Rust and Bone (2012)

Rust and Bone

Directed by Jacques Audiard

Starring: Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenaerts, Corinne Masiero

Grade: B [69] 

For a film about drawing strength from physical adversity, “Rust and Bone” isn’t half as uplifting a time as its slushy, aquatic trailer would have you believe. It’s rare that a romance comes along so eager to purge its characters of traditional forms of grace, and still express the rich, interdependent courage that exists between them. The imposing performances of Cotillard and Schoenaerts punctuate Audiard’s themes well, and the coarseness of their romance lends something uniquely powerful to the experience. It’s somewhat soured when some heavy-handed plotting sweeps in to enforce an epiphany in the final act, but the effect is more dispiriting than ruinous. When even Katy Perry’s “Firework” is utilised to profoundly moving effect, you have to figure that this is a somewhat successful exercise in spinning straw into gold.

Addicts 2009: Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Leonie Benesch in Das Weisse Band (The White Ribbon)

The wave of impersonality in The White Ribbon (a feature that plagues the film as much as it benefits it) makes Leonie Benesch's task as an anxious teenager wooed by an older teacher all the more cavalier. Like many of the younger characters Eva navigates Haneke's constrictive, uniform world in a way she thinks is expected of her, wary of the unwritten protocol that limits perspective. The self-empowering aspect of Benesch's Eva is working with the script, but her hunger for change, passion, evolution feels much more evident and desperate (even in its tentativeness) and offers a relatable, humanist approach to independence that's painfully missing elsewhere. Eva does not want to take anything for granted, allaying her suitor's premature attempts at intimacy with sincere regret, and Benesch conveys the shrewdness of her character's small-scale ambition of happiness beautifully.

Ginnifer Goodwin in He's Just Not That Into You

Goodwin navigates the negative connotations of her character's desire for testosterone, and is refreshingly aware of Gigi's emotional openness and the problems that it poses, promoting it as positive and worthwhile even though it leaves her exposed to hurt. She is responsible for the film's ultimate reverence of romance, indulgent of dating and how it's undeniably fun, even though 95% of it ends in the disappointment of not meeting the person you want to spend the rest of your life with.

Taken from my Supporting Actress Blogathon post.

Samantha Morton in The Messenger

The reaction of Olivia Pitterson to the loss of her soldier husband is completely different from the response of the grief-stricken "NIK"'s before her, but feels by far the most genuine. That's not to say that Samantha Morton's Olivia doesn't bear anger or bitterness (a later scene puts that theory to bed) but her own feelings about the war are a lot more shadier than most of The Messenger's erratic set of characters. One feels that Olivia had already consigned herself to a widow's life, even as she deters others from following in her late husband's footsteps. Was she against his decision in the first place or did her political stance change like so many others? Morton is rounded and recognisable enough to depict Olivia's ready acceptance of Foster's Will as both natural and unhealthy and becomes one of the most valuable parts of the film.

Rosamund Pike in An Education

Rosamund Pike is saddled with one of the roles pigeon-holed by the hand of Nick Hornby, but rises (not unlike a Phoenix with that fierce blonde mane of hers) from the ashes of mediocrity to create a memorable and solid woman. Helen, attached to Jenny's boyfriend's friend, shows Jenny how to be a socialite without really doing a lot. She seems rather like a bimbo at first, content to sit during an orchestra recital thoroughly bored, even as her face eagerly tries to maintain the dignified grace of high-brow culture. Her lack of interest in this area as a whole opposes Jenny's stance, but it's interesting to see Pike flaunt Helen's ease, wisdom, and knowledge of the social scene, especially as Jenny excels in every other comparative area. You can't teach that.

Blanca Portillo in Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces)

Portillo has what might be traditionally deemed the "Elsa Lanchester role" as Judit, the business partner and former lover of famous film director Mateo Blanco. But such with Almodovar things aren't always that simple, and it emerges that Judit has enough to be sore at Blanco about, even as she continues to bail him out in the way that women always seem to be able to. Judit's contempt for Mateo (and perhaps men in general) is evident when she pretends to ignore his paranoid auteurial indecision, but there's never any doubt that she reveres Blanco's talent, fuels that talent, and will continue to do so. Portillo creates a rather devastating portrayal of a woman that will settle for emotional connection through the reliability of celluloid (what can be more constant, right?), indicative of Almodovar's reminder that relationships can be superficial and exclusive. The camera lies, and so do we.

Winner: Blanca Portillo

Runner Up: Leonie Benesch

Best of the Rest: Juno Temple seducing her stepbrother in Mr. Nobody, Leslie Mann layering Sandler's sympathetic ex in Funny People, Marion Cotillard in Nine produces the only character work worthy of holding a candle to 8 1/2, Melanie Laurent's ass-kicking Jewish revenge in Inglourious Basterds, and Mo'Nique's excellently-played final scene in Precious.

