First film of the festival and bit of a mixed view on this one. It's a French film starring the fabulous Marion Cotillard as killer whale-trainer Stephanie who loses both legs at the knee in an accident. Prior to the accident she meets bouncer Alain (Matthias Schoenaerts) a single father with a penchant for casual sex who earns extra cash competing in illegal, bare-knuckle fights.
It's an unlikely pairing but then their relationship has a grittiness to it that you won't usually find on screen. Both are intriguing characters full of light and shade. At the beginning of the film we discover that Stephanie likes to leave her boyfriend at home while she goes out clubbing, enjoying male attention. Alain on the other hand is not the most attentive or responsible of parents picking up women at the gym for casual sex and in the process forgetting to collect his son from school.
When Stephanie calls on Alain after the accident he finds her sat at home, withdrawn and full of self pity. In his own way Alain draws Stephanie out reigniting her zest for life. Stephanie likes to watch Alain fight and her presence encourages him.
As their friendship grows it develops into sex, an experiment at first for Stephanie post the accident but soon means something different to both. When Alain's not entirely legal work in security take a unexpected turn he flees leaving his family and Stephanie in the lurch until a near tragedy puts priorities into perspective.
For all the meatiness and layers of the central characters my one grumble with this film would be the central relationship in that I wasn't wholly convinced that a woman like Stephanie would fall for Alain. Stephanie's character felt less developed than Alain and therefore it was difficult to judge her motivations.
Nonetheless it certainly gave me plenty to think about, was refreshingly gritty, real and French in its approach and definitely not the usual cliched soppy love story fare. Not quite as good as Jacques Audiard's previous film A Prophet but I'm going to give it 62%. On IMDb it has 78% with a Metacritic score of 76% while on Rotten Tomatoes, as it hasn't had a general release yet, it doesn't have a consensus.
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