talking on the phone at the same time. It’s Richard on the phone, pissed off because Ali was supposed to pick Sam up from school, and Sam is stranded there. Ali says, “Okay, okay, I’m on my way”, hangs up, and then goes back to banging the SHIT out of that broad because now he’s crunched for time.
Obviously this is not an out of the ordinary experience for him.
Poor forlorn Sam plays around on a jungle gym in an empty playground. Ali pulls up on his scooter, waving in this really adolescent way like, “HEY BUDDY, I MADE IT!” As though he’s not hours late. As though he didn’t just delay his arrival by 3.7 seconds so he could get his orgasm over with. But again: all sincere. He just had a great workout, some great sex, it’s a good day, why is everyone (including the teacher, who lectures him within an inch of his life, all as Sam looks on, worried) giving him such a hard time? Ali is not concerned about Sam, and doesn’t really understand that … Sam is a person. That it’s NOT okay that Sam was waiting for hours. That Sam deserves to be treated with respect. Ali doesn’t get that yet. Ali behaves with Sam like he is Sam’s older teenage brother, irritated and peremptory, sometimes affectionate, but not at all as though Sam is his primary responsibility, and Sam rides those waves of confusion, and it’s upsetting.
Ali now works as a security guard. He and his buddy make the rounds with an attack dog, who annoys Ali so much – just for being underfoot – he gives the dog a push with his foot and the dog yelps with pain offscreen. Only a villain would do such a thing in an American movie. We’ve just seen Ali blow off picking his son up from school so he could have indiscriminate and probably very unsafe sex in a public hallway at the gym. And now he kicks a dog.
Schoenaerts does not turn Ali into an “anti-hero”, as so many actors love to do (as self-important self-protection), and they love to do it so much that they sometimes ruin movies with their grandiose bullshit. Schoenaerts was asked in an interview if there were any actors who inspired him to start acting. He said that of course he admired many actors’ work, but the real reason he got into acting was because he found life and other people – the diversity of life experiences – so fascinating. I found that to be a very moving statement, and that curiosity about other people – as opposed to himself – shows in his work. Schoenaerts approached the role of Ali in a serious manner. (And if you’re familiar with his demeanor when he’s not acting, then you know that he is nothing like the characters he has played.) In Bullhead he played a sexually damaged guy so pumped up on steroids that he could barely function without punching a wall. In The Drop, with an absolutely flawless Brooklyn accent, he uses his body in a menacing way, leaning in close to people, a dead-eyed psycho. And then, in Disorder – which just came out (my review here)- he plays another guy whose job – military combat – involved his body, and whose body has been ruined (PTSD and hearing loss) by that job, who has been cut off from the rest of humanity because of these challenges.
Bullhead
The Drop
Disorder
In none of these roles, does Schoenaerts fall back on macho-swagger ego. The characters have some similarities, but they are more different from one another than they are similar. How they relate to the world may be the same – through their bodies – but it doesn’t manifest in identical ways at all. Schoenaerts is extremely sensitive to nuance and context. The way the Bullhead guy would have kicked the dog … well. The dog would be dead. The guy in The Drop actually does abuse his dog – so badly that he nearly kills the dog, and then throws it away in the trash, the inciting event for the whole movie. The guy in Disorder is a highly trained killer and he would never ever kick a dog. In a million years. And Ali in Rust and Bone kicks the dog, in a “God, just move it” impatient way, probably kicking it harder than he meant to, because he doesn’t think about anything before he does it. I appreciate Audiard’s willingness to put such a moment in the movie. Let the character be what he is. Don’t sugarcoat it. Or explain it. Don’t play it up either. Let him be who he is.
During his rounds, Stephanie calls.
The fact that, after months and months, after losing her legs, after being in rehab and moving to an assisted living facility, she would find his number lying around – this guy she met once on a crazy night a million years ago when she still had legs, the guy she was rude to throughout their half an hour together – and think, “Maybe he’s the guy I should call in my time of need …” is one of the most interesting (and unexplained) parts of the story. He never asks, “Why did you call me?” In his simple (not dumb, but simple) understanding of people, he gets that she needs help, and he doesn’t question her impulse in calling him. (Now. If she had called him pre-accident, what would have been his response? Stand-up sex in a back alley at Marine Land, I’m thinking.) Is he curious about why she called? He never asks. BOTH things – Stephanie calling him, and Ali never asking why – remain mysterious and I love that. Much more to think about, much more to discuss.
The phone call with Stephanie is filmed completely from behind Schoenaerts, so we never see his face. Great back-ting! You wonder how on earth he will react to this random phone call from that bitch in the mini skirt who let him soak his hand in her house. She has to remind him who she is. “The fight. The ice.” He says, “Oh, of course! Stephanie! How are you?” Totally friendly. None of that distant, “Oh, hey, wassup” that really means, “Oh shit, why are you calling me, what do you want from me?” He tells her in a second that he saw on the news what happened to her, but his tone of voice is not, “Oh my God, I heard what happened, how are you …” He seems genuinely happy to hear from her. Which – judging from her voice on the other end – makes no sense. There are long pauses between every exchange. He’s slowed down walking until he’s almost stopped. You never see his face. You can project anything onto him. She wants something from him. He waits to hear what it is.
So here we have: Ali, this big lug, whom we have already seen:
1. treat his kid roughly
2. steal food
3. steal a camera
4. tell a woman she looks like a “whore” because of how she is dressed
5. kick a dog
We’ve seen this guy do all these things … and now we see him awkwardly, sensitively, and kindly handle a phone call from this random woman, who calls him from out of the blue. One can only imagine his reaction when he saw the news report about what happened to one trainer named Stephanie so-and-so at Marine Land, with footage of her in a stretcher being hustled to a helicopter, or whatever. Hey … isn’t that that girl? Holy shit, that’s that whale girl I met. But on the phone with her, he’s friendly, and he also waits. Waits for her to say what she wants. His sixth-sense ability with her – to WAIT while she makes up her mind what she wants – is one of the reasons why the relationship can even begin at all. He doesn’t “swoop in”, he doesn’t bring himSELF into it at all (what he needs, what he wants). She wants something. Okay, so I’ll just stand over here, until she feels like saying it. It’s so unique.
The next scene is their first “date.” The previous scene does not end with her saying, “Do you want to come over?” although something along those lines was obviously agreed to. When he walks, hesitantly, into her apartment, she’s sitting there in her wheelchair in the middle of the room and she looks like shit. He’s not at all uncomfortable about her disability. He doesn’t know what to do, or why he is there, but he does his best to figure out what she might need. Because she sure as shit isn’t saying. She’s unreachable, her voice muffled, probably from pain-killers and depression. Maybe – and this is very touching to contemplate – she wants someone who doesn’t really know her, whom she does not have a relationship with, where she doesn’t have to put on a “brave” face. She feels the pressure from friends, family, to get better, to get well. That won’t be in play with this guy. He asks her if anybody comes over to “help” her and she – raw and sensitive – takes it the wrong way: “What. Help me walk again?” He says, “No. To help you clean up and stuff.” He is observant enough to perceive that the apartment is a mess. (I love that detail. It’s caring, but in a very practical way. Girl, you have plates of half-eaten food everywhere. Who the hell is helping you with this.) When she asks him, embarrassed, if it “stinks in here,” he says, “A little.” Honesty. Sincerity. He doesn’t reference the accident at all. He doesn’t try to “get her talking” about it or some such bullshit. It’s quite a strange situation, if you look back on the circumstance of their first encounter.
She is so out of it she can barely unscrew the coffee-can lid. His impulse to come help her with the coffee, his gentleness when he takes the can away from her, his awkwardness when he stands there after she has rolled away … calling out to her, “Ça va?” … tells us as much about this guy as who he is physically tells us. Audiard, watching Schoenaerts’ body language during this small sequence, says in the commentary, “You can tell that he is a good guy.” Because honestly, up until this moment, that’s not been at all clear.
A word or two on the phrase “Ça va”. Ali and Stephanie say it to one another constantly, and it starts here. It’s one of my favorite parts of the script. There’s a constant checking-in that happens: You good? You okay? How you doing? Sometimes it comes out of the fact of her disability, and Ali – who, after all, is not a trained nurse and has no idea what he’s doing – is trying to figure out if he’s handling whatever it is okay. Sometimes it comes out of the fact that Stephanie sees Ali as a mystery, and so parts of him are opaque to her, she doesn’t understand his reactions to things, needs to check in. If you listen to the script, eventually all you hear is Ça va Ça va Ça va Ça va Ça va Ça va Ça va Ça va? And in that refrain, you start to hear a connection made. Not a connection based on shared experiences, similar interests, or even hot sex. But a connection based on caring about whatever is going on with the other person, even if you don’t understand it.
When Ali tells Stephanie to get dressed so they can go out, she resists, quite strongly, quite aggressively. He is not sure what to do, and sits down in a chair, looking at her. The behavior is all so fascinating. He doesn’t say “What the hell do you want from me then? You just called me up to be a bitch to me again?” His impulse is to help, but he’s not sure what to do if he’s not allowed to help.
And so she was right to call him, as improbable as that sounds. Maybe it’s because of that moment where Ali shut her boyfriend down in her apartment. Maybe she’s smarter than she looks. He’s the only one – including her friends and co-workers, people who are REALLY in her life – who doesn’t look at her with fear and helpless compassion. Clearly, he ends up winning with the battle with Stephanie over whether or not they will go outside, and the two of them sit at a cafe looking out at the ocean, and Ali rolls a cigarette saying he wants to go for a swim and does she want to come with? He barely looks at her. It’s a casual suggestion. “Hey, wanna go in?” She looks at him like she thinks he’s making fun of her. Or that he must be incredibly obtuse. Doesn’t he realize what has happened to me? I have no frickin’ legs. NO, I’m not going SWIMMING, JESUS CHRIST. He sees the look on her face, and says, “Who cares? Nobody’s here.” There’s not a part of him that doesn’t mean it. PLUS, even more revealing, he’s free enough to be a little bit irritated with her.
Probably everyone in her life right now is tiptoeing around her, being careful of her feelings, ostentatiously not mentioning the accident, always being gentle and caring. It’s infantilizing. Everyone treats her differently now. But here he is, a total stranger, irritated with her because if she wants to go swimming she should just fucking do it, and so what she has no bathing suit? Or legs? Nobody’s here, he honestly DOESN’T get it (sincerity: again) and as she stares at him, still gob-smacked at how stupid he is to even make such a suggestion, he says, “Well, I’m going in.” And up he gets and runs across the street to the beach.
He doesn’t wait for her. He doesn’t sit there, WANTING to go swimming but NOT because SHE doesn’t want to. He also doesn’t push her. He’s irritated because if she wants to go in, she should go in, he came all this way to hang out, he doesn’t know what she needs but he does think she probably should go in, because she looks like shit and needs a shower, like, 5 days ago, but whatever. He gets up and leaves her there. Simplicity is the key: what you see is what you get. It’s such a great character.
Maybe Stephanie – in all her pretty-girl privilege – is used to people doing what she wants. I’m guessing. Someone like Ali knows you have to fight tooth-and-nail for what you want, because he’s from the permanent underclass. There’s something very very compelling about someone who takes care of himself, who leaves you sitting there in your misery so he can take care of his own needs. To someone who constantly feels victimized, such an action on his part will seem selfish. But it’s not. Why shouldn’t he go swimming? He doesn’t do it to make a point. He doesn’t do it in a “Screw you then” way. He does it because he wants to go in. So many established relationships get all caught up in this “togetherness” thing, so that if one person doesn’t want to do something, the other feels pressured to not want to do it too. And then there’s anger and resentment if one person says, “Okay, well, I’m gonna go do that thing anyway.” It is TOTALLY unnatural. Stephanie, except for her job, did not do what she wanted to do in her life. She got roped into things she hated, relationships, situations, she feels victimized. I’m going on and on like this, because it’s an extremely important moment, when he gets up and leaves her there, running off to the beach. This is who they will be to each other. This is how everything will change for both of them.
Stephanie moves out of being cut off from her impulses, and moves into being a woman who starts – starts! – to understand that she has agency, she gets to make a choice. It’s all up to her. Maybe you only can understand that when someone – like Ali – leaves you alone as he goes off and makes the choice to do whatever it is HE wants to do. Without punishing you for it. It’s grown-up stuff.
Ali is not a therapist or a life coach. But his independence from her (as well as the fact that 1. he showed up today at all and 2. legitimately didn’t seem to understand why she didn’t want to go swimming) makes her stronger, somehow. Makes things clearer for her. He’s not a manic pixie dream boy and she’s not a manic pixie dream girl. They’re both too selfish and isolated and damaged to spend any energy at all being “inspiring” for one another. That’s not how this story operates.
Stephanie has to make a choice. Maybe the only choice she’s ever made since she decided she wanted to work with whales. Scratch that: The first choice of her life was to work with whales. The second most important choice of her life was to pick up the phone and call Ali after the accident. The third important choice is deciding to go swimming that day even though she is terrified. Marion Cotillard is stunning in letting the character’s motivations and needs be unclear – even to the character. Real life people don’t always know what the hell is going on with them, can’t always lay it out in a thesis statement. We often act against our own best interests. Cotillard understands that this woman has been trapped her whole life in a beautiful body that men wanted but that she had no feeling for, and now … now she’s lost her legs, and she misses that body that she took for granted, that could do all these amazing things like run and swim, and she didn’t honor it and now it is too late for all of that.
Because remember that girl in the wet suit, swimming with orcas. Stephanie spent more time in the water than she did on dry land in her former life. She was way more comfortable with herself in the Marine Land environment than the nightclub environment or even at home. Water is her home. And to not be able to do her job … ever again … her grief is ferocious and profound. It’s not just the fact that she has no legs that holds her back from going swimming with Ali. It is everything that water represents.
But in this moment, staring at Ali’s blurry figure down on the beach, she makes her decision. Puts her fingers in her mouth and whistles for him to come get her.
That’s the other thing about the unspoken power of Ali’s behavior with her: He goes off and does what he wants to do, which then gives her the space to change her mind. I remember saying to a controlling prick of a boyfriend, “I actually GET to change my mind.” The expression on his face: “Does not compute.” He thought changing your mind meant you were flaky and didn’t know what you want. And yeah, I DON’T know what I want in every single second of the day. “I’ll have the fries. Oh no, wait, I’ll have the salad instead.” People change their minds all the time and they aren’t flakes. Ali’s independence from her – from the get-go – gives her the space to change her mind, and he won’t bitch at her about it (“But you just SAID that you didn’t want to blah blah blah.”) He doesn’t question her whistling for him. He’s like. “Oh. Now she wants to swim. Okay.” She gets to be wherever she’s at with him. He won’t punish her or, worse, walk off and leave her because a flake like her is not worth the trouble.
Ali grabs a staff member to come up and help him carry her in her wheelchair down to the row of deck chairs. She leans her face into the sun, watching as this strange man whom she doesn’t even know dives under and pop back up, in the blinding water. It can’t be an accident or coincidence that Audiard chose to film this – and had Schoenaerts swim in such a way that he reminds us of Stephanie’s whales. Ali isn’t doing the backstroke, or floating on his back. He’s diving, emerging, diving, emerging, his feet sticking up like a whale’s tail.
If the “fish” (as Ali calls them) helped her engage with life and adventure and her best self, then … well, she’s looking at something else that will end up doing that too. Now, this will change and things will come up that are difficult, but what goes on this first day at the beach is the essence of what their relationship will be about.
He does not worry about whether or not she is ready to go into the ocean. He doesn’t think about it at all. Her other friends, well-meaning though they may be, would probably say, “Are you sure you’re ready to do this??” And their fear would be catching. Their fear would make Stephanie at odds with what she wants to do. Ali’s whole thing is, “It’s your call.”
Whatever it is he has done in the, what, 40 minutes that she has now known him, has made her okay with involving him in what will be a nerve-wracking experience, an experience that will require total trust. But look at that guy swimming around out there. Who showed up today when she called. Maybe that one fact alone is enough. He’s drying off standing next to her and she tells him that she does want to go in. He says, “Really?” and he sounds pleasantly surprised but not overly invested. More like, “Really? Cool!”
Taking off her pants underneath the towel is vulnerable, and she keeps glancing around and up at him to see if anyone is watching. Exposing her amputated legs to the sun, the air, to the people on the beach, to him … she hesitates every step of the way. At what point will this guy decide she’s … gross, or this situation is too much, too heavy? He politely looks away from her, giving her privacy. When he turns around, and sees her legs for the first time, he stops. Not because he’s freaked out at the sight, but because he suddenly realizes that she actually is going to go swimming and he will be heavily involved in it and he has no idea what to do and he will have enormous responsibility in whatever happens. (And this is a guy who barely understands that having a small child is a responsibility.) Ali and Stephanie haven’t touched or anything like that. They’ve known each other for an hour, tops, including their first meeting. He’s never had to carry a double amputee into the ocean. He asks her how he’s supposed to do it. She tells him he has to carry her, so he hauls her up in his arms and stalks her down to the ocean.
He does whatever she tells him to do throughout. He “spots” her as she floats. She tells him not to let go of her too fast. He hovers nearby. He keeps saying “Ça va?”
Immediately upon being submerged in the water, Stephanie starts to splash, moving away from him, then needing to get her unwashed shirt off so she can be free. She can barely get the shirt off though because her balance is wobbly, due to her amputation, and he tries to help her, not sure what’s happening. Finally, he just takes her shirt from her, and watches as she swims off into the blinding white-blue jeweled water. Once far away from him, she is completely transformed from the lethargic girl who had greeted him at her apartment. She’s a mermaid, an orca. She whoops with ecstasy offscreen, and he – headed back to shore, holding her shirt – glances back to make sure that was a happy sound and not a scared sound. He’s a good person, a protector, instinctively. It makes it that much more maddening when he fucks up – as he does every other second in all that follows in the rest of the film. His goodness is so obvious. Why is he not getting it? Why is he not choosing it more consciously?
Part of the key to why this works – and I’m still rather surprised it does work – is that it’s treated … well, not exactly realistically – the lens flares and brightness of the water and the shot choices are romantic and poetic as opposed to realistic – but why it works is that none of it feels like it’s “making a point”. You know how it would go normally: closeup of him smiling with pleasure at the sight of her swimming. Closeup of her face in the water. Swelling music. Etc. The only time music plays during the scene is when Ali and the beach staff person carry her down onto the beach, and the music is sweet and sad, but other than that, it’s just the sound of the waves. And – note to filmmakers – it is a tremendously emotional sequence, even without all of those things. Audiard and his actors – and his cinematographer (long overdue shoutout to Stéphane Fontaine) don’t push the moment, don’t push us to feel anything specific. There is an erotic quality to the scene: the green water, the sunlight, their wet bodies, touching each other – but it’s presented and acted in a practical way, not sexual. The world is alive, their bodies are alive: sunlight, ocean, salt spray, skin. As long as we can perceive these things, we are still topside. The scene is romantic in spite of itself. (Which could describe Ali and Stephanie’s entire journey throughout this whole film.)
Time passes. Long enough that Ali has fallen asleep in one of the deck chairs and she has to whistle for him twice to come get her. He lumbers on down into the water like an obliging workhorse, not at all questioning any of it. Okay, so I had no idea that this would be what I would be doing today, and I have no idea what I’m doing actually, but here I am doing it. Without words, he turns his back to her so she can climb on. Another moment I love. He’s not going to carry her, bare-breasted, in his arms across the beach, so this is his solution to hide her body. All of it passing without a word between them. (Like I said, anything having to do with the body, Ali is ACES at. In other areas though … hm.)
In perhaps the most beautiful shot in the film, Ali carries Stephanie on his back across the beach. The camera is low, staring up at them, the golden sun pouring down around them, blotting them out entirely at times. What is it like to play a guy who has nothing going on except what is going on in the moment? Because watch Ali’s face. All he is doing is carrying her across the beach and he doesn’t have any awareness at all that there might be anything attention-getting about what he is doing or what she looks like or what they look like together. All he is doing is carrying her across the beach, and enjoying her exclaiming from behind him, her wet arms clinging to his neck: “Fuck, that felt good.”
A nice and not overdone touch (Audiard was concerned about overdoing it) is showing a couple of sunbathers do alarmed double-takes as they watch this nearly-naked legless woman go by on a guy’s back. Audiard and his actors have done such a good job of establishing her disability, and her feelings about it, but also creating an environment where it becomes the least notable thing about her. It’s very important. Because from this day forward, things start to change. Stephanie blossoms into something she never could have foreseen. The disability doesn’t make it possible, or at least not entirely. It’s a mix of things. It’s Ali, and how he deals with her disability. It’s literally no big deal to him, and he barely seems to notice it. This helps her start to accept it. If she can go swimming in the ocean again, something she always loved, if that’s not OVER for her, then what else is not over? If she can have an orgasm while someone else is in the room, after years of disappointment, then what else is possible? That’s all there. So the double-take from the sunbathers is important. It’s a reminder of the outside world, the outside world with their gaze that limits as opposed to accepts.
This beautiful scene ends on a comedic note. Time has passed yet again, and the two of them lie asleep in deck chairs, side by side. Ali is on his side, facing her. All you see of her is her naked back in the foreground of the screen. Slowly, she turns over, still naked (because Europe), and now all you see in the foreground is her torso and her breasts. Her head is totally off-frame. Lazily, still half-asleep, Ali opens his eyes, sees her breasts 10 inches away from his face, has zero reaction to the sight, just stares at them drowsily for a while, and then … closes his eyes and goes back to sleep. Might be my favorite moment in the scene.
For God’s sake, it’s like they’ve been married for 30 years.
After this scene of extraordinary connection, Rust and Bone splinters, back into her world, and then his world. That structure will continue in the film. We see her life. We see his life. Then they come together again. Slowly, though, the boundaries start to blend. She moves into his world – invited by him – by such incremental degrees that he doesn’t notice. He’s already moved into hers, from the second he showed up at her door when she called. I like the back and forth three-pronged structure – her, him, them – because that’s what life is like. The film is not about a nice big lug who helps a disabled girl and they fall in love. It’s about a guy who is just as trapped as she is, unwilling to step into the sunlight of his true personality, self-loathing always just around the corner. It’s about a woman who, after being destroyed, actually has to do the work – for the first time – to figure out who she really is. What she likes. Who she wants to be. These are solitary journeys. It’s why the final sequence of the film is so excruciating. The movie has done its work. These people MUST be together. The whole world depends on it. Now THAT’S how a love story should feel.
Now that she’s had that day swimming, she feels alive again. There’s a great scene of her dancing in her bedroom as “Love Shack” blares, twirling her wheelchair around. There’s a really nice little scene when her friend and fellow whale-trainer Louise (Céline Sallette, a wonderful award-winning actress, in a really small part here) comes over with a couple of boxes of Stephanie’s clothes. Stephanie goes through them, tossing out what she won’t wear anymore. Louise, folding clothes, keeps her eyes on Stephanie, and doesn’t know what to say. Stephanie is “back,” in a lot of ways, no more that comatose woman who greeted Ali in her apartment. Stephanie’s practicality is, perhaps, a little surprising to Louise. Louise is not sure how to handle it. Just from the way she looks at Stephanie, you can see the depth of their friendship.
A nice detail: Stephanie takes out a little flowered sundress, and gives it to Louise, saying, “You always liked this. Have it.” Louise feels a little awkward, because … SHE can’t get past what has happened to her friend, and what this clothes-sorting actually means. She doesn’t SAY that, but it’s there in the space between them. In a later scene, when Louise accompanies Stephanie to a doctor’s appointment, Louise is wearing the flowered dress. It’s not commented on, and it’s very moving. Stephanie decides to keep the little hot-to-trot black combo that she was wearing the night she met Ali. The outfit that made him say she was dressed like a whore. And now …. One can only imagine how she is thinking about Ali right now, what that day at the beach meant to her.
When we pick up the thread with Ali, he’s on-duty with his security guard buddy, watching nuts MMA fights on Youtube. It’s probably 2 o’clock in the morning. Enter Martial (Bouli Lanners), a guy who works for the security company, but he’s also hired – in secret, because it’s illegal – by store managers to install secret cameras so management can spy on employees. (Audiard was so fascinated by this whole sub-culture of illegal cameras that he considered doing a whole film about it.) Ali is slow to understand what it is that Martial actually does. Audiard is a moral filmmaker, interested in the ethical issues of power structures. Martial, presumably not a white-collar guy himself, engages in an activity that will get those in his own class – the working-class – in trouble. AND, he will PROFIT from them getting in trouble. Audiard says in the commentary track, “He is the bad guy.” I’m not sure that’s quite the effect that is onscreen, although I can see it more with repetition. Martial is an exploiter. One of his side gigs is recruiting fighters into an illegal fighting ring run by a “gypsy from Nice,” more exploitation, this time of the desperate poor guys who need to make a quick buck, who are willing to get the teeth knocked out of their head, their noses broken, hands broken, for almost no money at all.
Martial has noticed Ali’s concentration on the fights on Youtube, and pulls him aside to ask him if he has done any fighting – and if so – does he want to make some money at it? Ali, in ubiquitous hoodie (he looks like Slim Shady), says, “Are you shitting me?” It’s a no-brainer.
It’s hard to believe this is the same guy as the one who good-naturedly lumbered across the beach with a naked girl on his back.
