The French Film, Rust & Bone with Marion Cotillard

(The French film, Rust & Bones (with English sub-titles) is a down & dirty slice of life movie where you actually forget you're watching (& reading) a movie.  The film begins with a father, Ali, & son, Sam, on a train where the father scrounges through other passengers' garbage to feed his son.  They devour their food like hungry animals.  They reach Sam's sister & brother-in-law's cramped apartment.  Their reunion (after a 5 year hiatus) is not met with warmth, rather like animals circling each other.  We learn that Ali fled with Sam.  He ask his family to allow them to live there until Ali finds employment.  Ali's 1st job is as a bouncer @ a nightclub where he breaks up a brutal beating of a woman, Stephanie,  (Oscar winner, Marion Cotillard) and insists on driving her home.  Bleeding profusely from the nose & Ali implies she was enticing trouble dressing look like a whore.  He does leave his tel. # with her.  Nothing is subtle or glossed over in this movie.  Stephanie works as a whale trainer @ a water park where shortly after meeting Ali she is in a terrible accident involving a whale.  (Whales should not be taken from their natural habitat and put in small confinement for our entertainment.  This gives me a melt down.)  Stephanie is critically injured.  She wakes in a hospital and to her horror finds both her legs amputated at the knee.  Her anguish is palpable.  At first, Anna is in a malaise of depression & resistant to rehabilitation. Then Anna reaches out to Ali for companionship. Their relationship renews Anna's desires for life.  Ali's new income comes from brutal, extreme boxing matches.  When tragedy strikes Ali's life, it is Stephanie who reaches out to comfort him.  The cinematography makes you feel every blow and every drop of blood.  This film depicts mankind's basic animalistic tendencies & mankind's resilience & the redemptive power of love.  Rust & Bone has much to wince at and much for me to recommend.