Speaking of which, the next thing we see after the scene with Martial:
He’s gone back to Stephanie. Did she call him again? Did they make a date for a next time while lying on the deck chairs? Did he call her? How does this routine even begin? Because it’s a routine immediately. It’s what they do. He shows up, they go swimming, he takes her home. Goes back to his life. She goes back to hers. A couple days later they do it again. There’s no sex. Not even a romantic possibility. They’re just hanging out. When does Ali ever “hang out” with a woman? Has he ever been friends with a woman in his life? For me, there’s a moment later in the film when … to put it crudely … he looks at her and his dick suddenly gets hard for the first time. But we’re not there yet. He doesn’t help her because it makes him feel good about himself. It’s less complicated than that. In an interview about the film with Anne Thompson, Schoenaerts describes it thus:
“I think it’s, again, it’s a very natural reflex. He’s just helping someone in need. And he’s attaching himself to that person without even knowing it. She gets under his skin and he doesn’t even notice. It’s once she’s gone, that he realizes, ‘Jesus Christ. I love this person.'”
As we pick up the thread with them, they’re talking about his upcoming fight, she asks questions, he explains to her what it is. “We fuck each other up pretty bad.” What is interesting about this is that he told her what’s going on with him. Another minor miracle. It’s hard to picture him telling Tattoo-Aerobic-Babe about his life. He wouldn’t want to do that. That’s not what women like that are for. So the thing with Stephanie is new ground, but once they figured out their routine, he settles into it. He carries her around like he’s been doing it forever, interrupting his story once to say, “Hey. You’re strangling me.” “Oh. Sorry.” Comfortable. Their relationship has also, subtly, moved past the focus on her, her depression and her disability. They talk about other things. He fills her in on what has happened since they last saw each other. You know, it’s like they’re … friends. (I imagine that if Ali stopped to think about any of this, if he actually examined what he was doing, and where it might lead, he would stop answering her calls.)
There’s a small scene, beautifully and effortlessly played by both actors, where they get dressed after swimming, and talk about the fight. It’s the kind of scene I love because there are emotions happening, but at the same time there’s all this behavior and activity. Behavior and activity anchor emotion, allow emotions to exist. Stephanie and Ali face each other, sitting on two deck chairs, he puts on his sneakers, his sweat pants, she puts on her shirt, pulling her hair back in a ponytail. She is obsessed with the fight and hates the idea of it. She pushes him to explain why he is doing it. When she hears how little he will get paid if he wins, she says she will pay him that amount, call it off. His response is great: “If you’re loaded, sure. But I already said I’d do it.” Ha. He’d take her money! But he’d still fight!
She is openly concerned about him, the first concern she’s shown for anyone but herself, and yet she has to modulate her expression, her tone of voice, because she doesn’t know him yet, isn’t intimate enough to hector all over him. Watch her navigate all this. She pauses before speaking. She thinks. She doesn’t like ANY of this. She feels safe with him. He treats her like an autonomous grown-up. What is the appeal of a fight like this to him? Who is this person outside of the couple of hours he spends with me on the beach? I love her performance in this scene.
His behavior here is similar to the irritation he showed in the scene before they went onto the beach for the first time. He explains himself to her, and it’s all just so OBVIOUS to him, he doesn’t get why she’s not getting it. Her worrying about him is irritating. Maybe there’s a residue of feeling like SHE is the one to be worried about, not HIM. At one point, he rolls his eyes, and says, in answer to one of her questions, “What a pain!” This feels like intimacy. It is intimacy. She says something like, “You’re going to destroy your health for 500?” He says, as he ties his shoes, “Please. Don’t overdo it.”
She pushes him further: If it’s not for the money, then why? He says, “For the fun of it. Like you with your fish. It’s fun.”
Now, look, we don’t SEE her with her friends (outside of Louise). But what we do see is eloquent. Now that Stephanie is feeling better, it’s everybody else who still has the problem, who refuse to mention what happened with “the fish” and certainly wouldn’t toss it into a conversation like that to make a point. But he dares to compare why he is drawn to doing something dangerous and why it’s not just about the money to her career choice … and it’s a good point. They’re way more similar than she, who grew up in relative economic ease (whatever else might have been going on, and we never hear about it), could even perceive. And no. She didn’t swim with killer whales for the paycheck.
His lack of concern for how she will “take” things is the most kind thing about his behavior. She is not what happened to her. She is a person. And right now she is being totally annoying.
Stephanie draws up short when he brings the whales into it. Her reaction is the clue that her friends doggedly NEVER mention the whales. She’s shocked, affronted. Also, her legs were bitten off by those whales, so isn’t he proving her point? She says, “Yeah, and look what happened to me.”
Ali gives her an “over it” look at the maudlin quality of her comment, and says, “Spare me.” Then, shoes tied: “Where’s your stroller?”
“Spare me. Where’s your stroller?” This relationship is awesome. (Schoenaerts improvised the “stroller” line.)
As he wheels her back up towards the promenade, she asks if she could come watch the fight. Will wonders never cease? She’s curious. Curious about this man, about what he does when he’s not with her. Curious about the world that doesn’t involve her and center on her. She’s never done anything like this. Even asking to go is enormous – yet another choice she makes that ends up changing everything – because it’s when she starts going to the fights that things really start. But how could she know that when she asks to go? She can’t. She just knows she wants to go. Maybe to protect him? Just by her presence? Even more wondrous, he does end up letting her come, although he doesn’t say “yes” to her question when she asks it. He’s surprised she’s asked. He didn’t see that one coming. Picturing him with his various women … it is impossible to imagine any of them coming to his illegal fight, let alone … having a conversation with him. Maybe it’s because he assumes sex is off the table with Stephanie. Maybe he’s just so busy taking care of her that it doesn’t seem to occur to him that she’s a sexual being. And so because of all of that an actual friendship has a chance.
The film skips back to Stephanie, at an appointment to get casts put on her legs for eventual fitting of prosthetic legs. Her friend Louise (in flowered dress) accompanies her. The doctor who puts the cast on Stephanie’s legs, explaining how the prosthetics work, is not an actor but a guy who – in real life – really does this. (They filmed at an actual rehab center, the “extras” were not actors but those who recovered at the center.) And so his casual monologue about what the prosthetics are, and how the feet work, and how you can also get “feet” with a “heel” on them (“For women, that’s important”) is what he actually says to the real people he works with, and it gives the scene a very nice sense of authenticity. Louise stays with Stephanie the whole time, holding onto her arm, quietly and supportively. (I think it’s a smart choice to show that Stephanie is not totally alone in the world. That she has Louise. That it’s not just Ali. If it were just Ali, then I think it would make Stephanie look weak, or like she “needs” him too much. It would weaken her character and it would not highlight the fact that she hangs out with Ali by CHOICE. It’s not just because she doesn’t have anyone else to drive her around.)
After the sunlight and fresh air and ocean of the scene before, the rehab center plunges us back into the cold, the light is blue and dead. No warmth, no sunlight to lean into. I think it’s important, too, that even though Stephanie is now going on swimming dates, and blasting “Love Shack” and feeling better, she’s not like, “Hey! Everything’s fine!” Of course everything is not fine. There’s a beautiful shot of Cotillard’s face, as she hovers upright so the casts will set: she glances at Louise and smiles, like, “This is such a ridiculous experience, look at me right now …” but then a tear rolls down her cheek. Cotillard’s emotional fluidity is extraordinary.
The following scene is so painful my impulse is to skip it when I re-watch.
It’s a complicated sequence. Violent, too. Anna asks Ali to watch Sam for 5 minutes while she deals with the dog breeder. Ali is busy watching boxing matches on Youtube, and then Martial calls. Ali is engrossed in the phone call and Sam ends up running outside and making a scene because the dogs are being taken away. Anna grabs Sam and carries him upstairs. What follows is complete chaos. Anna is furious at Ali: I asked you to keep him inside for FIVE MINUTES and you can’t even do that. Sam is hysterical because of the dogs, and Ali finally steps in. But the way he “steps in” makes you wish he hadn’t. He reaches out, and picks Sam up. Sam screams in terror when Ali picks him up – because Ali is furious – and Sam’s scream is such a terrible sound that I worry about the little kid who clearly is not acting. Ali starts shaking Sam, screaming at him to shut up, which makes it worse, and when Ali lets Sam go, it’s too rough, and Sam falls, knocking his head on the side of the table.
If you can make it through this scene without wanting to turn it off every second, hats off to your fortitude.
The shot of Sam banging his head is so excruciating I thought he died. Anna races to pick Sam up. Ali is frozen. He wants to take it back. He hovers there, huge and awkward and embarrassed, saying impotently, “He’s fine.” But then can’t bear himself and leaves.
These scenes work in a cumulative fashion. Rust and Bone gives us a full human being in both Ali and Stephanie. There is who they are when they are together. There is who they are when they are alone. There is who they are in interaction with other people. Ali’s relationship with Sam is not good. He can’t seem to stop himself. He doesn’t get that it’s up to him. That he has to change. He loves his son, that’s not in question, but his whole mode of being has to change. Like Stephanie whistling for him to come get her, he has to make a choice. Ali knows how to make choices. It’s not like he lolls around on the couch all day like a loser. He gets a job. He does what he’s supposed to do. He uses his paycheck to pay for a gym membership. He trains hard to get back in shape. He’s not out partying every night. He knows Stephanie needs help getting to the beach and into the water, so he shows up to do that. It’s another responsibility he’s taken on. But Sam. Ali’s role as a father. How important it is and how MUCH he is messing it up … it’s the crux of it. The crux of his limitations. (This also bleeds over into his relationship with Anna, whom he takes for granted. He hasn’t been in touch with her for 5 years. He swoops back into her life, lives with her, eats her food, expects her to pick up the slack with Sam … In this area, Ali is an ASS. HOLE.) And Ali can’t figure out how to make all of this right. He doesn’t even think about it in those terms. He doesn’t think at all. He’s a child.
Another jolt of a transition: To a pane of glass (of course: back on the inside, looking out), cloudy with dirt: the back window of Martial’s van. The van careens down a bumpy road, with a cloud of dust behind it. The road is so rough that Stephanie loses her balance and tips over, Ali shouting at Martial to slow down, helping her put on her seat belt. To go from the scene with Sam to this moment, where Ali helps her, pissed off that Martial isn’t being mindful that there’s a girl in the backseat who has some challenges, is jarring, and a perfect representation of the fractured fabric of Ali’s life and personality. Because helping comes naturally to him. He does it automatically.
The scene they drive into is totally sketchy. It’s an abandoned lot in an empty industrial site. Men crowd into the small space, testosterone raging, guys with wads of cash wandering around, inspecting the array of fighters. When they pull up, a guy comes over to the van, immediately spots Stephanie in the back seat and asks, “Who’s she?” Martial replies, with a deadpan attitude, practically an eye-roll, “His girlfriend.” There’s a great and quick two-shot in the back seat: Ali, staring out the window at his competition, having a quick internal reaction to that comment – not pissed or insulted, just “Ha. That’s pretty funny.” Neither of them deny Martial’s comment, because why bother. A glimpse of pride flashes across Stephanie’s face. She’s with the “star” of the day and it’s fun for her to have the perception out there that she’s his girlfriend. Especially since she has ceased thinking of herself as a viable romantic candidate altogether.
It makes me wonder at Martial’s reaction when he learned that Ali was bringing a girl to the fight. Let alone a legless girl in a wheelchair. I imagine that Ali told Martial to pick him up at Stephanie’s address, without even asking Martial if he had permission to bring her. So Martial pulls up, sees the two of them, maybe has a momentary, “Ali, come on, she can’t come,” and Ali throwing her wheelchair in the back, picking her up and putting her in the backseat, saying, “Oh, come on, whatever, she’s coming.”
Swimming with Ali has been good for Stephanie. He’s helped her transition back into the land of the living. She enjoys it. It’s good exercise for her. But nothing would have advanced between them if she hadn’t started coming to the fights. This is yet another mysterious element in Rust and Bone, not explained in some monologue (“I saw you out there and my loins started tingling …” “Until you came and watched me fight, I did not realize we were connected …” I mean, come on. No.) Sometimes things change organically, overnight. You get a glimpse of someone that changes your entire perception. Or they allow you to be involved in their lives, they allow you to see who they are when they’re not with you. And that makes you closer. Whatever the case may be, the fights are transformative. More so for her than for him, but having her there, watching him, is also a big deal. Something shifts.
One aspect of the scene is what happens out there in the gravel yard among the men. It’s extraordinary film-making and performance. Then there’s what happens with Stephanie as she watches. She is riveted. She is impressed. She is afraid. She is turned on. She is turned off. It’s all.
The scene is EPIC.
Once Ali gets into the zone of the fight, and preparing for the fight, he barely pays attention to her. She sits watching, agog, asking him questions. He answers, but distractedly. But after he wins his first fight, he swaggers back to the van, and knowing she’s been there, watching, changes the experience for him. He smiles at her through the window as he comes back towards her. Sort of, “Getta load-a ME. Right??” A real relationship has started and neither of them are even aware of it.
If Ali stopped to question what was happening to him, what might happen if he let her into his life, he’d probably recoil. He gets used to her without realizing that it’s happening. It’s the unconscious part of his growing relationship with her that is the most powerful part of all of this and what makes that eventual “I love you” such an enormous breakthrough.
I also appreciate that Jacques Audiard – a man – films a lot of the fight from Stephanie’s perspective, his camera sensitive to the male body, to Schoenaerts’ weird rough beauty: his rippling muscles, his jiggling softish gut, his biceps, his swooping movements, grabbing onto his opponent, naked male bodies entwined. Yes, we need more “female filmmakers” (in quotes because I don’t like the phrase. I’m not a “female writer.” I’m a writer, goddammit.) and we need more films that acknowledge – in a kind and generous way – the fantasies that women have about male bodies. But consider that Magic Mike XXL was directed by a man, and objectified every man onscreen within an inch of his life in such a friendly and appreciative and SMART way, knowing we – straight ladies, or hell, anyone who appreciates beauty – want time to linger and let our minds wander over what we’d like to do to those bodies. Women are treated like this all the time in film (yet often in a hostile way that reduces women to their body parts. Magic Mike XXL was a celebration of beauty. We need more of that, in general.)
Audiard understands what the scene is about, and it’s twofold. Her really seeing him for the first time. And him appreciating the fact that she’s there watching.
I’m pretty sure Stephanie was attracted to Ali the second he picked her up and carried her onto the beach. Or, at least, she felt attraction later when she looked back on it. But here, watching his body – a body that is soft and hard at the same time – in motion – she gets turned on, in a way that has never happened in her life before. So much so that she reaches into the front seat to turn on the air-conditioning at the same time that she pushes her face into the sun. Calm down … what the hell is happening to me … I’m hot, I’m cold … I’m losing it …
Hitting on him or making a pass is out of the question. And – based on that little monologue about her sex life that comes later – using her old tricks with him is also out of the question. She can’t “get back” to who she used to be. And because of her disability she assumes that no one will want to sleep with her again.
She also gets glimpses of something else in him, especially in a victorious moment, when he jumps up and down after pummeling some guy into a pulp, where she gets frightened of him. If I had to put it into words, I would say that she looks at him through the window (during one moment, in particular) and anticipates that eventually she’s gonna have to cut this guy loose, and she already feels the loss. It’s makes her sad.
He wins all of his fights. He’s a superstar. He’s had a good day. His mouth is filled with blood but he’s satisfied. On their way home, Stephanie sits quietly beside him, not knowing what to say. They’re not close enough yet. There’s a lot of space between them still. Do you say, “Congratulations?” He’s bleeding and that’s slightly upsetting (for her, not for him, he just shovels gauze into his mouth, wet towel over his head to cool down). She looks over at him and then there’s a long lingering shot of his bicep and his back. It’s started. It’s started for real.
Ali, completely unaware that anything has started, asks Martial to pull over at a gas station. Martial counts up the money in the front seat. I love Cotillard’s face after the fight. She’s alert, but she’s unsure. She’s along for the ride, and still maybe can’t believe that Ali let her come at all. She’s totally a “fish” out of “water.” (Sorry.) Turns away from the beguiling sight of his naked body and stares out the window into the sunlight. (Sorry.)
Ali comes back to the van holding a gigantic toy tractor, and sucking on a lollipop. The lollipop is such a great detail, driving home the juvenility of the character, and I’d bet it was Schoenaerts’ choice. Could there be a more childlike sight than this?
Stephanie asks who the toy is for and he says, “My son.”
Realizing that this guy has a son blows off the top of her head. Talk about “I never would have imagined”, as he said to her earlier about her and the whales. This is the “You just don’t know what’s going on with people” thing. It’s best not to assume. Or at least – notice when you’re assuming something and question your assumptions. This lollipop-sucking childlike boxer who seems to have unlimited amounts of time to carry her around has a son … and how can she incorporate that into her understanding of him …
Similar to Ali’s moment at the bulletin board, she has to completely re-arrange her understanding of this person. When she asks, in awe, “You have a son?” he says casually, “Yes,” he’s off-screen when he says it, that’s how not a big deal it is. (However: since we know what she doesn’t, that earlier that day he threw his son across the room, Ali buying a big tractor toy is eloquent. He’s trying.)
There’s a great shot then of Ali on his scooter, zooming on a road right next to the ocean. It’s all stunning blues and bright whites in a blur. Ali’s a busy guy. He’s got shit to do, places to go.
Anna, Ben, and others from the apartment complex community, hang out under a little translucent tent on the beach, and we see Ali approach, distorted through the plastic. It may be boring to continue to point out the consistency of these symbols, but it’s emblematic of the strength (and subtlety) of Audiard’s vision. I didn’t pick up on all of this until about 5 viewings in, and now it’s all I see. Sam, dark bump on his forehead, poor little guy, watches Ali approach, with suspicion, anxiety. But children are easy, so in no time at all he’s having fun with his truck, Ali sitting near him, watching him like a hawk.
There’s a brief scene where Anna and Ali walk along the beach, and she lectures him about his behavior: you’re never home, you hurt Sam when you are home, you should have just left him behind. Ali answers in one-line grumpy “Get off my back” responses. “Sam’s not dead. Come on. He’s fine.” At one point, randomly, he kicks some water. Not because he’s mad. But because he wants to make a splash. He’s 10 years old.
Back under the tent, Ali huddles beside Sam, watching his son play with the truck (the peace offering, his “I’m sorry.”) Schoenaerts’ work in this small section is so detailed, so effortless. Ali has so many different things happening at the same time.
He’s happy Sam likes the toy, but he’s worried about what Sam might feel towards him. He feels the emptiness in the gesture of the gift. It’s not enough. Ali looks … shy. Very shy. He’s scared of Sam and he doesn’t think he can bear being rejected by Sam. It’s painful for him to think that Sam would wince if he reached out to touch him, even in a gentle way, that Sam would be afraid of him. We don’t know one single thing about Anna and Ali’s childhood. It was probably pretty grim, but they don’t reference a mother, a father, a childhood, home, where they grew up, nothing. My guess is that dad was never in the picture, or if he was he was horribly abusive. And now Ali has become an abusive parent. Ali probably knows first-hand why a child would cringe away from a father’s touch, but to have HIM be the father in that scenario … You’re not sure how conscious Ali is of all of this. He’s re-active, in general. He has to ask Sam twice if he likes the toy. Sam replies, “Yes, Ali.” Later, playing in the ocean with Sam, Ali says, “Give Daddy a kiss.” So there’s a need for Sam to call him “Daddy,” not “Ali,” an awareness that something is wrong in their relationship and Sam is too little to be the one to do the changing. HE has to do it. But he doesn’t know how. Ali hates not knowing how to do things. (Who loves it, I ask you?)
But another thing happens simultaneously. Sitting across from Sam is the woman from the apartment complex (played by Océane Cartia) who came and swooped Sam away from Ali and the garden hose earlier. She babysits Sam when Ali’s not around, when Anna’s at work. She’s a brunette, she wears tight little dresses, she enjoys Sam in a way that Ali notices, and … he wants to fuck her. We get this in just a few quick glances: even though he’s engrossed with Sam, there’s that other grown-up level, the stand-up-sex-in-the-gym level.
The two of them take Sam into the water and have fun, Sam freaking out about swimming by himself, Ali trying to encourage him, hot babysitter laughing, Ali trying to kiss Sam and Sam pulling his head away, refusing to kiss Ali back. But giggling because Ali is being playful, and friendly. Kids are tragically easy. They’re such survivors. You have to be mindful of this and respect it. Ali is trying.
Then we get a quick cut, from that, to this:
… which, again, is HYSTERICAL. He bangs the SHIT out of her from behind, in his room at Anna’s, while Anna and Richard and the others unload the beach stuff from the car. Again, it seems like someone might be killed during the encounter. Ali barely waited until they got out of the car to make his move. She is being so loud he puts his hand over her mouth, hissing, “Shhhh!!” which is just … so juvenile and awful and funny (and, incidentally, totally different from the sex with Stephanie that comes later. He has to make a serious adjustment in his style.) And of COURSE everyone outside knows what they are doing upstairs. She’s practically screaming.
It’s important to see these two hook-up scenes and not just to hear about it (and he does talk about it to Stephanie later). You have to see how he normally is – to understand the transformation. His ultimate attitude about sex doesn’t change: it feels good, you should do it if you want to do it – and ONLY if you want to do it, pressure should never come into it because what’s the fun in that, it shouldn’t be weird, desire is normal, act on it, you’re not hurting anyone. He comes to bed with Stephanie (eventually) with all of that going on.
Just like happened during the other hook-up, the phone rings mid-sex. Only this time Ali doesn’t pick it up. It’s Stephanie, seen sitting in her apartment, waiting, as it rings and rings and rings.
How suddenly you get used to someone. It’s very scary. And if you resist getting used to someone, then you deny yourself the pleasure of getting to know them. You can’t keep one foot in the water and one foot out. It doesn’t work.
Or so I’ve heard.
She’s used to him now. And she is totally screwed.
Switching away from Ali’s bone-fest, Stephanie sits on the floor eating cereal. There’s a nice moment where she loads the dishwasher sitting on the floor, her gestures exhausted, tossing forks in randomly, slamming the door, then dragging herself across the floor to bed. Being allowed to come watch the fight started something in her. She wants to go again. She wants to see him more. The scene is a total change of mood.
When we switch back to Ali, it’s in the dead of night in a warehouse, and Martial – wearing a hat with a light on it like a miner’s helmet – explains to him the gig with installing the secret cameras, which now Ali – at some point – has clearly gotten involved in. Extra cash. Martial explains he has “done” all of the stores in the area, and at one point, Ali asks, “You have the right to do this?” Martial barely understands the question.
It took me a couple of viewings to “get” this whole sub-plot, since the Stephanie-Ali thing is so engrossing. Ali getting involved in Martial’s scheme ends up being a catalyst for the final section of the film. Martial explains it in voiceover and I think it’s effective (after some consideration. Initially, I thought it didn’t work.) Ali’s question: “You have the right to do this?” shows his moral compass – even though he goes along with Martial. The most important thing, though, is that Ali engages in an activity without really considering what the repercussions might be, and without having the wherewithal that he can say No if it doesn’t feel right to be installing cameras so that bosses can fire people who take cigarette breaks. There’s a “whose side are you on” thing going on here, another way that this film is also really about class.
We are now an hour into the film. An HOUR. At the exact halfway mark comes the scene where everything changes. It will take another hour for the final breakthrough. Audiard did not structure it this way to up the romantic/sexual tension, although of course you wonder when these two are going to get to it. This is about committing to the story of the two protagonists, humanizing both, so that when they get together, it has all this incredible depth and emotion in it.
There are three separate scenes that make up the sequence. The first one happens on the boardwalk by the water. It’s “magic hour” and Audiard films directly into the sun. It’s such a crazy look, and any time Ali moves, the sun bursts out from behind him, completely obliterating his head. The screen is filled with refractions, and gleams. It’s stunning and surreal. Disorienting (appropriate because of what is about to happen. And what already IS happening).
The scene starts with Stephanie on the boardwalk, golden-lit, glowing, telling Ali on the phone that she will wave so he can find her. She raises a cane into the air, the sun bursting out all around her, and it’s the first time we see that her new legs are on, and she’s walking. Cotillard’s physical work is beautiful: there’s a slight and wobbly hesitation with each step, and the feet don’t move, it’s the knee that moves, adjusting itself. It’s new for her, and she’s getting used to it. As Ali approaches, it’s clear she did not tell him about the legs. She’s surprising him. And he is surprised. “That’s great!” he says, when he sees her. He had no idea all this was going on. He was too busy throwing his son across the room, banging the babysitter and starting a super sketchy unethical job.
The timing of both actors in this scene is perfect especially since there’s so much going on stylistically, and they’re moving, the camera moving with them (and they probably had to rush to get it done, since that sun’s going down FAST). It’s all in one take, too, so it’s one of those scenes where it’s fun to watch her throughout, and then go back and watch him. There’s so much to look at.
Stephanie being upright changes everything for her, obviously. She’s exhilarated, and excited to show him. But it also changes everything for him. He’s happy for her and blown away by the technology. But …
He asks to see the new legs. She pulls up her pants legs to show him. He stares at the legs and he doesn’t know what to say. He keeps looking up at her face, too, and his expression is different, something we haven’t seen. It’s intent. It’s inquisitive and worried. It’s an anxious searching squint.
Because maybe now that she has the prosthetics, she won’t need him anymore. Or maybe now that she’s upright, she’ll remember her life before the accident, before him, realize she’s been “slumming” with him, and drop him like a hot potato because she can get someone much better. Who knows. I think it’s a mixture of all of this. He hangs back as she walks ahead, ostensibly to watch the legs move, but also to check her out, to scan her face for signs of change. Is she distant from him now?
Similar to the lonely scene with Stephanie eating cereal in her apartment, realizing she had gotten used to him, how empty her life seemed without him, even for a day, he looks at her walking upright, and somewhere he knows that – somehow – he has gotten used to her. And he has gotten used to hanging out on a regular basis, doing what “they” do, “their” routine, and he gets a lot of enjoyment out of it. He’s impressed with her, very impressed, but one remembers the slight flash of intimidation when he learned what her job was. And here he is, without a penny to his name, doing illegal fighting for pennies and working for Martial in an equally illegal capacity. She can do much much better than him, and she’ll probably realize that now. And all of this without even a romance or sex yet!
He looks at her wondering if her feelings about him will change. Hence: he realizes that he has feelings for her.
And this is the scene I mentioned before, where he suddenly has a hard-on for her. There is barely any language in the scene. She walks, he checks her out, she beams with a smile, aware that he’s watching, maybe understanding why, maybe not (although considering what happens next, I am thinking she senses what’s going on with him). It can’t be a coincidence that in the very next scene she sums up her sex life “before” as “I liked to be watched.” Suddenly, that’s happening for her here, and it’s butterfly-inducing. To deal with his nervous-ness and attraction, Ali says, going back to the routine that suddenly – out of nowhere – he has stopped taking for granted: “Want to take a swim?” And holy SHIT, she says No! She’s smiling and happy, but she explains that getting undressed now is more of an ordeal, and she’s not sure she’s into it. It’s a tiny thing, right? But he falls into silence, it’s a disturbing shift. The first pulling away from him? WHAT DOES IT MEAN? He feels very far away from her right now.
Great scene.
Back at her place, they have a meal on the terrace. French insurance pays for all of this and it makes me want to move there. There’s a salad on the table and I am trying to picture them making it together and my imagination fails. He’s shoveling yogurt into his mouth. She watches him. Because why wouldn’t you.
When she asks him, “Are you seeing anyone right now? A girlfriend?” new ground opens up. Clearly she felt what was going on on that boardwalk. She’s walking now. The power dynamic is equal now (and it is that very equality that’s making him nervous and making HER happy. Fascinating.) She questions him about his love/sex life. He eats his yogurt at the speed of light, seriously, slow down, dude, and he answers every question with totally casual and immediate honesty. No weird twitchiness like “What is this, the third degree?” That stereotypical male attitude is completely absent. None of it is embarrassing to him.
Worth it to list out the scene as written, because it’s a doozy. Good actors look at a scene like this and think, “Ahhh. I don’t have to do jack-squat here but read the lines.”
S: Seeing anyone? A girlfriend?
A: No.
S: You have no one?
A: They’re not girlfriends.
S: What are they then? Quick fucks?
A: Yes.
S: A lot of them?
A: No.
S: You mind talking about it?
A: I couldn’t care less. …. Were you with a lot of guys?
S: Before?
A: Yeah.
S: I was with Simon.
A: Is that all?
S: There were others, but not many. I was very … I liked being watched. I liked turning them on. I liked getting them worked up. But then I’d get bored.
A: And now?
S: Nothing. I forgot what it’s like. I don’t know if it still works.
A: No more desire?
S: I never said that. Sure, I have desire. Change the subject.
So far nobody’s admitting what they’re really talking about. His “You’re dressed like a whore, what did you think would happen” attitude in their first scene together has vanished. It’s a grown-up conversation between two people who’ve had sex before, and they’ve never discussed it, so let’s just talk about it. (A scene like this plays itself if the actors are good.) Ali keeps shoveling yogurt down his throat for half the scene, and then at some point he stops. It’s around the “I forgot what it’s like” part of her confession.
Ali may be dumb about a lot of things: parenting, money, responsibility. But he is not dumb about sex and he is not dumb about subterranean mating signals flashing his way. The way that tattooed aerobics instructor smiled at him when he said “Ca va” told him “Okay. She’s into me.” And he was right. And so Stephanie starts talking about how she forgot what sex is like, she wonders if “it” still works, and he understands what she’s really saying, or – more accurately – what she’s asking of him. Even if she’s not entirely aware of what she’s doing. (And she’s not. I think she’s feeling him out, for sure. I think she’s “putting it out there”, maybe to get him thinking about it. What he ends up DOING though is so not what she expected that she is struck dumb with amazement.)
Additionally, and this occurred to me just now: Her little monologue about getting men worked up and then getting bored … I’ve mentioned it before. It’s extremely illuminating. He’s probably never discussed sex with women before, definitely not on this level. Learning how a woman thinks about her sexuality and sex is a new experience for him. What she says intrigues him. And maybe he realizes that this is an area where he could help her again, where he could serve her again, because he has enjoyed doing that with her swimming and everything, not to lord it over her, but because it’s nice to be needed. He hears the sexual loneliness in her comment, and probably thinks, “Oh, hell to the no with THAT bullshit.” And she’s walking now, she didn’t want to go swimming just now, she doesn’t need him to carry her around now … There’s something about his face as he asks her about desire, as he listens to her, that is full of thought. No more yogurt. He got her bat-signal loud and clear.
So as he follows her into the kitchen, the two of them carrying in the dishes, he says, “Want to fuck?” as casually and as no-big-deal as if he were saying, “Here, I’ll put that in the trash.” There is zero weird-ness from him about this. He’s not even LOOKING at her, not because he’s uncomfortable or afraid of her answer. He’s not looking at her because he is scraping the food off the plates. It’s that simple a line-reading (and my favorite line reading in the whole movie). She just said to him that she’s not sure if “it” still works. What else could she have meant by that except “Will you please sleep with me?”
She, of course, cannot believe that he just said “Want to fuck” as he followed her into the kitchen. (Cotillard’s work is so funny in this small sequence. Actually, both of them are funny.) She stops as though she’s been shot in the back and stares at him with gigantic eyes, her mouth hanging open. I mean, that’s what I would do. And then I would say the only thing that would make any sense as an answer to his question: “Yes.”
He handles her reaction in stride, continuing to do his little tasks in the kitchen as he speaks. It’s so funny. She is frozen by the refrigerator staring at him, and he’s like her little house-boy bustling around as they have this crazy conversation. He says, “To see if it still works. If we fuck, you’ll know.” (I have to say that I like his attitude. It’s not, “Baby, I know how to show you a good time.” It’s not a sexual swagger. It’s a proposition for HER to figure it out and he’d be willing to be the guy she figures it out with. To completely inappropriately paraphrase those old Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland movies, he’s like: I’ve got a dick, let’s put on a show. Maybe it WON’T still work for her, but that’s kind of on her, too. He’s not anxious about his role in it. He has nothing to prove to her.) Similar to him going across to the beach to swim, leaving her there – and how that gives her the freedom to make the choice that he already knows she wants to make – it has to be HER choice. He looks at her like: this is a pretty good plan I’ve got going here, don’t you think?? His behavior is not a “come on,” that’s for sure. She’s so speechless, that he says, “Your call. You tell me.”
Oh, how terrifying it is to be told it’s your choice!
She walks out of the room. When she’s alone in the bedroom, you can hear the clink of plates and glasses in the kitchen, which for some reason cracks me up, because he continues to clean up while she goes through whatever she has to go through in there. And who knows, maybe she’s just going to the bathroom. Sex might not be on at all. In the meantime, these dishes won’t clean themselves, yo. He’s not hovering about, wondering how she’s taken his offer, he doesn’t start to seduce her – that would put too much pressure on her, and pressure has zero place in sex, as we’ve already seen with him. He gives her time to step into her choice.
Slowly, she takes off the prosthetics, and then rolls down the little stockings beneath, gently caressing her thighs as she does so. Now maybe it’s just Audiard finding the moment erotic, but I think she does too. This is also new for her. She has stopped being proud of what she looks like, thinking of herself as desirable. But her legs are smooth, she’s ready. Sort of. She crawls under the covers, naked. You can still hear him cleaning up in the kitchen and for whatever reason I continue to find that amusing. She calls out, “Come here!”
When he sees her in bed, there’s a hint of a smile, and then he takes off all of his clothes. Without hesitating, without a word. Totally matter of fact. He climbs under the covers and there’s a moment where they stare at each other, neither of them sure how to start. I think it’s probably very likely that he hasn’t had sex like this – maybe ever. Where he’s not sure how to start, where he has to be careful, ask permission, check in with the person, etc. And it’s almost 100% likely that she’s never had sex like this before either. It’s nerve-wracking. She is STRESSED. He leans in to kiss her and she asks if it’s okay if they don’t kiss. (I disagree with Roger Ebert who said these people only relate to each other through their genitals. Sure, they have sex on a fuck-buddy basis. But the sex doesn’t even start until an hour in. So much connection has already been established before they ever get into bed with one another. Also: in this context, for her certainly, but eventually for him, sex is not just sex. It’s love. Even without kissing. They may be in denial about it, but that’s their problem.)
He’s not put off by her no-kissing request, he’s like: sure, no kissing, no problem, is it okay if I kiss your breasts, though? I love that he asks. She says that would be fine. Finally he gets up on top of her, and it’s super awkward because they’re having this experience but they’re not really together in it. When she complains that he’s crushing her, he finally takes charge for real. “No more talking now,” he orders, and it’s so commanding that she says, “Okay, okay” and he then literally yanks her naked body – roughly – down off the pillow into position. This is all one take. Both actors are buck naked. The trust they had to have for each other. It’s amazing. The humanity of it is extraordinary.
This is not a situation where the two of them fall into bed in a mutual swoop of passion. This is a situation where she is hesitant but wants to, he is not hesitant and takes charge – and yet at the same time he’s not sure if anything he is doing is okay. He doesn’t want to hurt her, and he honestly tries, but she keeps whispering at him to be gentle. The experience is so intense and private that it’s not sexy to watch, it’s actually a little embarrassing and you feel like maybe you shouldn’t be looking. What a relief to see a sex scene – especially first time sex – that incorporates who the people are. We’re not generic in bed. We don’t suddenly shed our personalities and become blue-lit romance-novel porn-stars. We’re still US. Sex scenes are, in general, terrible, and I’m not a big fan of them, and can count the sex scenes I really like on one, maybe two, hands. I think including them often makes a film LESS erotic, even though that sounds prudish. But then there are those special sex scenes. This is one of them.
The post-coital scene is very humorously written. After sex, he goes out to the kitchen, back in his sweat pants and T-shirt, and pours a glass of orange juice. Because life goes on. And he’s got places to be. She rolls out into the kitchen in her wheelchair, and she looks shy and happy. And about 10 years younger. He’s a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am guy and he’s that here too – I mean, he’s getting ready to go – but he does this whole check-in thing with her, making sure she’s Ça va with what just happened.
He asks her if it was good, if “it still works.” “Yes. No. I don’t know.” That’s her answer. He looks a little worried when she says that. I don’t blame him.
When she says, “It’s hard to tell after only one time,” he says, “Yeah, but I can’t now. I have to go.” It’s hilarious. He honestly thinks she’s saying, “Let’s do it again. Right now.” He doesn’t say it judgmentally, or like, “Hey, I’m done, this was a one-time deal.” He thinks she wants to go again right now, he WOULD be up for it if he didn’t have to go. Hard to make “I can’t now. I have to go” not sound cold or dismissive. But Schoenaerts does it. He takes charge again because it’s so obvious she wants to keep sleeping with him, and that’s good news – in terms of his sexual ego – which he barely has any, but he’s human, he has some – and she’s clearly never had a fuck-buddy before and doesn’t know how to make the request so he coaches her, “If you’re up for it, give a call. If I’m OP, no problem.”
It’s like he’s speaking a foreign language. He explains to her that “OP” means operational. “OP” will become their code word. They text back and forth. Are you OP? Sure, I’m OP, I’ll be right there. No, not OP right now, will be OP tomorrow. It’s a very good system. The way he explains it to her is so kindly, so sincere, that she stares up at him like he is Santa Claus. Is this man actually offering himself to her like this? Like, he’s into this? She can’t BELIEVE it.
It’s a lovely scene.
The next scene is one of the most emotional in the whole film. I was fascinated to hear Audiard say in the commentary that he and Cotillard differed a little bit in their interpretation of this scene. She had a very strong idea of what she wanted to do, and he thought it was too much, he thought of it as a little bit more low-key. Cotillard won the battle because she’s Marion Cotillard, but also because she was right. The scene is a MAJOR scene, even more major than the awkward sex we just saw. Cotillard understood the depth of the moment more than the director did (that happens a lot), and smart directors let the actors at least try it their way once. And of course, it’s the Cotillard takes he ended up using, because he’s not an idiot. She is magnificent here. I well up with tears every time I see it.
The shot starts with Stephanie on the balcony in her wheelchair, staring out at the city, her back to the camera. The sex scene was so intense I figured this was a reverie about it, maybe a dreamy moment of re-living it. Once you see her face, though, you realize that that is not at all what’s on her mind. And that’s a great choice, all things considered, especially coming right after the sex scene because it shows that Ali is not the center of her universe, even after sleeping with him. This is a grown-up movie. These people are complex. She looks grim, her eyes focused on something very specific in her mind’s eye. Her hands and arms move, slow graceful gestures: her old commands to the whales. She sees the whales before her. She has been afraid to even think about the whales. She may even harbor some resentment towards the orca who did this to her. A completely understandable if anthropomorphic “How could you do this to me after we’ve been so close?” The accident has deprived her of her livelihood, her daily passion, something she lived for. The sex has opened her up to those memories, those longings. Which is something that happens.
Or so I’ve heard.
As the sequence continues, and her gestures become more confident, Katy Perry’s song rises, and Stephanie’s commands become exuberant, wild, she’s back at the show, back with her animals, and it’s so sad, because it’s over for her, but it feels so GOOD to even allow herself to miss it.
It was this kind of shot below that Audiard was hesitant about. He feared it would be too much.
But my God, it’s breath-taking. The entire journey of the character – throughout the entire film – is in this scene. You see, actors are smart. Smarter than most people, at least in terms of emotions, because actors not only allow themselves to feel emotions like pain and loss and longing, they do so without hesitation if that’s what is called for. Regular human beings RUN from those emotions.
It’s a wordless and powerful transition into an unforgettable scene, when Stephanie decides to go back to Marine Land to visit her friends. This is the scene that made it to the poster (not the HORRIBLE American poster, but the French poster). Stephanie stands in front of a gigantic tank, tapping on the window a couple of times. The orca emerges from the blue, answering her call. And then begins an extraordinary sequence of communication, with Stephanie giving commands, the whale responding. None of this is trickery or green screen. It really is Marion Cotillard giving commands to the whale. The only special-effect in the scene was putting in the prosthetic legs. Everything else is real. There’s no music (thank God, because NO). How can you say what “expression” a whale has on its gigantic face? There’s one incredibly touching moment where Stephanie nods her head up and down at the whale, and the whale “nods” back. Now I’m anthropomorphizing but it looks like an exchange of forgiveness. It certainly is on her part. I don’t think these creatures should live in tanks and be made to perform. But I am so glad that this scene exists. That we have it now.
It’s a scene that combines most of the visual symbols in one: Water. The back of her head. A pane of glass. It’s gorgeous.
The reunion with her trainer friends is bathed in golden sunset light, and there’s music playing over the scene so we don’t hear the dialogue, but we don’t need to. One can only imagine how traumatized the group has been over what happened to her, which they all witnessed first-hand. Their faces are beautiful and open (these are all real orca trainers), and the scene feels very alive. Stephanie is not totally IN her smile, because this is a bittersweet occasion for her, but she is (at least) able to feel happiness like this again. She can see her friends now and it doesn’t hurt. Or, the hurt is bearable, the hurt is part of her life now. She can live with it.
She’s feeling so good that she texts Ali for the first time, while sitting at the table. It’s her first bat-signal. She’s feeling extremely “OP” in that golden-lit moment. It’s a risk. What if he doesn’t text back? What if he was just humoring her? What if he said it out of pity? and etc., more crazy-making thoughts. The best, though, is that she puts the phone down in her lap, looks back up at her friends, and then his returning text comes in. Like, 5 seconds later. I love the image of Ali wherever he is, on a run, at the gym, staggering away from some random dame’s bed, at home watching Youtube, most probably shoveling yogurt into his mouth, getting her text, and texting back instantly: “I’m OP”.
Quick cut, then, into bed with Ali and Stephanie. Audiard loves those quick cuts to sex. No kissing notwithstanding, she appears to be getting the hang of it.
Post-sex, Ali hears something and goes to the window, peeking out, which is when we see that they’re at his place. Which surprised me on first viewing. He’s having her over? Letting her in just that little bit more? Once I picked up on the class difference thing, I saw more and more of it (and it’s an essential element in the little scene that follows). There’s nothing wrong with where he lives. But in Ali’s mind … well, there is. He’s AWARE of what the apartment looks like after hanging out in her place with the nice terrace. Maybe he wonders what it looks like to Stephanie. He’s not used to “hanging out” with someone who’s in a different class. He has probably banged upper class girls before, but this thing with Stephanie isn’t that. He’s not even aware of just how different this whole thing with her is. As Schoenaerts said: “He’s attaching himself to that person without even knowing it.” He freaks out when he sees what’s out the window and hisses at Stephanie to get dressed, his sister’s home. He is 16 years old, having sex in his parents’ bed when he thought they were out of town, only – holy shit – they’re pulling up the driveway.
So now he’s forced to do something else he’s never done before: introduce a girl to his family. He races outside to try to get ahead of the event that is about to go down. He tells Anna he wants to introduce her to a girl. This is shocking news all around. “You’re bringing girls here now?” snaps Anna. Ali shushes her, and calls back into the house, “Stephanie, come meet my sister!” He has no idea what he’s doing, but he’s charging ahead anyway. It’s so touching. I think one of the key elements of this character is that you find yourself feeling protective of him, even though he’s often a mess, and behaves badly. He’s so clearly not a mean person or a bad person. But his choices … Oy. Here, he may not be ready to introduce his “girlfriend” to his family – but that’s the situation he finds himself in, way too fast, and it’s got to be done, so here he goes and does it. Before Stephanie appears, Ali whispers at Anna, “It’s the girl from Marine Land.” Stephanie emerges from the house, having put her prosthetics back on, and the second Anna sees her, Anna whispers, “Poor thing.” (Great. Rust and Bone is all about power and perception. In 2 seconds, Anna is going to start feeling insecure that this high class woman is in her house, but Stephanie’s disability gives Anna higher status, initially, making Stephanie an object of pity.) Stephanie is so not a “poor thing,” she was just having an orgasm, like, 5 minutes ago, upstairs, so she’s doing pretty good. Another reminder that the world sometimes gets freaked out by disability. The Ali-Stephanie thing takes up so much time, and he’s not freaked out by her, so that when people ARE freaked out – or suddenly treat her differently – it’s jarring. (The biggest example of this is yet to come, in an interaction in a nightclub, the same nightclub where Stephanie and Ali met.)
Ali, without even knowing how he got here, is now in charge of introductions, and he plows forward with the task. And then stands by awkwardly watching the French kiss-kiss greeting. Anna kisses Stephanie two more times, a very sweet gesture, very welcoming, and Ali can’t stand it anymore, murmuring, “Okay, enough now.” Stephanie is not stressed at all, and Ali is now STRESSED. This script is so good, so smart!
The whole thing is extremely awkward. Or: Ali and Anna are tremendously awkward. Stephanie is so relaxed that she looks like she just rolled out of bed (as indeed she has). Stephanie is so into him, and so curious about him, that meeting his sister – seeing where he lives – is so great for her. She loves being “let in” like this, just like she loved going to his fight. The “class” stuff surges beneath the surface, but only for him. Ali does end up acknowledging it in this scene, another moment where you realize just how much he has changed, and you’re not sure when it took place, but there you have it, it’s happened.
The only reason Ali took her home was that he thought everyone was gone for the day. And now here’s Anna. And then Sam appears above them on the balcony. And now it’s ON. This event will not be stopped! Stephanie sees Sam, asks Ali if “that’s him”? Ali glances up and nods. And that’s it. He doesn’t say “Stephanie, this is my son, Sam” the way he did with Anna. This is the dismissive way he treats Sam, like Sam is not worthy of an introduction, because he’s only 5 … but it’s also because Ali is experiencing an overload of anxiety. He is unable to control three people at the same time. Stephanie waves gently at Sam. This is like Christmas Day for her. Screw the screwing: she gets to see where Ali lives, meet his sister, AND meet his son. Meanwhile, Ali and Anna stand there, awkwardly, looking at each other, not Stephanie or Sam. And then looking away. Embarrassed siblings. The vulnerability of having this … educated “classy” person in their little courtyard? There’s a lot going on. Stephanie doesn’t pick up on it, because the burden of feeling all that shit is usually on the shoulders of those in lower-“status” groups. The language is imperfect – class, status, privilege – but it’s in the film, it’s part of the film, it runs this particular scene.
Sam hides under the table in the courtyard, peeking up through a hole in the plastic tablecloth at Stephanie, who peeks through the hole back at him. Audiard initially considered doing the whole film from Sam’s point of view, and the remnants of that idea are everywhere. This scene, with Sam underneath a table, peering up at the outside world through a hole, is such strong foreshadowing of the harrowing final sequence that you might be laughed out of a writing workshop if you tried to put it in a story. But it works. It’s an image that has great resonance – for Sam, for Ali, for Stephanie, and the film as a whole. These people are all submerged in one way or another … and over the course of the film … they come to the surface. They come up into a space where they can finally breathe. Of course, in my first time viewing I just thought it was a sweet moment, and appreciated Stephanie’s playful acceptance of Sam (especially since Ali has barely acknowledged the child.) Ali watches her play with his son and his entire body language is different. He’s nervous, and being nervous is so outside our conception of this guy that it’s anxiety-provoking to watch.
Poor Anna, who has probably been freaking out that this woman was in her little makeshift apartment, arrives at the table with a tragic little tray of glasses and juice. She apologizes that this is all she has, and Ali sits there, not moving, glancing over at Stephanie, looking back up at his sister, coiled up in mortification at what’s happening, not that Stephanie is there, but at the servile attitude of his sister.
To Stephanie, orange juice is awesome, she’s just happy to be there and is completely unaware of the torrent of class-SHIT that Anna and Ali are experiencing. Stephanie may be oblivious but Ali knows EXACTLY what is happening. Anna can’t bear just having juice on that tray, so she hurries back into the house, saying she’ll get some biscuits and make some tea. Ali asks Stephanie if she wants to go, he cannot bear one more second of this.
He says, “She’s tense. She feels like a cashier with you.” It’s such a smart and insightful line, it says so much about the world we live in, how we behave towards one another, AND it’s one of the most insightful observations that Ali has made in the entire film. He doesn’t really make observations. He lives in the moment. So describing what’s happening, on or underneath the surface, is not his thing. Things are what they are, or they aren’t what they aren’t. That’s a great thing about him but it’s also a flaw, a kink in the wiring. Here, though, he feels the need to explain to Stephanie why his sister is acting the way she is acting. It’s an embarrassed and awkward and yet also upfront kind of intimacy.
Next we see little Sam, leading Stephanie up the stairs into the apartment, because he wants to show her his room. Ali is nowhere to be found. He’s probably lifting weights in the garage, having a private nervous breakdown. Stephanie notices Sam staring at her legs, and asks if he’s scared, does he want to see them? Sam says Yes, he would like to see the legs, and can he touch them? He touches the prosthetics, and she watches, in awe of the moment. His body is so contorted that he’s basically lying down while sitting up. It’s a profound moment for her. Like Father, Like Son.
Going through Rust and Bone in this deliberate scene-by-scene fashion drives home for me just how well-constructed the script is. You couldn’t swap any of these scenes around. They HAVE to go in this order. The tense little scene in the courtyard … awkward though it may be … changes something for Ali, and makes possible what happens in the next scene. This scene in the courtyard could not have come in their pre-sex relationship. Things are already different between them. And this tense little scene is so pleasurable to Stephanie that it makes possible her actions in the following scene. Which then makes what happens after THAT so hurtful. You can’t move these pieces around. They hang together so perfectly.
Back at the gym, Ali works with his wrestling coach, and forget it, it’s homoerotic.
These training scenes are important because they drive home the seriousness of Ali’s mindset about his training, even though everything else – the illegal fights and the security camera work – make him seem aimless. He’s not at all aimless. He’s also not a “manic pixie dream boy” as I said before, a person whose only defining characteristic is to be a romantic and inspiring figure in our heroine’s life. When he’s with her, he’s with her. When he’s not with her, he’s doing all this other shit.
There’s a slightly surreal and frightening sequence transitioning us into the following scene. This was when anxiety started for me, that something bad was going to happen. To Ali. It hadn’t occurred to me before. Ominous music starts, nothing overdone or overheated, but eerie and portentous as hell. The camera pans along a line of guys at the gym watching … you assume it’s Ali training. Next, there’s a shot of a bloody tooth spinning on a dark floor like dice. The sound of cheers rise in the background. It’s a terrible shot.
The film jolts into a new reality, Ali in the back seat of Martial’s van, feeling around in his mouth for the tooth that has been knocked out of his head. He looks horrible. And scared. Stephanie sits in the front seat, saying nothing, but passing back a plastic bag of frozen peas. She is probably upset, but her role at these things does not involve getting “upset.” Even though it’s not explicitly said, her getting “upset” about him getting hurt would ruin it. He’s a fighter, of course he’s going to get hurt. But this is different. He is in a bad bad way. Yelling at Martial that that guy out there is gonna kill him.
What happens next could only work as well as it does since the film has already invested so much time with these characters. Their behavior with one another is not what you would call romantic, but the feelings generated are enormously passionate. You wonder when they’ll finally “get it.” Thank you, Jacques Audiard, for avoiding the cliches – but also for embracing the cliches and making us see WHY they are cliches in the first place … because in the right context, in a fresh context, they WORK like gangbusters.
This painful scene coming up – the fight and what happens during the fight – as revelatory as it is – leads us into the next scene where Ali – not really doing it on purpose, or at least not in a calculated way – recoils from his burgeoning relationship with Stephanie. Things have gotten altogether WAY too serious.
Ali is completely overwhelmed by his opponent. You can actually see Ali try to utilize his training from just the scene before, but the guy is too strong, and immediately uses those moves against Ali. There’s a terrible moment when the guy picks Ali up – all of him – and slams him back down on the gravel. Again, you wonder how on earth they shot these fights. How did no one get hurt? (And no one did get hurt. Even Schoenaerts expressed amazement at that. Getting punched in the face by accident, because the timing of the choreography is just a millisecond off, happens all the time, but it never did that day. These athletes are incredible.) And him? He’s an extraordinary physical actor.
Ali very well may die during this fight. Or at least be knocked into a coma. He cannot – no matter how hard he tries – get out from underneath this guy. As the event goes on, brutal, horrific, really, Stephanie watches from the car, awareness slowly dawning … that this fight is different from other fights. That something bad is going to happen. He is actually fighting for his life.
Things slow down. Way down. Moving out of realism. The minor-key piano dominates, and the rest of the sound drops out. Ali lies pinned down. Blood bubbles out of his mouth. He looks through the sea of legs at the van. He can only see the bottom of the door. And he stares at it. And stares at it. He needs her. As he stares, the door of the van opens, the sun flaring against it in a blinding star-burst. Her prosthetic legs emerge, seen through the crowd.
That’s his girl. She’s coming for him.
His face when he sees her legs …
Too much? Not for me, kids. The film has EARNED this moment. These two actors have EARNED this moment. Rust and Bone can TAKE it. Ali finds the last bit of strength he has to basically break the man’s hand – or wrist – it’s terrible, whatever it is, and then HE proceeds to try to put the man into a coma. Punching the guy’s face over and over again, screaming. Stephanie stands on the outskirts of the crowd, watching, and it is impossible to label her expression as only one thing.
Back to script-structure: sitting around the courtyard watching Stephanie deal with Sam has cracked something open, something Ali didn’t know was there. And now … in his moment of terror … he needed her and she came.
And so he then quickly proceeds to torch it to the ground.
Later that night, to celebrate Ali’s against-the-odds win, the whole crew – Ali, Stephanie, Martial, the “gypsy from Nice,” Ali’s wrestling coach, and a bunch of other guys, go out to The Annex. The nightclub where Ali and Stephanie first met. The nightclub where Stephanie used to go by herself, to tease around with men, to get her (hollow) kicks. And remember that sexy black combo she wore in the first scene? The one she saved out of the box of clothing? She’s wearing it again. The skirt is so short it shows her entire prosthetics, and you’re happy for her, she’s come so far, also happy that Ali has let her come along, isn’t just dropping her off at home and then going out with the boys.
Look out, Stephanie. Boomerang. Incoming.
It’s a madhouse at The Annex, and Ali is gregarious and happy, talking to his old co-workers, as Stephanie moves tentatively forward, surrounded by these big tough lugs, who don’t question her presence (I love that about all these guys, they’re like, this is Ali’s girlfriend, whatever), but who are also totally consumed with their own shit, and leave her on the outskirts to fend for herself.
A friend of mine used to say, “God, don’t you hate it when you suddenly realize you’re a ‘hovering chick’?” We’d be hanging out at a bar, because she wanted to see her current crush, and her crush would be laughing with all his friends, and she’d be standing on the outskirts of the group and she’d turn to me and say, “Oh God. I’m a hovering chick right now, aren’t I.” I told this to my guy, and he thought it was hilarious. He ended up using it all the time and would actually introduce me to his friends as “This is my hovering chick, Sheila.” I am laughing out loud typing that. It’s TERRIBLE to be a “hovering chick”. I mean, there’s nothing worse. It’s like “sitting out” a slow dance at a high school dance, trying to look like you don’t mind, because of course you think everybody is staring at you.
Cotillard is brilliant in this scene. She has no lines. She smiles throughout, because it’s a social situation. But she’s a hovering chick, and being a hovering chick means you are in the presence of your own gigantic needs. It’s too simplistic to say she wants to be in an established couple situation with Ali. I don’t think that’s what’s going on. It’s that she suddenly feels very separated from him – especially after the one-two punch of meeting Sam and then the profound moment at the fight. He feels very far away from her and she misses him. And how does “missing him” fit into the “OP, yet no kissing” situation they have set up? How does she even express any of this? When they aren’t committed to each other? When nothing’s “set”? Their situation has really REALLY been working for her up until now. Suddenly, in this environment, out in public surrounded by a general population, it stops working.
Ironically, though, it doesn’t start out that way. The two of them sit around the bar table with the others, and Stephanie keeps glancing over her shoulder at the crowded dance floor. Audiard shows us what she sees: A dance floor crowded with the long bare legs of girls, dancing. Legs everywhere.
Ali sees her looking and shouts in her face over the music, “Want to dance?” She’s back on the boardwalk again, staring out at the ocean. She doesn’t think she wants to dance, no. Schoenaerts then does this movement with his body that is impossible to describe, and it’s one of those things that can’t be directed, it is organic, and comes out of the actor’s understanding of the moment. She shakes her head, no, she doesn’t want to dance, and he’s bummed about that – and sort of leans in to her, to nudge her body, before leaning back. It’s like a head-butt from a cat. Affectionate. But also, “Oh, come on, you’re no fun …” I love actors. It’s completely child-like, that moment. He’s not allowed to kiss her. He respects that rule. But if he were allowed to kiss her, he’d kiss her in that moment. He can’t, so instead, he sort of head-butts her gently with his body. You see? It lasts 1 second and it took a paragraph to describe.
Exactly as he did on their first “date,” he wants to go dance, so he does, leaving her there. He throws himself onto the dance floor, with an extroverted abandon, and she looks on, and there’s that distance again. They’ve been so close. She knows she’s not making that up. But something else is starting up here … and she can’t get a handle on it. Looking at him dancing out there makes her feel lonely, and this is something that is way outside of the rules of the particular game they have been playing. A good fuck-buddy relationship is worth its weight in gold and don’t let anybody (or Roger Ebert) tell you different. But a relationship like that does require rules, and it’d be nice if these rules also applied to regular conventional relationships, but unfortunately they don’t (often). Rules like: transparency of intentions, no double standard, kindness, passive-aggressiveness is forbidden and so is getting weird or clingy (in other words: do not be a drag, otherwise you miss the whole damn point which is to have a safe space where you can have fun), not taking “No” personally, but most of all: respect for the other person. When you find someone who understands these rules, does it naturally: consider yourself lucky. I should give a TED Talk on the topic. Listen, it’s not for everyone. It’s okay if it’s not for you.
And suddenly, in this scene (and it’s been building in the two scenes before this), he breaks one of those rules. He’s been perfect with her up until now. He’s not a perfect man, but with HER, he’s been perfect. It’s about time for a fuck-up. Honestly, I thought she would be the first one to mess up, but no, it’s him. He messes up big.
Out on the dance floor, Ali and some blonde dance close, and it’s queasy-making just looking at it. Ali comes back to the table, trailing the blonde behind him, and leans down to Stephanie – and it actually would be sweet and considerate, if he wasn’t in the process of picking up another girl – and says, “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?” It’s weird, it’s like his way of saying, “Okay, I’m leaving with her, but you are my #1, I’m setting up our date for tomorrow, I haven’t forgotten you.” He is not shame-faced. The moment literally is what the moment is: He wants to see her tomorrow, so he’s touching base about it before he takes off. She is stunned: “You’re leaving?” and then she sees the blonde, who gives her a look of such smug “I won” superiority that I want to punch her in the face. Ali calls out good night to the guys at the table, jovial, which tells me he is completely clueless, as hard as that is to believe. His behavior is the same as it’s always been, and not like he’s trying to sneak out, or irritated at Stephanie’s presence holding him back from being a hound-dog, or even ashamed of himself. He doesn’t pull her aside privately to explain he’d like to go home with this babe. He makes sure to set up a date with Stephanie for tomorrow, he’s still with Stephanie (in his clueless mind) and then he swings on out of there with his conquest for the night, and Stephanie watches them go, or, to be more precise, watches the girl’s legs following Ali out.
Cotillard plays insecurity and hurt feelings so touchingly here because she overlays the hurt with a bright smile because that’s obviously what’s expected of her, to look like she doesn’t mind, and if anyone’s watching she doesn’t want them to see how hurt she is. It’s a moment when she realizes that she’s been thinking of them as a couple. And they ARE a couple, for Christ’s sake. Or at the very LEAST she assumes that if she’s out with him and his friends, then they definitely are a couple for the night. BIG mistake. She is blindsided. Earlier that day she was passing him frozen peas as he bled out in the back of the van, and earlier that day while he was getting beaten to a pulp, she turned into a guardian angel, complete with sunburst. She’s extremely embarrassed, like all of his friends must be looking at her. Of course none of them are. They go back to talking to each other, and if they even gave it a second thought (which I highly doubt), they’d think it was part of Ali and Stephanie’s arrangement. But honestly, no one even notices.
Later in the night, Stephanie sits alone at the bar, tossing back a glass of champagne. You get a glimpse of who she was before Ali, the jaded quality, the hardness, the manipulation, too, waiting for someone to come over to her … because they always do. A dude comes over, and introduces himself as Pierre. Pierre, a word of advice? Run for the hills. She gives him a fake name. He buys her a drink and keeps moving closer. She allows it. He leans over to whisper something to her, and she listens, smiling, and there’s something disturbing about it.
She’s just been publicly humiliated so it feels good to have power over Pierre, even though it’s empty.
But also, crucially: and maybe I’m reading into it, but I live to read into things: she understands sex now whereas she didn’t before. It’s a whole different ball of wax now when a man hits on her, because she would know what to do now with said guy, SHE would be able to use HIM, as opposed to just being used. This thought really only occurred to me after I heard the commentary track and Audiard said that there was an entire section of the movie that they cut out. I think they actually filmed it, too, although I could be wrong. Around this time in the narrative, Stephanie went out of town to Torino for some reason, and picked up a businessman. To experiment and just see if she could be sexually responsive with someone else. Because what if … Ali is the only man on the planet who can get her off? I would have loved to see this sequence although I understand why they left it out.
Eventually, Stephanie comes to her senses, thanks him for the drink, and gets ready to go, reaching under the bar for her cane, and that’s when he sees her prosthetic legs. His whole manner changes, he is ashamed, and extremely apologetic towards her, immediately. He – awkwardly – and sincerely – and misguidedly – says he “didn’t know.” UH-OH. BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES STEPHANIE’S GONNA BLOW Y’ALL.
She goes from 0 to 100, showing that she and Ali have more in common than sex, and I’m sorry that Ali wasn’t here to witness this. She vibrates with rage. And forces him to explain himself: “Excuse me?” “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” “Know what?” “That you had a –” She picks up her glass of champagne and smashes it into his face. All hell breaks loose. Stephanie actually tries to continue to assault this poor man, in a “Lemme at him” way, as security guards swarm over, pulling them apart. The man has blood streaming down his face. One of Ali’s boxing buddies sees what’s happening and races to get Martial to come over and handle it. This amuses me. Did any of those big tough guys with broken noses think they would have to break up a violent fight that night? Maybe, sure, they’re all fighters. But did anybody think that the violent fight would have been started by Stephanie – Stephanie with the prosthetic legs?? I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the van on the way home after the guys drop Stephanie off. “Ali’s girl is nuts.” “Jesus Christ what was that.” “We should put her in the ring. She’d kill.”
The next morning, Stephanie walks down the boardwalk in the blinding light to meet up with Ali at the cafe, where he sits asleep in a chair, in the same clothes from last night. Dude.
Audiard expressed some dissatisfaction with how this scene turned out. Not the actors’ work but his own. There are shots of his profile and hers. There are over-the-shoulder shots of him and her. Audiard wished he had just done it one, with the camera placed behind them, the two of them looking out at the ocean or at each other. In this case, I can see his point. I would love to have just watched the behavior from both of them on both sides of the screen, happening at the same time, like we got to see in the other boardwalk scene when she showed up with the prosthetics. There’s nothing like a conversation playing out in real time.
One of the unspoken themes of Rust and Bone is that you can’t compartmentalize being open. That’s one of the reasons I love the transition from their first time in bed together to her on the balcony doing whale commands. That’s a perfect representation of the idea. As things develop – in all areas of their lives, not just their relationship – but in their passions, with their family members, with friends – they can’t keep these things separate, even though they try. It’s all happening all at once. So they may have all of these little walls and compartments – job, workout schedule, friendships, sex life – but eventually there’s going to be spillover. We just saw that in the fight scene where Ali – mid-fight – zooms in on his feelings for Stephanie, which changes the event. The compartments aren’t separate.
As long as equilibrium between them is maintained, it’s been perfect. Both have already felt the emptiness in their lives when the other one is not around. In fact, after a night of anonymous sex with a stranger, Ali probably is looking forward to seeing Stephanie because he can relax with her. He probably texted her AS he snuck out of the blonde’s apartment. I actually did that once, so I honestly get what Ali is doing, which may make my response a little unique, I don’t know. I went on a date in Chicago. It was a first date. I had an okay time, not great, but okay. This was pre-cell-phone, so when I got home – literally the second I walked in the door (rude!) – I paged my REAL guy, the one I mentioned above who introduced me as his “hovering chick”, the page being my version of “I’m OP. You?” He called me back – within 30 seconds, tops, said he was home, come on over. I walked over to his house which I did all the time because we lived so close. I hadn’t slept with the guy on the date like Ali slept with the blonde – but it was the same idea. Listen, I was in my 20s and I was as wild as they come. I had no loyalty to a guy I went on only one date with.
Side note: There are a lot of parallels, actually, between our relationship and the one in the film, although it honestly did not strike me that way the first … 10 times? I saw it. The physical trauma part of Rust and Bone is so specific that it took me awhile to go, “Huh. That was also going on with us.” My guy’s body had to be put back together like Frankenstein after a hit and run when he was 18 – he actually died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, they had to bring him back to life, and both of his legs were broken so badly that they thought he might never walk again. He did, after being “in traction up to my nuts” for a year, but nothing was ever quite the same for him after that. He had been a star basketball player, stalked by college and pro teams while he was in high school. Those dreams died overnight. (He actually has gone on to be very successful – or at least hugely well-known in that circle – in another field, improv comedy, which is how I met him when I was involved in that scene. I laughed to myself when I referenced him in my review for Don’t Think Twice in this totally professional tone. But I meant it! Those guys were (and still are) incredible.) He had scars all over his legs. He apologized for them when he first undressed in front of me, even though there was no need to. I loved his body. The best body ever. If he had THAT as a backstory, then, too, I was a handful and a HALF. For many reasons, one of them being I went into fight-or-flight mode when clothes were coming off, for many such-and-such traumatizing reasons, and he (eventually) knew about it, and he helped me get over it. “I have created a monster,” he announced one night to an invisible audience. But that’s another story. But for whatever fucked-up reason, we trusted each other and we could be our messy selves with each other. Nothing had to be left out or ignored or lied about. The relationship – which lasted for years – in the form that suited us and baffled our friends – was healing for both of us even though we rarely put it into words. And when we did speak of it, it was like the whole world trembled. He said to me once, out of nowhere, “There isn’t a word evolved enough for what we are.” Cigarette dangling from his lips, not even turning from the Bull’s game on TV. But normally, we did not dissect or discuss. That’s why it worked. With repeat viewings of the film I could see the parallels and wondered why I hadn’t noticed them before.
All of that being said, similarities or no, since I’m not a dumbass, I didn’t go on a date with the other guy in FRONT of my regular guy, and I didn’t TELL him that I came from my date to his bed. Come on.
In the small scene between Stephanie and her boyfriend early in the film, after Ali left the apartment, she says, “No more orders, Simon.” He says, “What’s that supposed to mean?” She reiterates: “No more orders, that’s all.” To actors there is no such thing as an irrelevant line. A great acting teacher of mine said that nothing is ever “just” in acting. By that he meant, you’re never “just” doing anything, and he made me realize that any time I talked about a scene I worked on, and I said the word “just,” I was being general. “What are you doing in this moment, Sheila?” “I’m just trying to talk to my husband.” Hmmm. How about you take the word “just” out of that sentence and see – just SEE – how different it feels to say it. My teacher said: “In theatre, the soup is never ‘just’ soup. It’s either hot or cold. Make a choice.” Nothing is ever “just” to Cotillard. One of the best examples of this is her absolutely exhausting and brilliant performance in Two Days, One Night (I wrote about it for Roger Ebert.) That performance is one of the best portrayals of the reality of depression that I have ever EVER seen. (Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia is another one.) Her performance should be shown to people who think depression is just a rough patch or a bad day or being “sad.” (You see the word “just” in that sentence? You see how it operates? Pay attention when you say “just”. And know that you are being simplistic whenever you say it. You’re avoiding a deeper truth. I catch myself all the time.) Cotillard, with her great empathy and her smart script analysis, sensed the entire 360 degrees of Stephanie’s life “before” in that one exchange with the boyfriend. Now that Stephanie is getting well, and having all of these adventures with Ali – attending some fight club?? For real?? – she has found reserves she never knew she had. She had lived a compartmentalized life before: she spent her days giving orders to killer whales, and she spent her off-hours being ordered around by Simon. Over the last 7, 8 months, however long it has been, she has started to understand what she never understood before the accident: that she deserves to take up space in the world, and she deserves to be treated well.
She “acted” last night, smiling casually at Ali as he said goodbye as though it was no big deal, but the blinding stark white light of morning won’t tolerate that nonsense. When Ali wakes up, he sees her, and relaxes, friendly, happy to see her. He has no idea. You feel bad for him because it seems right to feel bad for the totally clueless. He has no idea that she is fuming, that she is crushed. He has no idea that she threw a glass – not the liquid in the glass – but the glass itself – at a man last night. She is aggressively silent. It’s aggressively passive-aggressive, over-doing it just to SEE if he will even NOTICE. She felt power “before” only through being manipulative like this. You don’t break old habits overnight. Both of them have completely undeveloped muscles when it comes to conflict and relationships.
They are both so good in this scene – him, in particular, because – again – how do you play this scene and not come off like an absolute irredeemable douchebag? The thing about Ali that I find so touching is that he is so so SO redeemable. That’s why he’s so frustrating.
He’s not such a dumbass that he doesn’t notice the ice-princess attitude coming across the table at him but he doesn’t associate it with what he did the night before. Can this really be true? Are there other possibilities? Is he trying to give her a bat-signal of his own? Don’t get too attached to me. Is he “playing” dumb? Honestly, I don’t see it. That seems like way too complex a reaction for this guy. What you see is what you get with him. He’s used to “quick fucks.” I imagine he rarely screws the same woman twice. And definitely not a bunch of nights in succession. That’s not who he is or what he’s interested in. Lord knows what was going on with the woman he impregnated, or what that whole situation was about. Just as Stephanie was a fish out of water with sex, he’s a fish out of water with relationships. He honestly does not know what he is doing. Neither does she. So there we are. He honestly – truly – did not mean to hurt her feelings, which may seem astonishingly bizarre. To him, her anger at him comes out of left field. He had no idea she would take it this badly. He never would have done it if he had known. He’s actually on the level. And that’s the challenge with Ali, at least in terms of playing him, the challenge both Audiard and Schoenaerts talked about.
When they finally get down to talking about the night before – led by her – there are a couple of moments when he gets frustrated, trapped, in that “Get off my back” adolescent way I mentioned before. She says, “What would you say if I did that?” “Nothing!” he snaps back, and of course he’d fucking hate it if she did that to him. He’s ashamed of himself. He hates being a guy who lets people down. His body actually squirms in one or two moments. Even when he lashes out, in one alarming moment, she holds her ground. And it’s fascinating to watch what ends up happening. How she speaks to him, and how he starts to listen to her. Even though he’s ashamed. He doesn’t get up and leave, or throw a tantrum, or dig his heels in. He listens. He cares about this woman, he has messed it up and he feels bad. I’m guessing that this is the first time – ever – he has had such a conversation. I’m sure women have fallen for him before and tried to get him to commit to them, or bitched at him about why he was flirting with so-and-so when she was right there. And it would be an argument, and he’d get up and leave. But he doesn’t here. He takes her scolding, because he TRULY does not want this – whatever IT is – to end.
And if this is a first-time for him, then it is for her too. She’s never said what she needed before. She’s never taken that risk. She victimized herself in relationships before, and probably spent a lot of time in the fuming silent-treatment stuff she started this scene with. But now, she speaks. She tells him what she needs. He may not go for it. But she says it anyway and risks losing him.
She tells him that if they are going to continue on, then they need to have “manners” about it. I love that word choice. “You’ve always been so considerate with me,” she says. This is a revolutionary comment. Who has ever spoken to him like this before, first of all? Who has ever even SEEN him like that before? “Considerate”?? Sam sure doesn’t. Anna sure doesn’t. There’s a lot going on with him in these moments, and I think the moment when she calls him “considerate” is the most important. Sometimes it takes someone else – on the outside – to help us see our true essence. You may feel like a loser, or incompetent, unworthy, but a good friend can say, “That is not who you are.” As he listens to her, he nods a little bit. Like, “Okay. Okay. I hear what you’re saying.”
However, we’re not out of the woods yet.
He screws up again.
They came through to the other side of their difficult moment. So that’s good news but Ali mis-reads the moment. Or, more likely, he endured the difficult conversation, he’s happy it’s over, happy that they’re still sitting there together, so he makes an attempt to get them back to who they were before last night. He wants it to be the way it was before. And that’s the “mis-read” in question. They can’t go back.
Another thing I appreciate about Rust and Bone: Neither character is the “key” to the other’s happiness. Both are missing something in their lives, and it’s good they found each other, but there’s still a lot of damage. During the happy ending final scene – and it is happy – exuberant, even, I was a wreck – Ali speaks in voiceover and the words come directly from Craig Davidson’s title story. Ali speaks of how bones can be joined back together but a broken hand never completely heals. You’ll feel it still, the pain “like broken glass.” The voiceover does not say “Bones get broken, yes. But bones heal themselves, too.” Or whatever, Oprah pablum, blah blah, NO. Some things are broke for good, and I am sick of living in a propaganda-filled culture that REFUSES to admit that. It’s DAMAGING to damaged people to refuse to admit that some hurts don’t heal. So I appreciate that Rust and Bone does not cop out in the final moment, that the happiness has these mournful words about healing under it, and old hurts rising to ambush you again and again. It’s not a comforting voiceover. But it is accepting of reality. Accepting reality is the most important thing. Unambiguously (albeit temporary) happy endings might have been possible for me once (I doubt it), but they definitely no longer are. I don’t think it’s possible for anyone, but after a certain point in time, that ship sails for good. I am still able to connect with other people. I sometimes even get butterflies in my stomach. I consider myself fortunate that I even met that battered ex-basketball-player, because he showed me that safety with a man was possible, that a man would not leave when things got rough (and things get rough with me all the time), and that I could trust him. Trust needs to be earned, and he – who trusted nobody (he told me once that I was the only person on the planet he trusted) – understood that, and did what he had to do to make sure I knew I was safe. Wherever I was at was where I was at. He didn’t judge, or think I was a drag, even when I was probably being a huge drag, with nightmares and crying jags, which happened all the time back then. And – for a relationship that started out as a glorified hook-up – I was all messed up about sex. Like, he wasn’t having a wild carefree time with me. I was a MESS. And yet … he kept calling. So something was there. (Years later, 8, 9 years later – when it was STILL going on, he said, “Yeah, you dressed really slutty — ” True. He loved how I dressed, which was pure Kinder-Whore back then – slutty was the whole point. – “but then when we were alone, you were shy and uptight. So I realized – Oh. I get it. She doesn’t want to be uptight anymore. She’s trying to get over it. I felt almost proud that you picked me for that – I felt that you picked me -” -I did. It was deliberate. – “… because you were all fucked up and it was going to be huge.” hahaha He was brilliant. Other guys would have thought I was a tease or DEFinitely not worth the trouble. We were both 25 when this whole thing started up – his powers of perception were uncannily mature.) He didn’t abandon me because I got like that sometimes like other guys always did. Being with him for so long made me more healthy, and I continue to draw strength from it. This is (frankly) a miracle, considering my track record. But still: My broken-ness comes with me. Trying to leave it out would be like saying my grey eyes aren’t welcome wherever I go. A romantic film that acknowledges that we are MARKED by life – physically or otherwise – and we are not “made whole” by each other, that some wounds do not heal, and whatever is left is what we have to work with … well, I can grok that.
I get that the majority of audiences want happy endings. I love a nice happy ending too sometimes. It’s not that the people who say a film is “depressing” and mean it as a criticism – as opposed to an accurate description – shouldn’t have movies made to their taste. (No worries about THAT.) But I am ALSO an audience member, and I ALSO deserve to see difficult and ambiguous material, accurate in its portrayal of the complexity of human beings. An unambiguously happy ending would be a disservice to Ali and Stephanie, as though everything they have been through could be wiped clean. It can’t. But still: they found a safe space with one another, in all their broken-ness. To me, that is a far more hopeful message than “Yay, no more problems, into the sunset.”
Back to the scene (finally!) in question:
After a long still silence, he looks at her with a totally different expression. A mischievous humorous look. A blaring bat-signal of “OP”. She asks “What?” in response to the look, and he says, “I’m OP.” Dude, no! You can’t just roll out of a bimbo’s bed and into hers – especially not if she knows about the bimbo!! Poor Ali, who is actually trying, is confused, and uncomfortable, but clearly he “wants her back.” It’s the equivalent of giving Sam a toy tractor after throwing him across the room. From her perspective, the comment shows he is treating her like every other “quick fuck” in his life. But suddenly, you’ll notice, he’s in a relationship. He asks her why she’s looking at him like that. He asks her again. He wants to know what’s going on with her. She’s making him work. Not in a manipulative way, but it’s just … this is a relationship now.
Uh-oh.
It’s a great little scene. It’s great that it doesn’t end with the agreement that they will continue on only now with “manners.” It’s great that it ends awkwardly, with his “I’m OP” offer, which overturns the fragile balance just created.
We’re about to move into something else, a whole other mood, and again, what happens next would not be possible without this little tense “fight” at the cafe. Even though the scene ends in silence, with waves of misery breaking across the table from both sides, they’re closer now. People write him off usually. Anna’s close to writing him off. This is not to say his behavior isn’t often appalling – especially with Sam. But when you spend your life screwing up, then people have a tendency to give up on you, to treat you like a loser, an irresponsible person, not to be trusted. Right? And he IS that. But he’s actually working on his relationship with Stephanie – in his own awkward way – and this goes back to the compartmentalization conversation again. He can’t only be trustworthy and “considerate” with her. It’s going to have to spill over into every area of his life if he wants to be a man. If he can’t integrate all those different compartments, he’s going to have to drop Stephanie and totally “revert to type”. The same is true for her. In the past, if she expressed a need, or if she said to, say, Simon, “I don’t like how you just treated me”, she’d get contempt back from him, she’d be shamed for even HAVING a need. Ali doesn’t do that to her at all. He’s not capable of it. So for her, getting powerful also cannot be compartmentalized. She survived the accident. She learned to walk with prosthetics. She did all these very hard things that toughened her up and made her realize her strength. Having good sex where she is a full participant and not a passive object has also made her realize her power. The night before with Pierre, she, too “reverted to type”.
Coming up, she’s given even more power, and when you SEE what she does with it!! And the sequence that it leads to! It’s my favorite and it’s insane!
The serious mood continues, into a scene in a warehouse where Martial’s secret cameras have been discovered by the staff, and someone called the cops. Martial and Ali are surrounded by an angry mob, people screaming in their faces. Ali looks like a caged animal. He’s ashamed too. He cannot defend his involvement in Martial’s scheme. He knew it was wrong from the start. So he just messed up with Stephanie and he messed up here. When a pissed-off employee starts taking pictures of him loading up the equipment, he charges at her telling her he’ll beat her face in. She claims later that he actually hit her. Martial and Ali are hounded out of the warehouse, leading to the next scene, which takes place in a hotel room with only Martial and Stephanie present.
Putting two and two together, because it’s not said, and we don’t see it: Martial is arrested and given a short prison sentence. Ali is spared. While Martial prepares for prison (obviously not his first time at this particular rodeo), Ali asks him who will organize the fights and the betting while he’s gone? Ali loves those weekend fights, and he needs the money. Martial thinks about possible people who could handle the responsibility, someone who could be trusted with thousands of dollars passing hands, and Ali suggests – and I’m betting he had her in mind the whole time: “How about Stephanie?” I mean, how can you not love this man? The only reason Stephanie, a woman, is even allowed to go to the fights is because 1. she stays in the van and 2. she’s with Top Dog Martial. But to Ali, her “being” Martial makes sense: She’s smart, she has his back, she probably knows math. Her legs were eaten by a killer whale, she’s not gonna be intimidated by a bunch of goombahs in sweatpants. She just handled his “inconsiderate” behavior with a toughness (and a fairness) that probably impressed him. He does not underestimate her and never once questions her ability to do anything she wants to do. That’s the basis of their relationship. Martial, who saw Stephanie attack a man in a nightclub, and WIN that fight through the element of brutal surprise, thinks, wow, of course, I can totally see her running the show with those mad-dogs at the fight. All of this backstage stuff goes down without Stephanie knowing about it. Ali doesn’t give her a heads up either. I love that. I picture her distancing herself a little bit from him in the days after their “fight.” She’s realized her dependence on him. Time to go through the withdrawal to get her sanity back. Meanwhile, though … she’s on his mind big-time. I would have liked to see the conversation between Martial and Ali but it’s better that we don’t see it. When Stephanie hears the news of her promotion to Leader of the Whole Shebang, it’s the first time we hear it too. It makes us see that she smacked Ali a little bit out of his cluelessness. He didn’t flee into the night like, “Screw HER.” Ironically, the cafe conversation relaxed him, made him trust her. She didn’t leave him even though she was angry. This is KEY. She presented him with a plan with rules he could follow – let’s have manners, let’s be considerate of one another – and in so doing she actually gave him a second chance. He’s … grateful. He would never say that but he is.
The sequence that follows is my favorite in this film and ranks as a favorite in general. There are other films that have extended sequences made up of multiple small parts that add up to something transcendent (the first one that comes to mind is the karaoke night in Lost in Translation, but there are more.) The sequence in Rust and Bone is made up of six little scenes, and – except for the last one – happen to the accompaniment of Trentemøller’s unofficial re-mix of Bruce Springsteen’s sexy-as-hell “State Trooper,” complete with Springsteen’s intermittent primal screams. Audiard had heard the Trentemøller remix in a nightclub somewhere and knew he wanted to use it. He felt a little bad about requesting the use of it from Springsteen because he had to say: “I’d like to use the pirated re-mix of the song … not the original … uhm … sorry? But please say yes?” But Springsteen said Yes, and thank goodness he did. It’s the connecting thread of this crazy sequence.
Added up, the six little scenes make up one unstoppable flow … Ali and Stephanie settling into each other, into togetherness … experiencing adventure and risk together … having fun … having a witness to their lives … finding safety in one another. Putting these small scenes together instead of breaking them up into separate scenes reiterates what I keep talking about: compartmentalization is now impossible for either of them. Every aspect of their lives impacts the other aspects.
The sequence is more cathartic than the penultimate scene. Or, it’s equally as cathartic but in a different way. I got goosebumps the first time I saw it and I still find it thrillingly satisfying.
The sequence progression:
1. Stephanie and Martial in the hotel room
2. Stephanie buys an SUV
3. Stephanie gets two huge tattoos – one for each thigh
4. Stephanie and Ali in bed
5. Stephanie runs the fight club
6. 6 a.m. the next morning at Stephanie’s
Stating her needs to Ali at the cafe is like the Big Bang of Personal Power. She goes Punk-Goth-Gangster overnight.
Martial doesn’t ask her to take the job. He just tells her she will be doing his job while he is away. Stephanie sits like a frozen statue at the offer. She assumes it is Martial’s idea and asks if Ali is “okay with this.” Martial says, “He told me to call you.” Her face when she hears that! So vulnerable and funny and smart. She looks surprised, and so proud she nearly bursts, but mainly her expression is a thoughtful “Well, who saw THIS one coming” and “Huh!! Now THIS is a FASCINATING development!” and also an excited realization of “Holy shit, he LIKES me. Like, really REALLY likes me.” She had no idea. As far as she knows, he still feels awkward and ashamed after their conversation, and she’s still a little pissed off at the “I’m OP” debacle, but he has moved on to such a degree that … look at THIS. All of that is on her face and it’s a moment that lasts a second This is Cotillard. Bow down before her.
Once she’s absorbed this revelation, Stephanie says, uncertain, “Can you see me in that crowd, though? Can you see me with those beasts?” He replies, without hesitation, “Yes.” It’s a hell of an endorsement, coming from such a shady guy.
Bruce Springsteen starts up. The Big Bang has commenced.
The next scene in the sequence shows Stephanie shopping for a car in the pouring rain. It is the first (and only) time it rains in the film. She buys a car for her new role. She knows the impression she wants to make when she pulls up at that vacant lot for the fight. She can’t rent a Honda Civic for this particular purpose. Also: she’s ready to DRIVE again! The girl afraid to go swimming can do ANYthing now. The car salesman is adorable (wouldn’t surprise me if he was an actual car salesman and not an actor. Audiard does that a lot). It’s a very short scene, and she is all business, hoodie up, and there’s one moment where he says, glancing down at her legs, slightly awkward because he doesn’t know how to mention it, but he feels he must since it will impact what she purchases: “I notice that you have a slight problem … ” Instead of getting defensive or hostile, like she did with Pierre, she says, “Yes. So an automatic?” “Of course.” As he leads her on, she says my favorite line in the sequence: “But it needs to look hot.” Hahahaha. Stephanie, you are rocking my world right now.
Her growing sense of power leads her – of course – to go and get tattoos on her legs because, dammit, she’s a warrior. Ali is nowhere to be found in all of this.
But Ali returns in the scene that follows, starting with a closeup on one of those tattoos (“DROITE”. The other one, which closes out the entire sequence, says “GAUCHE.”). It’s an extremely intense sex scene and of course – after all we just saw in the other scenes in this sequence – she’s on top. And he is fucking loving it. I’m writing about sex so much it feels porn-y but it’s such an integral part of the movie, and my favorite part about it is that the sex develops as emotional intimacy develops. Trusting someone makes sex better. It’s weird, but this is rarely shown in film, at least not American romantic films, which can be quite prudish about all of it. You get closer as a couple when you have sex. I mean, duh, but sex in American films often lacks this kind of charge, or delicacy of approach, or understanding what the sex scene is supposed to be doing, narrative-wise.
In terms of the order and the script-structure: this sex scene could not have come before that difficult tete-a-tete at the cafe. Or before Ali called Martial and asked him to get Stephanie to take over, changing Stephanie’s perception of Ali’s perception of her. It also wouldn’t have felt right if the sex scene followed right on the heels of the conversation at the cafe. If it had come then, it would have had an “all is forgiven” message, an “Oh, look, they worked it out, yay” which, okay, that’s fine, but having it come on the heels of all of the stuff she’s doing for herself without his involvement at all … brings it to a whole other level. And the little scene following this one – at the fight club – ups the ante even more … before we come on down into the final scene in the sequence, where you realize just how sizable a shift has gone down in the tectonic plates of their relationship. Neither of them comes out on the other side of this sequence un-changed.
One final observation about the sex: It’s not like the sex Ali has with those other women. There’s passion and feeling and connection. But it’s also different from what we’ve seen between the two of them up until this point. They’re working together. They’re having the experience together. The other times it has been more about her learning about herself, and him trying to do whatever it is she wants. THAT phase is clearly over. She keeps pushing him down, holding him in place, like, “Don’t move. I’m busy.” This is all done in one take, by the way, it’s not broken up or fragmented via shots of their body parts, and there’s none of the shitty cliches used so often in sex scenes, where if you didn’t know better you’d think that people were completely cut off from their brains during sex, and were only hands and butt-cheeks and mouths. Come ON. So there’s that, but also you can see him wanting to come up to meet her, and she keeps pushing him back down. He’s not expressly trying to kiss her. There’s not a “moment” where he tries to kiss her, and she won’t let him, there’s nothing that literal, but as I watch this thing it appears that he’s reaching the end of his ability to follow her whole “no kissing” rule.
The second to last sequence shows Stephanie running the fight club as Ali watches from the SUV. The whole thing is from his perspective.
She wears her tight leather coat. Gigantic brutes surround her, a crowd of “beasts.” She holds her cane, and a wad of cash, and commiserates with the “gypsy from Nice,” as he flips the coin, points out who’s going next, and etc. There’s a shot of Ali watching (through the window, of course). Always through the window is something he wants. My favorite moment is when she starts to head back to the SUV across the empty space. First of all, she bats the Gypsy in the stomach, like, “Okay, get to work.” It’s so bossy and fabulous, like she’s had this job for years. Then she starts back to the SUV, stone-faced, her baggy pants rolled up showing her prosthetic ankles. There’s a moment where you see guys on the sidelines turning to gawk at her, at her legs, with expressions of Who the fuck is that. I am extremely frightened of that lady on their rough faces.
Springsteen, meanwhile, is screaming, and we go back to Ali, looking out at her, smiling at the spectacle of Stephanie walking through that crowd. What a great moment. He thinks it’s hilarious, he’s not surprised at all – he knew she would be great at this, he’s proud of her, AND he’s never seen anything more fucking sexy in his whole entire life.
The second she “clears” the lot and no one can see her face, she looks through the van window at Ali, and breaks into giggles, like, “Oh my God, this is so much fun.” It’s adorable. When she flings open the front door of the SUV, Ali says, laughing from the back seat, “Ça va, RoboCop?” He calls her “RoboCop”. We haven’t seen him playful yet, ever, and definitely not with her. She stashes the money away, just like Martial told her to do, and gives Ali a lit-up glance, asking, “Ready?” Because she’s his manager now, apparently. He hauls himself out of the car, and they’re shot from below (directly into the sun) as they walk together to the middle of the “ring.” You can barely see either of them the sun is so blinding. She throws him a smile, and he smiles back.
They are literally the cool-est weirdest tough-est couple who have ever lived. And they haven’t even kissed yet.
This small series of short scenes – held together by “State Trooper” is my favorite sequence in the film, and I would list it on any List of “Great Sequences” if I cared about Lists, which I don’t. I was so blown away when I first saw it that I couldn’t believe the film had gone there – to wherever it had gone – because I couldn’t label it, because I hadn’t really seen it before. It is a UNIQUE sequence.
But there’s one more scene to go. I include it in this sequence, even though “State Trooper” has vanished. This final scene is the fragile and tender and quiet “coda”.
The characters rarely explain themselves to one another in the film, the exception being the scene on the terrace and the scene at the cafe. Instead, they behave, they act. We see what they do. We’re left a lot of room to think about what has happened and how that informs how they behave. The WHY is left unsaid. That happens in the transition to the next scene.
When the music drops out, there’s a shot of Ali, fast asleep. It’s dark. He’s in a bed. Suddenly, he thrashes awake, alarmed, he doesn’t know where he is. In one shot, the camera moves to the foot of the bed, and there sits Stephanie on the floor, in the darkness, naked. She’s startled, too, by him waking up.
It took me a second to get the significance – because it’s not spoken, or even presented in a way that makes sure you will get it. Throughout the film, except for after their first time, you don’t SEE him get up and leave her place after they have sex, but that’s clearly what he’s been doing. They have sex – great sex – and then he leaves. He doesn’t seem like a “sleepover” guy at all. You don’t sleep the whole night next to a “quick fuck” and so old habits would die hard with him. Stephanie’s bed is for sex, sleeping over is a line he won’t cross, doesn’t know how to cross, with her or with anyone. This is his first time at this particular rodeo. (There’s a great scene in Something’s Got to Give between Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton that is expressly about that.)
And here, somehow, after all we just saw – she got tattoos, she bought an SUV so large she can barely see over the windshield, not to mention the fact that she’s DRIVING, they’re in a groove with sex now, he’s in a groove with his life and its contours (well, not with Sam … not. with. Sam.) … and so now suddenly, not surprisingly, he fell asleep in her bed. It’s a breakthrough. One of the strengths of Rust and Bone is that it doesn’t necessarily present the huge moments AS huge. You have to intuit it, and it’s a far more pleasurable and involving viewer experience. My first time seeing it – as this quiet beautiful scene unfolded – it occurred to me in an “A-ha” moment – “Oh. Wow. He’s never slept over before. He just fell asleep by accident because he is so relaxed with her. This is …. HUGE.”
The little scene that follows drives home the point that the film has been working at all along: showing two people who suddenly find themselves in a serious committed relationship without having any idea how it really happened. Without even really choosing it. It may be obvious to US, but it’s a surprise to THEM.
When you see her huddled naked on the floor, he’s still half asleep in bed, and has no idea what is happening – with him or with her. He’s worried about her – murmuring, “What are you doing?” She tells him she needs to pee, and to please not look at her, she doesn’t want him to see her like this. She says it twice. It makes me want to cry. The anxiety – still – that he’ll somehow be turned off by the reality of her disability – the vulnerability of having to get to the bathroom and not being able to – that she was trying to crawl quietly … is suddenly present again, in a big way. Maybe she was surprised too when she woke up that he was still there. It’s illuminating that she didn’t choose to wake him up to help her to the bathroom. An action like that would be more intimate than sex. True intimacy. He’s out of it and disoriented, has no idea what time it is. She’s embarrassed by her nakedness in this non-sexual context, and asks for her T-shirt. He murmurs sleepily, still surprised at how soundly he just slept, “I went out like a light.” In the meantime, though, his girl is chilly and naked on the floor, she has to go to the bathroom, and NOPE, THAT WON’T FLY, so he gets out of bed, naked himself, leans down, picks her up, whispering to her as he does so, and then walks her to the bathroom in a beautiful and heart-rending shot.
The trust between these actors is breath-taking. It’s extremely vulnerable work, especially in its quieter more sensitive moments. This scene is more intimate than any sex they’ve had.
In the fluorescent lit bathroom, he puts her down on the toilet, with a whispered “Ça va?”, as though he’s been doing it all his life, and then goes and sits on the seat in her gigantic open shower, waiting for her to be done. He doesn’t even think to step outside to give her privacy and wait for her outside the door. He’s not aware of the implications of waking up with her, of being in the same room as she pees – such established couple behavior – he’s doing it all so automatically – that when she starts giggling, for no reason, except that she is so unbelievably relaxed, and maybe a little bit embarrassed that he’s right there hearing her pee, he asks her, “What? What is it?” He’s in the moment. Doesn’t get it.
The final moment of this extraordinary sequence takes place back in the bedroom, post-bathroom. He’s carried her back to bed, and is asleep again, or dozing in and out, with her lying on top of him. It’s such a striking image. They both look perfect. Her legs. Her tattoos. His soft little gut. His lazy arm. What is so striking about the image is not their stark nakedness – although that is beautiful, their two bodies in that position make a beautiful shape – but the utter peace it represents. And it’s probably that, plus the cumulative effect of their entire relationship, as well as everything that happened post bump-in-the-road at the nightclub, as well as the last 10 minutes when she was so scared that he would see her in that awkward vulnerable position and then boom, boom, she’s on the toilet, he’s sitting there waiting, she pees in front of him, and he’s THERE, this man … who is this man … where the hell did this man come from?? and etc and etc. that makes her throw caution to the wind and lean up to kiss him.
My favorite part, though, is how he wakes up at her touch, looks at her, and says, without moving, “We’re allowed to now?”
Rust and Bone is not a particularly sweet movie (no movie could be that features a father shaking his son and then tossing him across the room) but his “We’re allowed to now?” is piercingly sweet. It’s a reminder that all along he didn’t kiss her because she asked him not to, and so those were the rules, even though he wanted to kiss her the whole time. He never pushed that boundary. He respected it. Even in all the passion, he never forgot that she didn’t want that. How many other people would tolerate such a situation? Or, even more importantly, not take it personally? A child isn’t “allowed” to do certain things. The child doesn’t question the rule if the child is little enough. “Allowed” is a very childlike word, and, in the case of Ali and Stephanie’s relationship – a very kind and generous word. He may have wanted to kiss her, but he wasn’t “allowed” to and so he didn’t and it was up to her to change that rule.
And of course the scene ends with him ferociously taking advantage of what he is now allowed to do. It ends with a closeup of his hand gripping onto her “GAUCHE” leg. Naked limbs in dark golden light the only thing onscreen.
WHAT a sequence. It’s a short film, in and of itself.
However: all good things must come to an end.
After that exhilarating sequence, there’s a terrible jolt back to reality, where we catch up with the end result of all those security cameras Ali installed with Martial. You probably saw this one coming. I did. It’s melodrama. You see most everything coming. Melodramas do not “bury the lede.” The lede was tossed out there ages ago, when Martial told Ali about the gig, and did his monologue about how he hooked up all the chain stores in the area with cameras to spy on the employees.
The inevitable dovetail occurs: Anna is fired because one of the security cameras that Ali helped install revealed her taking expired yogurts and putting them in her bag (which she then takes home, organizing by the dates in the fridge). A co-worker (the same one who took the picture of Ali), having no idea that her photo of the culprit is Anna’s brother, shows Anna the photo.
If Dad was probably abusive to Ali and Anna, then it seems likely that mom was irresponsible or worse, a drunk, a floozy, something along those lines, etc., maybe ran off with a man, abandoning her two children. Anna, still a child herself, maybe a teenager, probably raised her little brother. And Ali was wild and rambunctious, probably got in trouble all the time until he found boxing, probably dropped out of school, while his older sister picked up jobs to put food on the table. At some point, this chaotic situation would have ended. Ali drifted off into whatever life he has had up until this point, working with a really good coach in Belgium, winning some regional championships, but – except for a phone call a couple times a year – not at all in touch with Anna. The sister who raised him. There’s a LOT of anger and resentment in her attitude towards him that has nothing to do with his current-day behavior. His current-day behavior just confirms to her what she already knows, and confirms to her that he has gotten WORSE.
There’s a “deleted scene” on the DVD that provides a huge missing piece for the character of Anna, and I’m sorry it wasn’t included in the film, although honestly I can already see it in Masiero’s performance. In the deleted scene, Stephanie is at the beach with Anna and Richard and the rest of the apartment complex. Ali is not there. The scene was meant to show that Stephanie had become so integrated into his world that Ali didn’t even have to be around for her to be included. She and Anna lie in two deck chairs, side by side, and Stephanie asks Anna about her tattoo. Anna tells her it’s for “her little angel.” Anna had a baby who died. It’s a whole other intriguing line of enquiry in the family dynamics, and Audiard left it out because at that point in the story he sensed: No more tangents. This one I feel the loss of – and I am sure Masiero did as well! It is already completely understandable why Ali would drive her out of her mind. But knowing about the “angel” provides a depth and complexity to her anger, her sadness, her short fuse. She HAD a child, and she loved it, and then she lost that child, so to see Ali not acting the way he should with his own kid, especially after their parents (presumably) didn’t do right by them, must be enraging. Does Ali even know she lost a child? Would it make him act differently if he did?
Audiard is so good on class: Anna, as we see her at home, with Sam, with Ali, is a powerhouse. She speaks her mind. She has created a life that works for her out of the little that she has. (There’s a nice moment when you hear her say to Richard, off-screen, “Do you want me to close the door so you can sleep?” It’s a good relationship.) She has a temper. She has a sense of right and wrong. She’s a formidable human being, smart and capable. And yet when faced with an authority figure like the store manager – who calls her away from her cash register to fire her, she looks as uneasy and scared as a 13-year-old kid being called to the principal’s office. And the complicated thing is: she’s not “innocent” of the crime. She DID take the food. But how unfair is it that expired food – that is STILL good, for a week at LEAST, shouldn’t be eaten … by someone?
It’s bad, y’all. It’s bad.
Ali comes home from a run. Anna and Richard sit at the kitchen table. Ali has no idea what he’s walking into. He opens the refrigerator door to grab a yogurt – what a shock – and Anna stops him, telling him not to eat. Ali, with a busted-up face, a cut on his nose, battered knuckles, notices her tone, attitude, has no idea what to attribute it to.
Ali is too upset and ashamed to fight back when she tells him she got fired because of something he did. He doesn’t fight back even when she suddenly slaps him hard across the face. He KNEW Martial’s gig didn’t feel right, and he did it anyway for the money, he can’t even say “I’m sorry.” She’s his big sister and the muscle-memory of always being in trouble with her when they were kids (I’m assuming) remains. He CAN’T defend himself. Anna’s “take” on Ali has always been that he’s wild, unreliable, childish … and basically who the hell can even FIND him when you need him? Her getting fired is just confirmation for her of her already-existing opinion, although this time it’s worse, because what has happened affects her so personally.
The way she smokes you can feel the amount of effort it takes to not flick the ashes in his face. He looks devastated. And this is didactic, but very Audiard: The omniscient point of view for Ali is: the society into which he was born is unfair, does not give him a fair shake because of his lowly status, does not even give him a CHANCE, and so from that perspective, who the hell cares if he does something wrong? You’re already persona-non-grata, the GRUNT, of the society. Anna calls him on that bullshit. She says, “This is what you’re doing now? Spying on your own people? What does it feel like to get your sister fired? You have no response? Nothing?” He takes it, but it’s different than him “taking” the scolding from Stephanie at the cafe. There, he still felt SOME maneuverability. By some miracle, he hadn’t actually ruined his relationship with Stephanie. She gave him another chance. Anna does not.
He shoves himself back and up from the table and for a second it looks like he’s going to go all Stanley Kowalski and knock the table over. I’m glad he didn’t, because men beating up rooms is a cliche I would like to see retired. But the event shatters when Richard emerges from the other room, holding a shotgun, saying quietly, “Calm down.”
It is the shotgun’s first (and only) appearance. Out of left field? Yeah. A little bit. Richard is so mild-mannered that you wonder where he’s been hiding that baby, and is this even in character? However. We don’t know him well enough to say what is and isn’t in character. He’s having this whole other LIFE offscreen – Audiard gave Richard some opening small-talk moments when he first picks up Ali and Sam at the beach. His voice comes offscreen, telling Ali that he’s a truck driver and decided to go independent, and bought his own truck. You’re barely paying attention to this because it’s in the first minute of the movie, and the focus of the moment is Ali staring out the window. So there is a lot of pressure on Richard. He probably took a big pay cut to go independent, a pay cut he could not afford. Ali has been contributing to the house financially only intermittently. He disappears for stretches, and just assumes someone will babysit Sam. THEN, Ali does this shady thing that gets Richard’s wife fired, and they are already struggling enough as it is. Her losing her job is a disaster. (The woman doesn’t steal expired yogurt for the adrenaline rush.) Richard gives Ali not an ultimatum, but an order. “Calm down. Leave. Don’t show your face here again.” It’s that final. Sam sits in the other room, watching, and one can only imagine how he tries to process this.
Being kicked out never seems to have arisen as a possibility to Ali. She’s his sister. What, she’s gonna kick him out? He got complacent. He settled in. Sam is in school. He’s got a girlfriend, sort of. His first. This aimless man has hung up his hat – for once in his life (on his sister’s dime, yes, but still) – and actually found a life for himself, and now he has to leave. I mean, it’s not like he couldn’t call Stephanie up and ask her if he could crash with her for awhile, until he patches things up with Anna, right? That might be too much too fast. He could at least ask if one of his boxing buddies could put him up.
But from the look on his face, later, standing in his room (really just a workspace next to the garage) later that night …
… he is lost to those kinds of practical solutions. Internal tapes (I’m a loser, no matter what I do I always fuck it up, nothing good ever lasts for me) are the hardest to break. FIXING whatever it is that you’ve messed up requires you to actually give a shit about yourself. Ali is so damn redeemable, right? But he can’t own it, he doesn’t get it. I’ve seen the film so many times, and I still may be missing some element of this. This is not a character like Jake LaMotta who wears self-loathing on his sleeve. Whatever Ali comes from, whatever burden he carries, and I’m sure we don’t know the half of it, Schoenaerts has filled in for himself. The burden on Ali is not too heavy, which is important for this story. This is a melodrama, not a Greek tragedy. So: He’s not an ex-con. He’s not a drug dealer living on the streets. He was in training in Belgium working with a coach, and he won some regional championships. That’s a guy who, on some level, has his shit together. His burden is not, for example, as heavy as the one carried by Schonenaerts’ character in Bullhead who was ruined – for all time – by what happened to him in his childhood. Ali doesn’t carry around something like THAT. MUCH of his personality and its inherent goodness remains intact. He has a sense of humor, he takes care of his body, he’s not a bully (at least not on purpose), he’s not a jaded misogynist. He is capable of being gentle when he realizes that is what is called for. He is not a lost cause. He’s a fuck-up, but not a lost cause. But when he has to step up and take responsibility for himself, especially when anyone is angry at him, his impulse is to run. And, if possible, to leave before someone leaves HIM.
Like I said, there may be some elements here I’m missing, which is part of the fascination of these two characters. They aren’t entirely filled in for us. And don’t even get me started on how curious I am about Stephanie’s family. We know nothing about them.
He stands in his awful dark little space, and Stephanie’s “OP” message beeps on his phone. He doesn’t even look. He knows who it is. He’s been crying. Audiard circles the camera around him. The scene, otherwise, is very still.
One thing that I did not pick up on at all until I watched the commentary: There’s a little lit-up hallway outside Ali’s “room”. There’s another scene coming up in the space, with Stephanie and Anna which really highlights the contours of his space and also that little hallway that leads to the courtyard. In the little hallway, you can see an ironing board. Honestly, I never even noticed it.
But Audiard said something on the commentary track, along the lines of, “And, of course, there’s the ironing board out there, which is very important. Domestic life.”
Of course! How could I not have picked up on it!! My brain went click-click-click: Ali is on the outside of all things domestic. He is a father but he has no idea how to act like one. He’s got Stephanie but how does a person like Ali even … go further with that? He is crashing in a glorified GARAGE next to his sister’s apartment. Through that door is a vision of a domestic life, with all its trappings. Laundry and ironing boards and mundane tasks that make up people’s lives. Ali stands in the dark garage-like area, and the little domestic scene is very far away, through a dark doorway. It may as well be beyond a pane of glass. Unreachable. Subliminal messaging: This is where you are going. Stop resisting it. It’s what you have to do, it’s what you want to do. And it’s RIGHT THERE.
Now when this scene and the later one comes up,- the only damn thing I can see is the ironing board, and see that that is Ali’s future. And, in this context, “domesticity” is not a prison sentence, or a trap, or drudgery. It is freedom and safety. Not every person is “built” for a domestic situation. As weird as it may sounds, Ali is. You can FEEL how good he would be at it.
(Incidentally, when I watched the film after listening to the commentary track, I realized that in the dream-like womb-like opening credits – where moments from the movie come at you in unconnected hallucinatory snapshots – mostly from Sam’s perspective – one of the shots included is the shot of that lit-up doorway and the damn ironing board! Like: that’s how important it is to Audiard. That image is the hoped-for end result of all we will see in the film: that image is where these three characters are headed. Together. But God, I never even noticed the damn thing, or questioned why that image was included in the opening sequence until I heard Audiard speak of it later. I love buried messages like this, when they are done so subtly that they really do work on an unconscious subconscious level.)
But he’s a long way away from walking through that doorway and picking up an iron. Ali, holding only a duffel bag, flees into the night, literally, with Sam the sentinel, standing at the apartment window, watching him go. It’s another back-of-the-head shot, combined with a looking-through-the-window-shot, only this time it’s Sam. A rather crushing and ominous mirroring of Ali’s outsider status being passed down to his son.
Stephanie shows up looking for Ali. He skipped town without a word to her. She’s not crying or hysterical. She’s stunned. Blindsided, again. Anna brings her out to Ali’s room, and all his stuff is still there. Anna – still angry – stands at the door. The scene is short and plays out in one take. Stephanie seems almost shell-shocked as she looks at Ali’s stuff. Her replies to Anna are in a stunned monotone.
At one point, she stands with her back to the camera, facing the ironing board. And now that’s all I can see. Audiard, you may be “obvious” but you are also very sneaky, and I like it.
The scene is extremely well-written:
A: All the shit he left. His message said Strasbourg. God knows if he’s still there. He never called you?
S: No.
A: Did you try the gym?
S: They have no idea.
A: If I had a number, I’d give it to you. Even after all the crap he did. You believe me?
S: I believe you.
A: Imagine! He left his kid. It all means jack shit to him.
S: You don’t know him.
A: I don’t? What did you expect from him?
S: I don’t know. Not this.
Stephanie’s quiet “You don’t know him” comes from off-screen, after she has walked out the door, and it’s a stunner. It’s a hell of a thing to say to somebody’s sister, first of all. Stephanie says it in the same flat stunned monotone as all of her other lines. But she has earned the right. Maybe once upon a time he ran away like this, but he’s changed, and she has watched him change.
Next comes a long series of shots of a truck roaring along various roads. The camera is attached to the back of the truck, the mud flaps rattling in the wind. Nothing is explained. I’m a slow picker-upper at times, and you never see the driver of the truck, so it took me a while to piece together the gap in the narrative. I didn’t immediately think: “Oh! Richard drives a truck.” I appreciate gaps like this. Apparently, there were a couple of other scenes in the boxing gym that they had filmed where Ali’s trainer told him about a coach in Strasbourg who ran a training facility, getting guys ready for fights, a professional operation, a pipeline into the boxing world, and etc. The trainer floated it out there as a possibility, especially considering Ali’s Belgian championships. Audiard cut all of that stuff out. A VERY smart move, so we are left in the dark as much as Anna and Stephanie. Instead, the film leaps us over many many miles and many many months to Ali, working out and training in a high-end facility that I hope was not run by John Dupont. Boxers from all over Europe are put up, fed, and trained. So even though Ali has run … he has run to a place that very well might make such a difference for him that he could then return to the life back there that he screwed up and attempt to make everything right. This is Ali finally getting his shit together. Not just for himself but for everyone in his life.
But first, before we know this, we have the truck, rattling north. You can tell it is rattling north because the light in the sky is cold and grey. Sometimes rain pours down. It’s such a stark change to the sun-drenched south. The music is slow but filled with import, horns, almost anthemic. I love this transition because it is efficient. And mysterious. The world in the south felt so self-contained, with a rhythm to it, the beach, the gym, the fights, their apartments … all of that has been shot to hell and Ali and Stephanie spin out into space in opposite directions.
The music persists, inspirational, anthemic, as we see the sports complex, guys jogging through the snow, Ali sparring in a super-nice gym, Ali eating yogurt (some things will never change) in the cafeteria. It’s a nice sequence.
The sequence ends with Ali staring out the window into the white snowy world, his eyes light and blue, and he looks like a teenager to me. A hopeful teenager. The transformation is startling. A big red truck pulls down the snowy drive and Ali runs out to meet it. Now – for those of us who are slow – we get oriented in what’s happening. Ali is far away. Richard is a long-distance truck-driver and has swung by Ali’s training facility. With Sam in tow.
Ali is submissive towards Richard (in direct contrast to one of the first things he said to Richard – a man he had never met before, who had gone out of his way to pick up his unknown brother-in-law and nephew at the beach: “You took your time.” Ali’s an asshole). Ali was always transparent, for good or ill, but the transparency on his face here reveals his softness, his vulnerability, his shame. His entire body is an open apology.
At some point, Ali did call Anna. Lord knows how that went. It must have sucked big time. You’re where? You’re doing what now? Ali asked if Richard ever has to deliver in that area, could he drop Sam off for a day visit? After all that has happened, it’s now time for Ali to deal with being a father, to try to break what he broke. To try to be a better man. And Stephanie? I’m imagining he can’t even think about her at all.
Before Richard hands “Mr. Sam” (so sweet) out through the window, Ali stands on the snowy ground – eager, so open you get nervous for him – and observes that Richard got a new truck. It’s like noticing that Stephanie’s apartment was a mess. You wouldn’t think a guy like that would pick up on … anything. But he picks up on everything. Richard says that yeah, he went back to working for The Man. Ali knows that his behavior was partially responsible for that. Richard is mild-mannered, not overly friendly, but not overly distant either. He hasn’t written Ali off. Nobody has. That’s the miracle (for Ali, anyway).
Ali is afraid to ask about Anna, but he does. Richard tells him she got a job in a school cafeteria and she enjoys it. Ali is too ashamed to experience any relief in that. It sucks, but this scene shows him being with feelings that suck. Taking the lead (awkwardly, shamefacedly) in trying to make it right. Knowing he’s not just a victim of circumstance. He did all this. He didn’t mean to, but he can’t get around the fact that it was him who did it. He takes the leap and says to Richard, “I can’t pay her back now, but tell Anna when I have the money –” He looks so worried, so eager, so filled with awareness and urgency that Richard’s calm response brings tears to my eyes: “Don’t worry. When’s your fight.” Don’t worry. I’m not sure I fully realized how worried Ali was – always – until Richard said that. Richard tells Ali to “keep us posted” about the fight. Another sign that whatever has happened with these relationships they are not broken for good.
The last time the two men saw one another, Richard was pointing a shotgun at Ali. It seems that that would be an event you don’t come back from. But life can – and often does – offer redemption. The heat of the moment cools off. Ali doesn’t know about that yet. In his mind, he torched everything to the ground. Sam? Well, that’s DONE. Anna and Richard? They despise him for all time. Stephanie? Best not to think about HER ever again.
This goes back to the fact that we don’t know jack-squat about Ali’s childhood, although you can guess that it’s been a parade of abandonment. A less-good film would have made for damn sure that we knew ALL of it, including heart-rending flashbacks with Ali hiding under the table as his father beat his mother or whatever. But it’s not rocket science. He expects people to leave him. He knows that people eventually always get sick of him. And so he tries to leave them before that happens. It’s textbook. Here, though, he’s trying … trying … to not do that. He CAN’T do that. He can’t leave Sam and still BE with himself. He is no longer ABLE to run to that degree.
Richard hands Sam out of the van, and Ali can’t wait to get the kid in his arms. I was surprised at how touched I was by all of this. The depth of my feelings for these characters. It hit me like a freight train on first viewing. I honestly don’t think I breathed more than twice during this entire final sequence because I had such a feeling of dread it was unbearable. I gave a shit to such a degree that it felt like … my own LIFE depended on it. That’s a romantic sensibility and usually I’m actively suspicious of it. But this is what Rust and Bone did to me, dammit!
As the horrible event unfolds following this snowy reunion scene, I remember thinking, desperately, clawing for a way out: “Richard said he’s coming back. Maybe Richard can help?? SOMEONE HELP.” This is the Melodrama Effect at its finest.
Audiard does not try to hide what he is doing, where he is going. He lulls us into complacency, and then at one point, he goes to hand-held camera, and you have a nervous breakdown. But even the complacent part is not truly complacent. Because you know, from all we have been shown before, that the world is dangerous and capricious. That at any moment tragedy can strike. It’s not that Ali has to be made to suffer, although actually that could be a part of it, in the grand Martyr Tradition of Melodrama. Only through tragedy can our flawed hero get his soul in order. Either way: Ali and Sam set off to spend a day in the snowy winter wonderland around the sports complex. Desplat’s music is sweet and sentimental, the same “theme” as when Ali and the beach staff carried Stephanie down to the deck chairs. Sam and Ali walk around, holding hands, the snow is blinding white, and they have a little lunch packed, and they’re both happy. There’s a fun moment where a bunch of cross-country skiers zip by, and Sam says something like, “I’d love to go skating like that!” Ali says, “Those are skiers.” Sam processes this and says, “Skaters.” Ali can’t let it go. “Skiers.” Sam says, “You’re annoying me.” Ha! The kid is so real.
They sit and have their lunch, and Sam babbles away at Ali about something underneath Desplat’s music, and Ali listens, staring at Sam, in awe at the fact that Sam is here with him and that somehow – somehow! – his brutality has NOT ruined the relationship. He can’t believe it.
It was around this moment that I started feeling sick to my stomach. Everything is just a little bit too happy and perfect. The scene that follows is still difficult to watch, and it was unbearable when I saw the film for the first time. I actually started speaking out loud, in the theatre, saying stuff like, “No. NO.” “Come on!” “Oh God!” If you’ve seen the scene, then you know what I am talking about. Aduiard is not worried about being subtle. The second Ali and Sam stepped onto the frozen lake, you knew something horrible was going to happen, even though the music was still sweet and sad, and the two of them were laughing as they slid around.
Audiard did not care about the “element of surprise.” This is bold film-making and a bold approach, and he was thanked for his pains by some critics complaining at how obvious the whole thing was. Meanwhile, though, regular audiences like myself squirmed in agony in their seats, pounding against their chair arms, trying to pound through the ice along with Ali. It’s a TERRIBLE scene, and it’s even MORE terrible because you can see it coming from a mile away. This is like a damsel in distress being tied to the railway tracks in a film from 1905. Even before you see the train bearing down on her, you’re freaking OUT. This is because you have empathy, you have compassion, you identify. It’s really not that complicated.
The shot when Sam goes through the ice is so terrifying that I still have no idea how they did it. They were actually out on an actual frozen lake. And apparently, Sam in the distance going through the ice was a little person. But … how does one do that? Clearly they cut a hole in the ice and had … what … some apparatus below there to catch the Sam-double? When I saw it in the movie theatre, I heard heaving breaths and gasps of terror all around me at that terrible moment. One of those profound moments of shared humanity that happens sometimes – rarely – in the group experience of seeing a movie.
Matthias Schoenaerts, man. Now listen: the only way to play such a scene is to REALLY play it. But actors wiggle out of engagement like that all the time. They complicate things. They try to “act” something as opposed to live it. This is Acting 101, but that’s why it happens all the time. The scene that follows here reminds me of some of my earliest training in the Meisner Technique. And I won’t bore you but one of the exercises Sanford Meisner had his students do was an activity, and you had to complete the activity under a pressing time limit. You had to give yourself an airtight reason – which you believed in 100% – why the activity had to get done in a certain amount of time. The activity had to be complicated: build a house of cards, stack dominoes to the ceiling, sort pennies out of a huge pile of change – whatever – “I must build this house of cards in 5 minutes or my mother will be murdered.” Something like that. And then – in the middle of your activity, with the clock winding down – a scene partner comes in and starts to talk to you, demanding your attention. And part of the exercise is that you MUST respond, these are the rules. If you ignore your partner, you are not doing the exercise. You must repeat back what the person says to you – and what they say is something like “You’re wearing a blue shirt.” You repeat back: “I’m wearing a blue shirt.” and on and on and on like that. The exercise is not about the words said. You have to respond to them but you also CANNOT abandon your activity, because why would you? Your mother is about to be murdered. It’s such a BRILLIANT exercise because once you GO with it – once you accept the totally fake circumstances – there is literally NOTHING you can do that is wrong. Behavior and emotion and connection are INEVITABLE in this exercise, but you have to REALLY do it, and that’s the challenging part. It’s a great exercise too because it shows just how far human beings will go to NOT feel anything that intensely, even actors. So people would drop the activity to deal with the scene partner. Or would ignore the scene partner and focus on the activity. But when it works? When all of the elements happen at the same time? People lost. Their. SHIT. As you can imagine. I saw shit in those classrooms that I will never forget. I experienced shit doing those exercises that I will never forget. (My Meisner professor had mattresses leaning up against the wall for students to go and pummel so that they didn’t punch each other. Every single one of us would go to those mattress. These exercises were insane.) Anyway, my point is:
What happens here on the ice is a Meisner activity exercise in its essence, up to and including the ferocious time limit. Sam is under the ice. Ali can SEE his body through the ice. Ali has feelings of panic and horror and terror and hopelessness. But the feelings cannot take precedence, and the feelings DON’T take precedence when an event goes down like this in real life. Only actors give emotions precedence. Real-life people have shit to DO. The feelings are there in Ali, of course they are. But his only focus is getting through that ice to get to Sam.
It is such an excruciating sequence because it goes down exactly how it would go: it is impossible to remove yourself from it in any way. This is all Schoenaerts’ commitment and belief. He goes where the scene needs him to go. That scene COST him, the actor. (I thank Sean for reminding me of this long-ago piece: It’s Got to Cost You Something.) I’m not saying actors are on the verges of nervous breakdowns. I’m saying that acting requires belief on THIS level. And no, you will not be the same after playing a scene like this. You won’t be a wreck of a man or anything like that but you will not emerge un-changed. That’s how much Schoenaerts believes.
It’s a terrible terrible terrible scene and so so well done.
And now all of the themes and the visuals – plus Audiard’s original idea of having the entire movie told from Sam’s point of view – comes together. Ali, sobbing and screaming, pounds his fists into the ice, and you can see the blood start to spread as his hands shatter. Suddenly, we are below the ice, with Sam’s floating body, the chaos coming through a thick thick “pane of glass.” It’s birth. Ali has been in the process of saving himself, by coming here to Strasbourg and investing in his potential. But Sam is really the one who needs to be saved. And not just now. Sam is the one thing Ali has been unable to look at, or deal with, in the entire time that he was discovering his huge potential for intimacy and awesome-ness with Stephanie. He had walled Sam off. Sam is now walled off under the ice. Ali fractures both his hands getting through that wall to his son.
The wilderness around the sports facility is so vast that it’s nighttime and Ali is still staggering back towards home with Sam in his arms, occasionally breathing onto his son’s face to warm him up. In my first viewing, I cried from the second they got on the ice until the final credit rolled by. This so rarely happens to me that it’s one of the reasons why I became obsessed with the movie, and studying it, basically to test my own strong first reaction. Sometimes a film hits you in the right way, and you’re wrecked by it, but when you re-visit it all you can see are the flaws. (That happened to me with The Legend of Bagger Vance. I barely enjoy that film now but boy did I see it when I needed to see it, so I won’t blow off my first nervous-breakdown reaction, sitting in the seats at the Regal E-Walk on 42nd Street.)
At the hospital, all is chaos. Ali’s hands are enormous, swollen. Sam is behind glass being worked on by the doctors. I remember thinking wildly, “If Sam dies, then this movie is BULL SHIT!!” Richard, as promised, returns. It’s probably good that Anna wasn’t there, because she might have been so freaked out she would have lashed out at Ali (again) for his stupidity. Richard is kind and solicitous, an almost invisible silent helper – handing Ali a cup of coffee – supportive. Richard knows that Ali is devastated. Ali will never forgive himself. Even if Sam lives, he will never forgive himself. So no need to scold Ali. No need to make it worse. Ultimately, these are all very good people.
Audiard punishes his characters just enough to make the catharsis – when it comes – explosive. It’s not a sadistic film. It’s a film about having the extraneous bullshit in your life burned away, torched away, even cauterized by trauma … and you’re left in the wreckage, feeling around yourself for what might be left, what survives. That’s what happens. Sam does not die. Ali will never be the same man again, but Sam does not die.
And suddenly, Ali … in his moment of trauma … has all of these people in his life, reaching out to be there for him. The people he assumed would never speak to him again. That’s the thing I think that gets me most of all. His fatalistic attitude is not worn on his sleeve but it informs his behavior. “Oh. Okay. I just ruined my relationship with Richard for all time. That’s over.” “Okay. Anna hates me now. Forever.” “I can’t call Stephanie. She’s probably so pissed off at me she’d hang up. Fucked that one up for all time.” He’s surprised when people don’t abandon him. That people actually still love him even after everything. That he CAN’T ruin their love for him by anything he does. They will be MAD but they will still LOVE him. Ali never knew this. He assumed everyone would leave him, ultimately. Rust and Bone holds this card back until this last scene, this information about Ali, and it’s a very very important card. The missing piece. If we had had, say, flashbacks – or a couple of lines from Ali about how he was afraid of people leaving him – this final scene wouldn’t be HALF as powerful.
While Ali stands vigil, Richard walks the phone over to him. Ali takes it, assuming it’s Anna, but it’s Stephanie.
Now a couple of interesting things about this phone call.
Marion Cotillard was actually in Paris, and she called into the cell phone. I am picturing her sitting in a hotel room somewhere, “becoming” Stephanie all by herself – nobody’s there, no camera. It must have been rather surreal. Audiard, though, could not hear her on the other end, so he couldn’t give her notes – the only thing he said to her in between takes, over the phone, was, “Slow down your responses. Pause more.” So she’d slow down, and then he’d tell her to slow down even further. They both were working blind. Her voice work, on the phone, by the way, is heartbreaking.
The scene is done in two takes, but both of them have the same perspective. It’s basically a jump-cut. My guess is that Schoenaerts nailed the final section so definitively that they had to piece together two different takes. There are no close-ups, although Schoenaerts comes pretty close to the camera at one point. But it’s a master shot: him pacing up and down in the hallway. Half the time we can’t see his face at all because he keeps hunching over with sobs, and he’s embarrassed and almost freaked out by crying and his natural inclination is to hide his face (or – automatically – reach out to punch something, white-casts moving in the air. It happens throughout. That’s all Schoenaerts).
Who knows if Audiard even GOT any coverage of the scene beyond the master. Most directors try to cover their asses by getting coverage, just in case they need it. But here, Audiard stays back, and lets Ali pace up and down, and lets Schoenaerts play it in two small chunks. It’s a mini tour-de-force. This is real acting. This is something happening in real time, the transformation occurring before our eyes. Ali starts out one way – quiet and exhausted – until he falls apart, and his falling apart goes back to the compartmentalization thing I keep going on about.
She has called him. Or, she called Richard and she wants to speak to him. He freezes when he hears it’s her. Her voice is very small on the other end. She asks questions about Sam, about Ali’s hands. He answers. There are no defenses. Talking with Stephanie opens him up to all of the compartments in his life that are filled with richness and love and goodness, the things he already has, but just can’t put together. Talking with Stephanie – not to mention the mere fact that she called him – that he somehow has not ruined the relationship – opens up that compartment door, and he can actually feel his love for her. That door will never be closed again. Talking with Stephanie also opens up the compartment of his love for Sam and allows him to feel it and feel the terror of what almost just happened. She’s the one who allows it to happen through the fact that she called, that she cares, that she listens. And this scene is basically all of those floodgates coming up, leaving no more separate compartments, it’s all one compartment – every feeling pours into the other, no more distinctions made, he loves her, he loves his son, he is terrified of losing her, he is terrified of losing his son. He feels all of that for the first time, and he feels all of that at the same time.
Schoenaerts’ work is stunning. It’s not acting. Something is happening TO this man and he can’t stop it.
She reaches out to him, and then – although it probably kills her – says she’ll “let him go” but she’ll call back to check on Sam. It’s the worst possible thing for him to hear – you can see his panic – although she says it kindly and gently – he walked out on her, she’s giving him the space that he clearly wanted – and – total reflex – he begs, “Don’t hang up.” And with that, waterworks.
It still stuns me the way it plays out. Especially the fade to black at the end, and his voice in the blackness.
A: Hello?
S: It’s me. [Pause.] Do you mind?
A: No. [Pause.]
S: How is he?
A: He woke up an hour ago. [Long pause.]
S: Is he hurt?
A: I don’t think so.
S: How are you?
A: I busted my hands on the ice.
S: [Pause.] Badly?
A: They’re fractured. [Long pause.] Are you okay?
S: [Pause.] I’m okay.
A: What are you up to?
S: You mean now? Or just in general?
A: I wanted to say —
S: [interrupts him] I’m not asking. I’ll let you go. I’ll call you back to see how Sam is. Give him a kiss.
A: Don’t hang up. [Pause.] Don’t hang up.
S: I won’t hang up.
A: [Pause. Crying starts, does not stop through the rest of scene.] For three hours … he was in a coma. For three hours, he was dead. I was afraid to lose him. Don’t leave me.
S: I won’t leave you.
A: [Long pause. Fade to black. Sound of him crying. Then, from the blackness, his choked voice:] I love you.
The “I love you” that shook the world.
Then follows a dreamlike sequence with a gigantic closeup of Sam’s sleeping face, surrounded by darkness, a womb-like image. Ali’s voiceover starts, which leads into the final sequence, a slow (sometimes slo-mo) montage of images, of Ali, Stephanie, and Sam … at the celebratory gathering after Ali (clearly) won his fight. It’s a lot to take in and to be honest, at first I didn’t “get” what was happening. There is a crush of press, photographers and reporters, Ali getting his photo taken with the promoters, the coach, etc. Stephanie and Sam standing together, watching. Happy. A triumph. A resurrection. I didn’t know what to focus on, my attention was split – between Ali’s words, and what I was seeing onscreen. This, clearly, was Audiard’s intention. If we had just seen the slow montage of celebration, it wouldn’t have that uneasy and hard-won acknowledgement that some damage will not be undone. Ever. As I’ve watched the sequence more and more, it continues to reveal different things. I love that my attention is split, I love that underneath the celebration (right on the heels of the scene on the ice and the phone call) Ali speaks directly to us for the first time, and his words about his broken hands are a counterpoint to the sheer ecstasy it is to see Sam alive and healthy, Stephanie and Ali together, Ali happy and connected to all three … His words do not describe what is onscreen. His words are a reminder that the pain will come again, it always does.
These words come directly from Craig Davidson’s short story and these are the last words you hear in the film:
27 bones in a human hand. Certain monkeys have more. Gorillas, 32. Five in each thumb. A man has 27. You break a hand, you break a leg, after a while, calcium joins it back together. It may even end up stronger than before. But break a bone in your hand, and you’ll see it never heals. You’ll remember it at each fight, with every punch. You’ll be careful. But after a while the pain will come back. Like needles. Like broken glass.
Those are the final words of the film, a story filled with images of glass, intact and broken.
Late in the game, but a word on the title. In Davidson’s story, “rust and bone” is the description used for the taste of blood. The words “rust and bone” are never said in the film. Audiard wondered if that was an issue and then decided, “Fuck it.” I’m glad he did. It’s another layer of mystery if you don’t know the Davidson story.
Underneath Ali’s voiceover, we see these quick shots, we hear no dialogue, and it all feels so real that I am in awe of Audiard and his team, and how they created this event, with fragments of behavior, one thing to the other, a collage of activity, and we drop in on each moment before moving onto the next. It’s all from Sam’s point of view, by the way. It’s all been about Sam all along. Some of the images themselves are so emotional that you’re put through the wringer just seeing them. Enough time has passed between the “I love you” in the hallway and Ali winning this fight that their together-ness is already a done deal. They’re a family. It’s happened.
A couple fragments move me in particular:
Ali and Stephanie talk with one of the officials at the fight, Ali and the official engaged clearly going over the fight that just happened, Stephanie throwing in a comment, Ali glancing at her to listen … it’s such an established “couple” moment. The very first thing Ali said to Stephanie was, “Breathe.” And she has breathed life into him. Melodrama, y’all. It’s not subtle.
Sam and Stephanie walking out into the hotel lobby together, camera flashes going off, Stephanie hovering by him, guiding him.
Stephanie in a group of people, talking, she’s putting some information – a phone number? – into her phone, people pressing in around her. So clearly Ali’s fight was a big deal. (Turns out they’re in Warsaw. A European championship. This was filmed in France, they just put up SHERATON WARSAW signs all over the place. Done.)
Sam clapping as Ali stands with the other fighter to get his picture taken. Ali posing, but constantly turning to look at Sam, smiling. Stephanie’s arm around Sam.
Ali surrounded by people, talking to them, gesturing, Sam standing at his side, trying to grab onto Ali’s hand. Ali then feels Sam’s touch, and turns to look down, a quick check-in. He’s doing it. He’s doing more than one thing at a time. It looks good on him. It looks easy.
Meanwhile, Bon Iver’s “The Wolves” has started up, with its lyrics about blame and solace, “someday my pain will mark you,” the wild wolves around you. In the morning, I’ll call you. In the morning, I’ll call you. Someday my pain.
The movie ends with Ali and Sam heading out of the revolving doors of the Sheraton Warsaw onto the sidewalk. The camera stays inside the lobby, so we see them out there, Ali asking the porter to put the bags in the taxi right there, keeping a hand out for Sam, to hold him in place. The revolving doors keep going around, slowly, a figure passes by the foreground, and then moves into the revolving door. It’s Stephanie. As she passes through that interim space, Ali sees her through the glass – smiles at her – she emerges, leans down to check in with Sam, and Ali can’t take his eyes off of her. His redemption.
Finally, all three of them are on the other side of the glass. Together.
Thorough analysis = the understatement of the year. Loved it. Entertaining and educational.
hahaha Oh Steve, I want to send you a gift for getting through it – and for saying something nice about it.
Have you seen it?? I’m assuming yes, just checking!
I haven’t seen it, but have, sort of, after reading this. I do own and love Cotillard’s Piaf film.
Oh, she’s brilliant!!
I hope I didn’t ruin it for you. It’s a very special film.
I think because the dialogue really isn’t all that in-depth since these people don’t operate that way – it leaves all this space for … crazy analysis like this. There’s way more in the pauses than in the words. I appreciate that so much – and also gives the actors way more to latch onto.
Again, I hope I haven’t ruined it for you – probably not, since seeing it all “in action” would be far better than reading 4 paragraphs on one 2 second moment – and I am slightly amazed that you read this TOME without having seen it – and that’s a huge compliment (or I see it that way) so thank you!
It was very fun and engrossing to do.
BRAVO SHEILA! I am going to read every word of this.
You’re awesome. I know I write a lot but this one exceeded most!
1. You make an appearance
2. I get rather personal a couple of times, because the movie hits me that way. Just FYI.
Really look forward to discussing the film with other fans.
There is so much room for interpretation!!
Oh my god, I make an appearance! That is TOO MUCH! Thank you. I really like when you get personal. That’s why I read you. You go deep. No shame in your game! And now I’m off to the nearest library to rent the DVD again. :-)
No shame in my game – I like that! Thank you!
I would love to hear more of your observations about the film and the characters and the sequences that really work – or maybe don’t work – for you.
Nobody I know (outside of critics) have seen this movie – I’ve showed it to many friends because I can’t bear it – so I really look forward to talking about this movie with all of you here!
and you know, it’s interesting – as many times as I’ve seen it, sometimes my impulse is to skip that frozen lake scene.
Mainly because he so goes there – and it “costs” him so much – that I just can’t put myself through it again. Ugh. So good.
I’m saving this to read over the weekend. SO looking forward to it.
Thank you, Nicola!! I really look forward to hearing your thoughts. The moments that are special to you, the things you notice.
Nicola – ha, re-visiting your comment here to let you know I finally saw A Bigger Splash (just released on DVD and VOD) – I guess it just wasn’t on my radar – didn’t realize it was basically a remake of La Piscine – with Matthias Schoenaerts in the Alain Delon role!!
Thought it was fantastic – all four leads were just mesmerizing.
It was deliciously and gorgeously sleazy – and maybe without the flat-affect golden-lit semi-boredom of the original (which is why that movie was so captivating – Delon’s killing of his friend seemed to come from out of nowhere – how could that bored guy in a terricloth robe have THAT in him??) – On second thought, that was what was so interesting as well about A Bigger Splash’s “take” on Paul (MS’ role). He was domesticated (although not emasculated), calm, stable, a protector – more so than Delon was in the original. But because he was so stable, it made that moment in the pool even more shocking.
Thought Tilda was absolutely brilliant and lOVED that she never spoke. and loved her and Schoenaerts as a couple – there was a nice erotic and yet comfortable (??) energy between them – you totally believed they’d been together for 6 years.
anyway, thanks for the push!
(I was blown away by I Am Love, so it’s doubly bizarre that I missed this one. Happy to have rectified that!)
Manohla Dargis’ review of A Bigger Splash is quite funny – she liked it – she understood what it was trying to do – calling back those glorious 1960s/70s Euro-trash movies – but she referred to Tilda and Matthias as “delectable beasts.” hahaha
Here’s the first sentence of Manohla’s review:
The cinema of seduction doesn’t get much more overheated than “A Bigger Splash,” an Italian come-on that doesn’t just want to amuse you, but also to pour you a Negroni before taking you for a midnight spin with the top down.
I haven’t seen I AM LOVE. So I’ll have to get on that. I also just really want to see more Tilda Swinton performances. She is out of this world.
Sorry, I responded to everything separately. Just wanted to make sure I got it all out as correctly as I’m able. Like, I should have been in bed 20 minutes ago, but I couldn’t wait any longer to say things!
Ah, man. I’m so glad you watched it and enjoyed it. I can’t wait to rewatch it. It’s so gorgeous. And that lazy, sexy, sleazy wtf quality was just perfect.
I LOVED their relationship. Like, yes please let’s lie down in the mud together, Matthias.
I’m trying to think of another movie where that kind erotic yet comfortable quality is so well put across. ‘Cause that’s the dream!
Lord, though, that scene where Ralph Fiennes danced to a Rolling Stones (?) track. You could tell he was having a ball with that performance, but I thought he might never stop dancing. As fun as he was, and I also really like Dakota Johnson and thought her performance was great too, I can’t wait to see where her career goes, I just feel like an inexplicable affiliation to her like I do with Kristen Stewart, I can’t explain it, I just LIKE them. Anyway, they were both great, but I really just wanted more of Matthias and Tilda Swinton being sexy and comfortable together. Yup, give her her pills and tea. Now take your shirt off. Thank you.
// Yup, give her her pills and tea. Now take your shirt off. Thank you. //
hahahahaha
I thought Ralph Fiennes was just out of this world in the film. Maybe even one of his best performances. That Rolling Stones scene was so crazy!
Right, SO I took so long to get to this because I actually needed to watch the movie. I’m so glad I had this to visit after I’d watched. Including all the wonderful discussion after. And now it’s Sunday evening and I should be showering and going to bed, and all I want to do is watch it again.
His relationship with Sam breaks my heart. Honestly, part of it is just personal, because Sam reminded my so much of my baby brother. When Ali loses his temper when he’s hiding in the dog kennel thing and he starts hosing him off.. How that little kid cried, rubbing at his eyes. Like, that’s real. That little kid wasn’t acting. I feel my eyes welling up just thinking of that and seeing that image in my head. I still feel close enough to m ow type of childhood hurt that I honestly don’t know how MS managed to make me not hate that man. I had to pause when he lost his temper the second time and he banged his head against the table. Like, I pressed stop. Holy shit. It’s hard to understand how this man who always treats Stephanie perfectly and with consideration- apart from calling the way she dresses whore-ish/flaunting some blonde at the club, okay he screws up a lot, but how he screws up with Sam is worse.
I could feel him trying though. Like, he doesn’t WANT to be such a screw-up but he can’t seem to help himself.
I love that you brought out how juvenile he actually is and that’s the problem. Teenage boys are all impulse and reflex, and you can tell when a boy and even a man is well-intentioned. They don’t mean to be inconsiderate. And his goodness comes so naturally. When he’s helping her to begin with he does it because she needs help and she asked for it. Simple as that.
Matthias Schoenearts is a phenom. His performance is a masterpiece. And I don’t think I’ve seen a better performance from Marion Cotillard. I’m just repeating exactly what you said now, but her depiction of that depression is maybe the best I’ve seen. Lesser actors do this thing that I don’t think I can eloquently put into words, but they get really still and monosyllable, kind of aimless, but it feels hollow. I’m not putting it right, but it just feels like they have read the text book of how a depressed person feels and then acted out the symptoms.
I noticed shots a few times of her holding her hands together in her lap. Such pensive almost submissive body language. And then you compare that to that scene directly after they have sex on her balcony. With that strong, dynamic performance of what she does with the orcas. I mean, I wish I could say something a little deeper about that, but for some reason the shots of her holding her hands clasped in front of her really stood out to me.
For me, I think the relationship starts to change for both of them at his fights. For her, the first time, and for him, that awful fight where he’s losing and she steps out of the van. So OBVIOUS, but man, my heart bust open at the way he looked at her. How just seeing her gave him the ability to dig deeper and pull out more than he believed he was able to to begin with.
I also think that even though she obviously has mixed feelings about his fighting, she more than any other woman in his life is able to “get” it. After all, her job had been dangerous and exacting physically too. But she did it too. Like, he said, for the fun! Because it gave her something she needed. She likes to be watched. She likes being the centre of attention. Fighting, as well as being fun (?!?!) for him is something that he can be proud of himself for. He’s good at it. It’s the one thing that is passionate about that’s kind of easy for him. It’s easy for him to dedicate the time to get good at it because the reward is instant.
Fixing his relationships isn’t. And though he obviously WANTS to have good relationships with his son, his sister, Stephanie he only does as much as is easy and fun.
I feel like I might have more to say, but I’ll have to think. I’m a little late to the party, so sorry if I’m just kind of repeating what you and HelenaG have already discussed.
Freaking Sam, man. I just want him to be okay. Poor little kid.
I LOVED this movie. Thank you so much for writing in depth about it. It’s so fun that I can actually be part of the conversation.
Nicola – I know what you mean about Sam. I was haunted by him too. He is so small and clearly not a little well-trained child actor. He’s just a little person having these experiences. It’s extremely upsetting. I watched a lot of interviews with the cast/directors back when it first came out and so I’m not sure where I saw this – but Matthias was asked about working with the child. Matthias said he had such affection for him, and they were joking around all the time – (heart crack) – AND that when the kid was told what would happen in a certain scene – and it was usually Matthias telling it to him (“Okay, so I’m going to get really mad at you and shake you really hard and throw you down …”), the kid didn’t even blink an eye. Apparently the kid came from a very rough background himself – not sure how Audiard found him – Audiard sometimes follows people on the street, talks to them, and asks them if they want to do a part in his movie (that’s how he found aerobics teacher!!!) – anyway, in the interview Matthias said something like, “The kid wouldn’t blink an eye when he’d hear about the violence in a scene and it made me wonder – what the hell has this kid seen that he’s not even shocked by any of this …”
I find the Sam scenes incredibly upsetting too – and I think one of the reasons why the movie is so … upsetting? … is that you just don’t know, ultimately, if he is going to be all right. That little trio seen through the revolving doors is still so fragile … it’s going to take so much work to make a family … Or who knows. Maybe it won’t. Maybe each one was just waiting for the missing piece – because none of them are “whole” as they are. They need each other.
Like you, I think MS’ performance is a marvel – especially because of those two scenes with Sam where he’s cruel – how do we not hate him? Or write him off? Ali is a character with no introspection. Or, as Audiard said, does not have the “vocabulary of love” in him. He feels love – for Sam, for his sister – but isn’t aware that he has to choose it, behave accordingly, be mindful, whatever. It’s the Stephanie Thing that changes all that. And even THAT takes forever.
It’s always amazing to me that they shoot films out of sequence and this very delicate unspoken thru-line is completely evident. Each scene is a small step on the road towards that last phone call – but the actors have to “drop in” to whatever stage the characters are in on the journey and they have to do so out of chronological order. The first scene the two actors shot together, for example, is the scene at the cafe where she calls him out on taking home that blonde. Incredible: the whole relationship was just there and they hadn’t even filmed any of the other scenes yet.
I agree with you in re: her coming to the fights. If they had just gone swimming, if that was their only “thing,” the relationship would not have progressed.
I love talking about this movie – and very few people I know have actually seen it – so it’s been great to discuss it here.
I look forward to hearing more!
Oh, and totally agree with your insightful comment about how actors often play depression and how often they don’t get it. I have no idea MC’s background – one doesn’t have to have clinical depression to play it properly – but she gets it. Two Days, One Night was agonizing – AGONIZING – to watch, she understood it so deeply.
// how this man who always treats Stephanie perfectly and with consideration- apart from calling the way she dresses whore-ish/flaunting some blonde at the club, okay he screws up a lot //
hahaha I know!! This is the amazing thing about this character!!
He said in some interview that he knew the guy wasn’t always likable – but that he thought the key to everything was playing it with “sincerity.” If he was sincere in everything he did – that was the character.
So many actors are very concerned with coming off as “likable” – and I do understand that – it’s such a brutal industry and you can be rejected if you are perceived as not likable. (Schoenaerts does not seem to give a shit about this at all. I mean, Bullhead … my God. We must discuss that film once you’ve managed to see it.)
In re: Schoenaerts:
I know he has had a couple of pretty huge Hollywood offers – superhero movies, action movies – he has turned them down – for various reasons. One being that he didn’t feel ready to take on something that huge – another being that he sees no need, his European career is going very well and at a pace that he likes. A couple of movies a year.
I love his career. I love its European focus. I certainly don’t mind when he shows up in American movies – and he’s excellent in The Drop – but I think maybe American audiences are not as primed for him, not as aware of him. I mean, obviously, he’s having hot photo shoots of him lying around in bed, so clearly there’s an awareness – but his STATURE as a leading man is just so much higher in Europe – so he gets all these leading man roles. That wouldn’t so much be the case for him in an American movie. I’d love to see him show up in a Woody Allen ensemble, as a snooty French intellectual or dissipated Belgian party-boy or something.
So he does A Bigger Splash, he does A Little Chaos, Far from the Madding Crowd, he does Disorder – it’s not a “planned” career. And it isn’t falling into the traps that are set by the Hollywood critical establishment (including critics) – which thinks someone has really “made it” when they get cast as Iron Man or whatever. (See what just happened to Brie Larson – who gave such a GREAT performance in Room – Oscar nominated – and now is doing a comic book movie, and it’s almost as though Room is seen as a stepping stone for what REALLY matters, which is box office success. Critics participate in this just as much as audience members/studio people do – and it’s a gross attitude – an internalization of capitalism into the artistic process.
So far Schoenaerts has had nothing to do with all of that. So far he picks roles only because they are interesting to him – or he wants to work with this or that director. And he still gets to kiss Tilda and Kate Winslet and Carey Mulligan and Marion Cotillard … Having cake = eating it too. And he’s 38. So that’s a good sign too. A grown man, doing whatever the hell he wants to do. Not a kid.
Very much looking forward to all of his upcoming projects too – which have a similar international background – French, Belgian, German … Should be very interesting.
I’ll follow him anywhere. I am glad he doesn’t seem tempted to take on huge, high-profile work just because it’s being offered. Why should he when he gets to do such satisfying work in Europe?
I’m currently trying to hunt down as many films of his that I can. The crush is real.
I TOTALLY FORGOT HE WAS IN A LITTLE CHAOS!
But really I just want to watch RUST AND BONE over and over and maybe a little A BIGGER SPLASH for variety.
Not to make you fall even further down the rabbit hole – but there are about 8 short films on Youtube (at least in the US) that he appeared in from when he was first starting out – way back to 2005. They’re fascinating – one of them was directed by the guy who eventually directed Bullhead (and The Drop). He plays a variety of characters with totally different energies and he is totally convincing in all of them:
— a nice prospective boyfriend of a haunted gorgeous young beauty who has Daddy-abandonment issues
— a beat-up and self-destructive government agent sent to Italy to arrest a war criminal
— an absolutely psycho and racist Belgian soccer fan
— a dying man in love with a woman who has married his best friend
— a guy who appears to be locked up in some kind of mental ward … that one’s pretty artsy-fartsy – the rest are pretty gritty (and very well done).
There are a couple of others. Some are 15 minutes long, some up to half an hour long.
AND there is also a clip of him doing a stage production of The Little Prince when he was, like, 8 years old? With his actor father.
I will say this: he has grown into his beauty.
As a skinny (almost gaunt) 20-something, he looks like a medieval woodcut of Christ on the cross.
I had never heard of this film. Now I have to watch it five times. Thanks?
“Now I have to watch it five times. Thanks?”
hahahahahaha
Well, my work here is done then!!
Please come back once you’ve seen it – would love to hear your thoughts!
Well done. I really enjoyed ” hovering chick ” because ” it takes one to know one”.
I remember reading about Madonna falling asleep at pubs waiting for Guy Ritchie to finish partying with his crew. She did it too. Thanks for all the great reads.
Laura – hahaha Madonna! Love it!
We’ve all been there. My friend Ann (she who coined the phrase) was so funny about it – and we both would reference it all the time.
“Okay, so at first I’ll be the hovering chick – so please don’t leave my side – once that phase is over …” “Of course, I’ll go off and do whatever once you stop being a hovering chick.” “Cool.”
Thank you so much for reading!
Wow, Sheila, that was fantastic! I was pretty pumped to see that you were analysing a film I had actually seen already (usually I seem to see films after you have already discussed them here).
Anyway, I watched it a few months ago on Netflix, while I was ironing, so my attention wasn’t completely on the screen, and I can see that I missed a lot. I’m thinking “Lens flares?… window motifs…? How did I miss all that?” So thank you for drawing my attention to all the wonderful symbolism in this film which I frankly did not notice.
It struck me how apt it was that you described Ali as an adolescent in his thinking and behaviour, which allows him to deal with Stephanie with no agenda. His actions and reactions are so pure, that they are essential for Stephanie to get through a lot of her own shit. His childlike way of dealing with the world also could possibly be another reflection of Sam, as well as an allusion to the abuse/abandonment you suggested that Ali suffered as a child. He was never given the tools to learn how to act as a grown up, because his own childhood had been so damaging.
I mention this because it reminded me of the impression I had of Ali as a “lover”, during those initial scenes when he is banging (literally) various women. Like you said, it looks like someone might get killed. He acts like some high school kid who just wants to get his rocks off. There is zero awareness of a potential partner who might want pleasuring. He simply doesn’t care. He’s focused on his own immediate needs, like a kid.
And this is what I loved: when he has sex with Stephanie for the first time, I expected him to change his approach somewhat for her, but he doesn’t. I mean, she actually has to tell him to be gentle. Now what man, faced with the prospect of having sex for the first time with a girl who’s had both her legs amputated (of course, assuming the man is compassionate and caring) would not naturally try to be gentle and cautious. But then, as with other aspects of her life that Ali infiltrates, this is exactly what Stephanie needs. The last thing that would help her right now is to be treated as something wounded and fragile.
And, just as Ali snaps Stephanie out of performative sex into something much more pleasurable and profound, she does the same for him. She helps him to grow up sexually. That scene where she’s on top and he’s reaching up to her…I can’t imagine he’s experienced anything like that before. And with her no kissing rule…I wonder if he ever even wanted to kiss the women he was fucking before. I don’t think it even occurred to him. Now here he is with someone whom he desperately wants to kiss. How mind blowing must that be? And healing as well.
Anyway, I really enjoyed reading this, so thank you. Instead of the book I take with me everywhere, I was taking your piece along with me until I had finished it (how cool that you analysed every single scene!). I would pay good money to read your work in print. How lucky for me that it’s available online, for free!
HelenaG – awesome comment! A lot to think about and discuss! (Also: thank you for carrying this around and reading it. hahaha I really appreciate it!)
// which allows him to deal with Stephanie with no agenda. His actions and reactions are so pure, that they are essential for Stephanie to get through a lot of her own shit. //
I like how you put this – pure and no agenda. That’s so right – because he’s pure about it there’s no pressure on her – it gives her a lot of space to just be where she’s at with whatever’s happening. And he somehow does it without being indifferent or cold, right? Like – from the second he carries her down to the beach, he’s invested, on a certain level. This is what I will do when I am this woman. And in his own way, he’s totally committed to that.
I like that connection you made to Sam, too. I love that both Ali and Sam have no shyness about asking if they can see her legs. I mean, I imagine it would make other people in her life uncomfortable – or, let’s say, they would cry when they looked at the legs – or try not to cry – you know, sort of projecting out their own sadness about what happened to her onto her. Which then gives her NO space to be as stoked about her cool Robo Cop legs as she is.
But both Ali and Sam are like, “Wow. Can I see the legs?” There’s something very freeing about that attitude because (and normally I don’t like this expression) – it is what it is. Like, there’s nothing going on, no ulterior motive, no inner monologue. Their whole being is: “Holy mackerel, those legs are cool.”
// when he has sex with Stephanie for the first time, I expected him to change his approach somewhat for her, but he doesn’t. I mean, she actually has to tell him to be gentle. //
Helena – I know, right??
The first time I saw the scene I was thinking, “Dude, please slow down – she’s telling you to slow down” – it made me very nervous. I wanted him to be more careful.
// But then, as with other aspects of her life that Ali infiltrates, this is exactly what Stephanie needs. The last thing that would help her right now is to be treated as something wounded and fragile. //
I really like this!! I hadn’t thought of it that way. Yes, he just proceeds to go about doing what he does, and somehow that gives her the space to have whatever experience she’s going to have – without him being all in her face the whole time with “Is it okay? How ya feel? Is this good?” (Which would be extremely annoying, amputated legs or no).
It’s an extremely strange scene – I love the set-up of it, I love the complexity of it (and those two wonderful scenes leading up to it, on the boardwalk and the terrace)
And thank you, too (sorry, I am addressing each of your thoughts separately) – for the thoughts on him being performative too in the sack and how that changes – something I hadn’t quite thought of, or at least not seen it as similar to her issues.
The “quick fuck” means it’s basically like a Tindr hookup. Rules clear. We’re all adults here. Let’s have sex, and move on with our lives. He picks women who are up for that. You don’t see him “schmoozing” women at nightclubs, or … what am I trying to say. He’s a hound-dog, but he’s not a “playah.”
You’re so right that he’s probably somewhat used to the no kissing thing with the other girls – and probably wouldn’t want to do that with them anyway.
That whole “on top” scene is so intense for so many different reasons, and maybe it’s just because we can see his face and we never see hers that I’m tuned into what’s going on with him. How much he wants to come up to meet her.
But I so appreciate the nuances that you’ve pointed out – exactly: when has he ever wanted to kiss a woman? It’s so new to him.
It’s fascinating.
I’m pretty clear on why Stephanie is so drawn to Ali. What it is he does that makes her feel the way she feels about him.
What would you say is going on with him? How does he see her? Why is she “the one”? It can’t just be that “this is a woman who needs help and I like helping” although that’s part of it. In other words: what do you think she provides him?
This is such an interesting question. I had not thought at all about what she provides to him, and…you are really making me want to see this movie again for this, and many other reasons.
So thinking about it now, I would say that she becomes “the one” because she allows him to see himself as more than a fuck-up. He fucks up in every other aspect of his life except with her. With her he gets to be a hero: he gets her swimming again, fucking again, living again. She respects him. She doesn’t respond to him like he’s a loser, as so many other people do. Even Martial, who respects Ali’s ability to fight, is still just using him (again for the money he’ll make off of Ali’s fights, as well as capitalizing on his naiveté in terms of the whole hidden camera thing).
And who else in his life gets invited to his fights? No one. And if Stephanie wasn’t there to watch, he wouldn’t have that chance to preen and feel proud of his abilities. It’s not like he’s going to tell his sister about his fights. She would probably just make him feel worse about the illegality of it all.
Ali’s family loves him, but they don’t make him feel worthwhile. His mothers him and lectures him about all kinds of things he does wrong. Sam makes him feel wholly inadequate as a parent, because, for most of the movie he is. Then there’s Stephanie, who makes him feel like he’s no longer just coasting through life, that his life has meaning and purpose. It’s powerful to feel needed. I think it’s essential for us as human beings.
And then, just as Ali appeared in Stephanie’s life at her very lowest point, she does the same for him, appearing, like a miracle, on the phone, after he thinks that he has crushed his son’s life and his potential career in one grand gesture of adolescent stupidity. He feels his worth again, her belief in him, the possibility that he still is a good person, the kindness in her tone and words. Then he tells her that he loves her. What else can be said?
4th paragraph — I meant: “His sister mothers him…”
Thank you for this!
I like your thoughts about how she sees him and how that changes him. The whole film really is about that, isn’t it – perception. How we see each other and how much that matters. (This may, inadvertently, be part of Audiard’s interest in class differences – although he uses a very light touch here, it’s mostly inferred – the clearest example being when he takes her to his house and she meets everyone).
So he started off – clearly – with no parental figures who gave a shit. He was probably a nuisance and a pain in the ass to his sister. He has absorbed that self-perception.
What is so interesting – to me, anyway – is how Schoenaerts plays it. Because Ali is not particularly aware of this. He doesn’t wear it on his sleeve. I am not sure even how much of this is PRESENT to him. Like Schoenaerts said in interviews – all of his behavior comes from “reflexes.”
So he doesn’t even know what is missing – or that something like love could be possible – it’s not even THERE for him as a void. Until she shows up.
I think she’s more aware of the void in her life – when we first meet her, I mean. The defeated quality of her body in that scene in the apartment. Ali doesn’t walk like he’s defeated. He walks like he’s cock of the walk. He sees what he wants – a camera, a girl – he takes it.
But when someone is upset with him – especially Anna – it all comes roaring back – the feeling that he’s a loser, or he’s a disappointment … whatever. And somehow – the way Stephanie calls him on his shit after he takes home that other girl … he freakin’ TAKES it. I find that so illuminating. He HATES it, but he takes it.
She is a safe space, and he didn’t even know he needed one.
It’s so beautiful. But painful too.
I wonder what their relationship will be like after this. It won’t be easy. Or who knows, maybe it will be.
You are so right that this whole film is all about perception. I had not thought much about that aspect of it before, so thank you. And thank you also, for stating that the class differences are “inferred”, because honestly, the whole class divide between them went right over my head. But of course when you described it in your piece, all the examples are very clear.
But, back to thinking about perception, (by the way I just love how you describe Stephanie in the beginning of your piece as someone with a “hibernating capacity for joy”. That is a brilliant description). Stephanie appears to be, at the outset of the movie, someone who needs to control larger, more dangerous creatures. One might say that this comes from having a controlling, asshole boyfriend, or maybe there are other psychological issues at play, but she spends her days swimming with and training enormously dangerous beasts (and I have seen Blackfish, so I know how mentally deranged those caged orcas are) and she spends her nights in clubs and bars, taunting drunk men. Why does she do it? She seems very unhappy and unfulfilled. She seems to want to be feel powerful and valued. Funny that it takes a major trauma and the loss of her legs to regain wholeness.
Anyway, after the accident, when she’s sitting in her apartment, utterly dejected, she knows she needs help, but doesn’t know who to turn to (I love, by the way, that Simon is completely out of the picture now, with zero explanation. Not that’s it’s necessary. He was a jerk, and of course would flash when Stephanie was now less than the trophy girlfriend he wanted, however, I do like how he does not even get a footnote in the film. He is just gone.) And here, I think Stephanie is shown to have good instincts. I can just imagine her sitting around, in the depths of despair, and thinking about who she could call for help, and then coming across Ali’s number and remembering, “He’s the guy who told me I dressed like a whore, and then treated my boyfriend like the hired help. He is exactly the guy who could help me at this time”. She knows that he won’t pity her (which, ugh, who needs that shit?) and that he won’t have any expectations. There is considerable distance between them, based on their previous interaction, and that is protective for her. She also knows that he is a person who is willing to help (as in driving her all the way home from the club — what bouncer provides that type of service?). So, like I said, good instincts, but when he arrives she’s still (naturally) on the defensive, and ready for a fight. So when he asks if anyone’s helping her, she immediately jumps to the wrong conclusion, thinking that he’s referring to her ability to walk and she’s just bristling with pent up rage, but his response takes all the air out of her anger. What she’s left with, for the rest of the visit, is confusion, incredulity (“Have you lost your mind? Does it look like I can go swimming?”) and then wonder at her own abilities, and the realization that life is still very much worth living. Amazing how right she was about calling him, and how much he helped her, in just ONE VISIT. He was able to bring her so completely out of her misery that she is grooving to the B-52s that very evening.
And right then is the beginning of her journey towards self love. One could even say that the journey of self love begins right then for both of them. They both have an ingrained hatred of themselves and a lack of self-worth. It’s when they both bring out the strengths in each other, that they are able to see their own value.
Oh, and here’s a question: (and for anyone else who has seen it)
When he leaves the nightclub with the blonde … is it really as simple as he completely does not get that he shouldn’t do that? Or is he “sending a message” to Stephanie, subliminally pushing her away? I can’t clock him in any behavior that looks “sneaky” or ashamed – – it all looks transparently on the level.
So basically, what the hell is going on with him at that moment, do you think?
Anything to add to what I already wrote in the post? Would love to hear.
I would like to see the scene in question again, but based on my memory and your excellent summary, I remember thinking “This guy is clueless. Does he not know that doing this to her is so not cool?” It feels like an abandonment of her, and not just a sexual one. I mean, how well does she know these guys that he’s left her with? Is there not some unspoken rule that they are hanging together for the night? Then I thought that maybe he doesn’t realise how their relationship has evolved, that he thinks they can just go about their regular business, which will intersect with each other’s lives from time to time.
However, upon further thought, I think he IS pulling away from her, maybe not consciously, but I think he is trying to send a confused message about the nature of their involvement. Because, I don’t think he really knows what’s going on here: Stephanie was just introduced to his family, to his son. Then the sight of her prosthetic legs emerging from the van are what gave him the strength to beat the crap out of his opponent. She basically saved his life by showing him that she cared enough to “show up” when his fight (symbolism?) got out of control. I can’t even imagine what he must be thinking and feeling. The weight must be unbearable, so he reverts back to his usual m.o. Again, I’m not sure if this is done subconsciously, or as you mentioned in your piece, we are not always aware of why we are doing things as we are doing them, so he could be acting without any real awareness of intention.
This could also explain his behaviour the next morning. Like, “we’re all good right?…Let’s go back to the cool OP relationship we had earlier.” He’s not ready yet to say “I love you”, although I think he feels it already. If he didn’t, she could never have motivated him to fight back when he absolutely needed to.
I like this. Yeah, I agree – it’s such a confusing moment – and MS plays it so “on the surface” – where it really is “what you see is what you get” – it’s one of my favorite parts about the acting in this movie (his in particular, because of the character he plays). He is unaware of so much, and he is not a “talker” – so when the “I love you” comes – and it’s this choked little sound in the darkness – the first time I saw it I thought I might have made it up because I WANTED him to say it so badly, but could not conceive that he ever would.
I saw an interview with Jacques Audiard – I can’t remember where – maybe the special features – where he said, “This is a story of two people falling in love who do not have the vocabulary of love.” And then something very esoteric and intellectual (and French?) like: “Does vocabulary for love create love? Or does the experience of love create the vocabulary for it?” I LOVE that thought.
If its not in your conception of the universe that love is on the table – AND if your only experience of love (as is probably the case with Ali) is disappointment and grief in childhood when your parents abused or abandoned you – then who the hell needs this “love” thing? Love is trouble with a capital T.
Incidentally – this is probably why he shies away from other forms of love, too, right? Loving his son – and being loved by his son … totally foreign concepts, and maybe even MORE painful because of whatever happened with his own parents.
And so – however MS went about to PLAY that – what we see is a man who DOES all of these hugely loving things – from the second he shows up at Stephanie’s apartment. Even going in swimming when she refuses is a kind of loving act. He is not aware of it. It is not part of his “vocabulary.” He doesn’t do it to make her go gaga-eyed – that is also not part of his vocabulary with women at all. He’s probably been extremely uncomfortable in the past when a woman “falls” for him, especially after he’s had sex with them. In his animal instinct way, he seems to pick women who are like him – who are “quick fuck” women – who know the rules – who would never get “weird” after and think that what they just did together means something that it doesn’t.
So yeah, suddenly he’s out on a group date – (and also, when has that ever happened? Him bringing one of his “playmates” out with him and his buddies? Probably never? The man has no idea what he is doing) – and now he’s the one who doesn’t know the rules. and yeah, he just had a couple of crazy intense and intimate moments with Stephanie that …
// I can’t even imagine what he must be thinking and feeling. The weight must be unbearable, so he reverts back to his usual m.o. //
Yeah, I think that’s really true.
and when she calls him on it – it’s super-embarrassing – I see embarrassment in him across that table more than anything else. Shame. He didn’t know what he was doing last night. He didn’t mean to do what he did. He honestly didn’t. (which is why we’re all like, “Sir, are you serious? Can you honestly not have known she would be upset??”)
and yeah, I definitely think he loves her. The moment she emerges from the van at the fight … that’s the moment. The feeling is there. The vocabulary isn’t.
It’s so fascinating!
sorry, one other thing:
It occurs to me that his cluelessness about love (and she’s no better, but let’s focus on him) – is WHY the thing can start up in the first place. When he shows up at her place, he needs nothing, he has no impetus being there other than helping – which (in my opinion) makes him rather unique.
Since he doesn’t show up with any needs of his own – besides taking a swim if he feels like taking a swim – that gives her the space to just BE. and nobody in her life is letting her just BE. and her disability is so new that she can’t just BE with it.
To me, this goes back to his behavior on the phone when she first calls him after the accident. There is nothing going on underneath for him – there’s no secret “oh shit, why did she call” or “Oh man, it’s so sad what happened to her …” – His reaction is pure and transparent – which is his natural milieu – where he is at his finest – but he’s not even aware of it.
There’s something about who he is – naturally – that allows her to be who she is – naturally. He’s not all over her. He doesn’t need anything. She sort of blossoms just naturally when she is in his presence – and he’s barely DOING anything except (most importantly) just being there. And then somewhere along the line, they actually have to CHOOSE this thing between them, because it’s not just going to keep happening naturally forever.
But from the get-go, he’s perfect with her – without ever having to try. Because he doesn’t have the vocabulary for love in him – it doesn’t exist in him – so he is ABLE to meet her on a pure playing ground where everything is equal and level. He is not complicated by Love concerns, in the way other more adult men are, who have more experience with love, and so can get kind of cagey and “don’t fence me in” if they feel a woman needs something from them. Ali doesn’t have that going on at all. He is completely undeveloped in that area.
Which ends up making him do stupid things like take home that blonde – but also ends up making him do the right things, most of the time, because the place he is coming from is totally pure. Which is really what the best kind of Love is.
Referring to your last two comments: this is just so beautiful and so profound. The idea of love developing between two people who don’t have the vocabulary of love, it made me realise how much we can take the “I love yous” in life for granted. When has Ali ever heard or ever said the phrase “I love you?” before this very moment. Probably never?!
And yes, thank you for the reminder of how that phrase is uttered as the scene fades to black. We can no longer see him and we certainly can’t see her — it really does give the audience the sensation of being on the phone with them — but there is suddenly a feeling of warmth and light, and as you said it’s the “I love you” that shook the world.
Then, in the very next scene to see them together…how he looks at her and how she looks at him, how they both look at Sam and how Sam looks at them. They are together in every sense of the word. There is full and complete trust flowing between them (btw, both Cotillard and Schoenaerts are phenomenal at conveying so much thought and emotion in their facial expressions). It’s a wonderful moment, undercut by Ali’s words about his fractured hands and then the last image of Stephanie joining them through the revolving doors — you can’t see her legs — but you can tell that she is limping and you can see the handle of the cane she is holding. They are both broken people. And Sam is broken too: his sad, unstable little life, and then having just come back from the brink of death. The juxtaposition of all that woundedness with the wholeness of their true care and love that they now show for each other…how Ali is now the Dad he always had the capacity to be…It’s just so moving.
// They are both broken people. And Sam is broken too: his sad, unstable little life, and then having just come back from the brink of death. The juxtaposition of all that woundedness with the wholeness of their true care and love that they now show for each other…how Ali is now the Dad he always had the capacity to be…It’s just so moving. //
So gorgeously put. The final moment is just so perfect – I love that we are so far away from them. That there are no closeups. That there’s this big barrier of glass and revolving doors between them and us. Where they are at now is their own private space – it’s not for us to intrude – but yes, as you say, the body language is so unbelievably eloquent. How do actors do what they do when they aren’t given closeups?? Many actors are lost without closeups – they NEED closeups to really get their performance across. (I could tell some stories from multiple friends about doing guest spots on Grey’s Anatomy! A notoriously tense set – and every regular cast member was just waiting for their closeup – and extremely un-giving in any group scene, because what mattered was only the closeup.)
But that final sequence – the press conference, and all the chaos, plus his voiceover – we aren’t given “privileged” information (i.e. big closeups) – we see them in a highly public environment – with press there, for God’s sake – cameras and reporters – and so we’re seeing them out and about, and having to “infer” from behavior the true miracle that has taken place. What a BOLD way to end, right?
It’s not easy – it doesn’t make it EASY on us audience members. We still have to do some WORK in that final scene.
I guess “making it easy on us” would look like: huge closeup of her watching him talk to a reporter. Huge closeup of him watching her deal with Sam. etc. To make sure we get it.
But no, Audiard is so confident that he changes the perspective totally – it’s all what Sam sees, what Sam senses – he looks UP at Stephanie, so we only see the back of her head, or the side of her face – same with Ali – we see his hand, or his face looking down …
Somehow – and the editing is amazing too – what ends up happening is that all of the emotion that exploded during that phone call is allowed to just float around – still intense – still searing – as we witness the end result – or we witness what has been allowed to happen because of what we just saw in that phone call. It’s like: My God, LOOK at the three of them. That was my first response: I could not get enough of the sight of the three of them together. It was too much to look at, too much to take in (which is why I couldn’t even hear his voiceover the first time I saw it) – I was HUNGRY for all of the information onscreen. I had been put through the wringer by the film – and life feels so fragile and dangerous in the film – that the mere fact of the three of them standing together on a sidewalk, getting ready to get into a taxi, felt like a miracle of the highest order.
So good.
And – after all the fades-to-black throughout the film – the final moment doesn’t fade to black – it fades to white.
// The idea of love developing between two people who don’t have the vocabulary of love, it made me realise how much we can take the “I love yous” in life for granted. When has Ali ever heard or ever said the phrase “I love you?” before this very moment. Probably never?! //
I know!!
Love is powerful, any way you slice it – but even more so with characters who have no concept of it to begin with, who have no “muscle memory” of what it feels like to love/be loved.
Like: how would you even RECOGNIZE it, if you had never experienced it before?
Additionally: I love that these two people are clearly in their 30s. They aren’t young whippersnappers. That also gives a lot of weight/import to what’s going on – both of them re-define the term “late bloomer.”
(The script I wrote – July and Half of August – is also about two late-bloomers in love. Mid-30s. It’s a whole different ballgame if you come to love late, not just because you have no experience of it – but because you’ve already been so “marked” by life and its disappointments that there are all kinds of road-blocks to just “going with the flow” that wouldn’t be there if you were 23, 24.)
Helena – and others who have seen it – As I mentioned, the whole ironing board symbolism of domesticity thing went right over my head. When I went back and watched it again I noticed that in the opening sequence – which is this dreamlike hallucinatory re-capping of the entire movie (such a wild choice – before you’ve seen the film you don’t even know what you’re looking at – but there’s the shot from beneath the ice that closes the whole thing out) – but anyway, one of the images in that opening sequence – is of that bright orange doorway with the ironing board prominently placed. I should have guessed how important a symbol it was to Audiard to feature it in that opening sequence but I missed it entirely!
//Not to make you fall even further down the rabbit hole //
Down the rabbit hole is my favourite place to be. I’m only just recovering from a months long Patti Smith jag. I’m happy to be able to obsess about something else.
// Down the rabbit hole is my favourite place to be. //
You and me both!
// I am glad he doesn’t seem tempted to take on huge, high-profile work just because it’s being offered. Why should he when he gets to do such satisfying work in Europe? //
I love this too. He’s a leading man in Europe. also he gets to do all these different things – contemporary pieces, period pieces (his hair in A Little Chaos. OMG.) – and honestly each character is different. Totally different energy for each one. It’s a fantastic career – it reminds me of Juliette Binoche a bit, who has one of the best careers on the planet, like, ever. and it’s been going on for 30 years. I mean … and she does European films, American films, two Iranian films! She is international. and as far as I can tell, no comic book movie on the books. Nothing against them!! But I appreciate independence – her willingness to work with new directors – her willingness to take difficult challenging material (I mean, Shirin??) – her absolute unconcern about her “image.” Even Julianne Moore – who has a great career – cares about her image in a way that feels very American to me. Or, Hollywood-career-American. Europe is just free of that, although they have huge stars, a huge industry, they make thrillers and romantic comedies just like everybody else. But in one year, Schoenaerts gets to play that sexy lazy beast in A Bigger Splash, the PTSD-trauma-survivor in Disorder, and a melancholic French architect in the Versailles court. You know. It’s awesome.
Also, I’m looking at you, Michael Fassbender. Another one of my absolute favourite working actors. But come on! X-MEN, ASSASSIN’S CREED. Not to say he doesn’t deliver, but I’m looking for a little more SHAME from him.
I’ve been trying to rewatch RUST AND BONE since Saturday and my laptop is not cooperating.
I ordered 3 Criterion DVDs with the recent Barnes & Noble 50% off sale and I bought THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE. Which I first read about on your blog, so I’m really excited to get to see that.
Fassbender has some interesting things coming out, actually – but yes, he has become an international sex symbol – which brings its own difficulties.
If you look at what MS has coming up – it’s pretty interesting – and it also does not look like he is OVER booked. He doesn’t have 10 things coming out next year.
One of the movies coming up is directed by Michael Roskam – whom he did Bullhead and The Drop with – so I’m excited about that. One is directed by Thomas Vinterberg – who did Far From the Madding Crowd – so that’s cool too – staying with the people he knows.
But the biggest thing coming up is that he is starring as “Clark” in the upcoming HBO series “Lewis and Clark.” So look out: American audiences may be about to discover him for real, and shit might get crazy.
A good thing about him is – well, there are a couple of things. He’s almost 40. He was in his 30s when Bullhead came out – so all of this is happening to a man, not a kid. He turned down the role of Batman in Batman vs. Superman – because he thought he was too young AND he thinks that Batman is the least interesting character in the whole thing.
Who turns down a role like that?? Someone who knows who he is.
Similar to the actor I write about so much from Supernatural – Jensen Ackles – who turned down the role of Captain America so that he could keep doing his TV series. Who does that??? A FASCINATING actor, that’s who!!
So the next couple of years should be very interesting.
And The Double Life of Veronique!! A personal favorite – high on the top of the list of my favorite movies ever. I find it so intense I’ve only seen it a couple of times. Look forward to hearing your reaction to it!
I watched this last night, and then read your epic description and analysis. I hadn’t read it before, because this was clearly a powerful film and I wanted to see it first.
I’m not sure I have much to add, beyond saying that I gasped so many times at what went on. The melodrama was completely earned.
I loved so much that there was no circling back or explanation of what caused the first fight with Stephanie at the club, though Ali’s “whore” description and the jerk yelling “slut” and Stephanie’s later comment about liking to have men watch her and get turned on (and then getting bored) was a big trail of bread crumbs. No explanation of the family dynamic between Ali and Anna. Or the story with Sam’s mom. The interior life of the characters was so opaque that you just leaned in find any little bit of information.
In a lot of ways, the movie was an example of the Kim Manners’ quote you use about giving the audience what we want, but in a way we don’t expect. I wanted Stephanie to break from her shell after swimming, and even more so after sex. I wanted Ali to fight harder and beat the last guy after Stephanie got out of the van. I wanted Ali to grow up – though I’m still not sure how much that will happen. To a large extent, my expectations were challenged by the characters: the non-manic-pixie-ness of both. They were the obstacles, themselves. And when you know how hard it is for people, real people, to change – that makes you scared of them getting what you want them to get.
I loved that sex (and swimming) brought Stephanie back to a sense of agency – more than she probably had about anything other than becoming a whale trainer. The scene at the cafe, when she talks about manners… that was just not a conversation or a maturity she could have had before. It was a pleasurable shock to see someone grow up and assert herself in both a believable and a surprising way. How does an actor pull that off?
The scene with Stephanie communicating with the orca through the glass: that was one of the things that made me gasp with joy. And Ali’s “I love you.” As you said, melodrama, without the ragtime piano.
I may add to this later, but I am full to the brim with this movie and your epic War And Peace of a re-cap. Thanks for writing about it. Wow.
Hey! Sorry it’s taken me a while to respond.
So glad you saw it!
// The interior life of the characters was so opaque that you just leaned in find any little bit of information. //
I love how we’re given just enough information but there are all these gaps left in place. Because it’s irrelevant what happened in those gaps. We get the picture just enough to know that these two people need to be together.
// To a large extent, my expectations were challenged by the characters: the non-manic-pixie-ness of both. They were the obstacles, themselves. //
So true. Imagine this movie in a more conventional director’s hands. He would not have been able to resist going sappy “they save each other” sentimental. Melodrama is not sentimental. It is an effective genre to deal with super serious subjects like love and emotional wreckage and class issues. It’s a very tough movie, I think – playing out to the very final moment, with Ali’s voiceover about his hand never fully healing going on underneath this beautiful montage of togetherness. I appreciate that hard-headedness so much.
What’s even more amazing about that scene in the cafe is that that was the first scene MS and MC shot together!! Like, they had to sit down – out of sequence – not having filmed any of the rest of it – and create that. Amazing!
There are many gasp-worthy moments!
I gasped when Ali threw Sam and Sam bumped his head. The “I love you” … it still gets me. Sam beneath the ice is still excruciating. Did you know going in that Stephanie would lose her legs? I actually didn’t – and so the scene where she discovered her lost legs was when I discovered it too – and that scene is just haunting – she’s in long shot. Shivers.
I didn’t know she would lose her legs. I liked how we aren’t even exactly sure how. Or at least I wasn’t. Did the flukes cut or mangle them so much that they were amputated? I thought we could see her legs at one point when she was in the water just after the accident, attached but bleeding. You’ve watched it so many times. Were they eaten? I felt like maybe, with one of the lingering shots on the orcas’ mouth.
That blue light in the hospital, it was horrible. How could anyone heal in that room? I just felt as if anyone would be suicidal if they woke up to that color after an injury.
Yes, I gasped too when Ali threw Sam. And when Stephanie threw her champagne glass in the guy’s face at the club. And when Sam fell into the ice. And when Stephanie got out of the van, when Ali was getting beaten. That was melodrama! “Oh god, he’s getting beaten. I hope she can inspire him. I’m such a schmuck for wanting that. Oh YES!!!”
They shot the cafe scene first thing? Just unbelievable.
And my sense of horror when Sam fell in the ice and Ali saw him under the ice. One of those, “oh god, I never want to experience that” moments.
I do have to say, it’s a challenge to hear Fireworks in a movie and not be taken to James Franco and Randall Park in The Interview. I feel like they own that song now, for movies. I know this came out before that movie.
I think the shot of the whale’s teeth is her perspective – that she was bitten. (By the way, they attached a camera to an orca to get those underwater shots. At one point, the orca shook the camera off and then came at the camera, mouth open – that’s how they got that shot. Total accident and they only realized it happened once they watched the footage).
Any time I hear Fireworks, I think of 2 things:
1. this, which never fails to make me WEEP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX-xToQI34I
2. this, which gives me hope for humanity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2KtzWvoYCw
Loved how uber-thorough and detailed your summary was. This movie captivated me, not at first, more like a snowball rolling down a mountain. The scene with Stephanie and the whale put me over the edge **sniveling tears**. Just beautiful.
I actually could not physically watch the scene of Sam and the ice, so your summary helped. Having 2 small boys myself was just too close to home.
I cannot imagine how difficult it must have been for Mattias to manage the scene of yelling at Sam so violently and Sam hitting his head.
Mattias is absolutely at the top of my celebrity crushes and I am binge watching all his movies now. Disorder wasn’t bad, Suite Francois is fantastic, & My Queen Karo was surprisingly good.
I’ve only recently discovered international films – through Netflix. I’m no expert, but this may be my favorite movie, surpassing even Casablanca. Did you notice this? – about my 20th viewing I noticed during the post-fight lobby scene that Stephanie was wearing what appeared to be a wedding band on her left ring finger.
I enjoyed your thorough commentary.
Warren – Hi! I agree (obviously!!) that Rust and Bone is very special. Thank goodness for Netflix!
And wow, very good catch about the ring on her finger – I actually didn’t notice but I’ll keep my eyes peeled next time I watch.
They’ll become a family. They’ll take care of each other. I totally believe it!
(oh and thank you for reading this insanely long piece – and also commenting!)
Watch her hand around Sam’s shoulder in the lobby scene shortly before they leave the hotel.
I just watched the film and thoroughly enjoyed reading this. It was my first viewing of the film and I was blown away by it but reading this just makes me admire it so much more. Incredible film and incredible piece of writing and anaylsison it thank you!
David – thank you so much – not only for reading this epic post – but for commenting!
You have made me want to see it again. It’s such a gorgeous piece of work – I’ve probably seen it 5 times by now and it always works, it always gets to me.
Thanks again!