Other Delights: Olivia Williams in An Education, Anyone in Whip It!, Alison Janney in Away We Go, Vera Farmiga in Up in the Air, Diane Kruger in Inglourious Basterds, Julianne Moore in A Single Man, Alycia Delmore in Humpday, and Paula Patton in Precious.

Brief SAG Reaction

Only two real surprises:

1) The rather random inclusion of Diane Kruger in Supporting Actress

Everybody loves the Basterds this Awards season!. On the one hand I think it's a fun and occasionally delicious performance, and on the other I find it a real shame that Melanie Laurent was campaigned by the Weinsteins in the Leading category, as she clearly would have got in here if they'd settled for Supporting. Laurent and Kruger remain outside shots, but the inevitable split that will occur from this probably means that neither will make it and the last spot will be taken up by either Julianne Moore, Academy favourite Samantha Morton, or the mishandled Marion Cotillard. At least that's my take on the situation.

And while we're on it, if Nine is going to be the worst-reviewed film to get a Best Picture nomination this decade, is it really going to get this many major nominations? It seems comparable with Memoirs of a Geisha four years ago, which got equally poor reviews and probably would have managed a spot in a ten-wide field, given its six nods. None of those, however, were for the big six categories, and so it seems to me that Marion Cotillard is on kind of shaky ground given that she now seems behind Cruz and is saddled with a film that people simply don't like? Nine will probably win the Globe but I can't see it gaining any real momentum before the Oscar ballots are posted.

2) The ensemble snub of Up in the Air

While early precursors suggested Up in the Air had enough to emerge as a solid favourite the support for it clearly doesn't rival that of previous BP winners, and it certainly seems to be dwindling under the euphoric love for The Hurt Locker. At the moment it seems like a three-way tussle between Reitman's film, Bigelow's critical favourite, and James Cameron's beastly, cinema-altering production. Say what you want for the ten-wide category but it's feeling very nostalgic to those forties Best Picture winners (I'm looking at you Rebecca and Casablanca) which only managed one or two other victories. That's possibly why Avatar might have the edge, given that it's likely to win multiple effects prizes, but at the moment it seems pretty wide open.

Addicts 2007: Actress in a Leading Role

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Julie Christie
Away From Her

Alzheimers is a terribly sad fate for a person, and watching the breakdown of Grant and Fiona's relationship in the touching but undeniably troubled Away From Her, is itself fairly devastating. It's interesting though that, for me, the entirety of the film's engulfing sense of loss is instigated (without ever appearing so) from the incredible Julie Christie. We are often encouraged to walk in the shoes of the weary, and annoyingly overwrought Gordon Pinsent. A man who has lost something. But Christie makes Fiona much more accessible as a victim, her mental deterioration mirroring Pinsent's physical longing, and thus her punishment seems much more ingrained and natural. She doesn't seem affected, losing none of the grace, humour, charm; yet appears so irredeemably distant. Without context. Without recognition. A rich and painful portrayal.

Marion Cotillard
La Vie En Rose

In more than one way Cotillard's performance is not of the ilk that I tend to admire. Incredibly theatrical (especially in terms of her gestures and mannerisms) one can be tempted to believe that she lacks depth, restraint, understanding of what is needed to make Piaf a genuine character. But for what Olivier Dahan's La Vie En Rose so baldly displays as a fast-paced sporadic tribute to the legendary powerhouse (not dissimilar to the pace and style of All That Jazz by the way), Marion Cotillard can read everything the film wants to achieve and more. I had difficulty separating whether it's more her triumph than Dahan's that together, her performance and the film seem so synchronised. It's a success for both, but the editing -- a major feature of the film -- has to have festered gladly on Cotillard's showy snippets of Piaf. Almost Minelli-like, she wades in and out of every scene just as La Vie En Rose meanders so adventurously and recklessly in and out of Piaf's life. Amazing.

Angelina Jolie
A Mighty Heart

As a woman chasing any trace of her kidnapped husband it isn't a feat that Jolie has us on Marianne's side. When we think of grieving widows, or housewives waiting, hoping, for their husbands to come home from war, it's easy to expect and see the desperate wreck. But we don't often see them as an active force in proceedings, and that might be why Jolie is so surprisingly effective as the core of A Mighty Heart. She is by no means better than the film, but without a shadow of a doubt understands every bit of the episode, carrying off her role with the passion of a heroine. And when I say 'heroine', I don't mean someone who's content to put a brave face on things, but someone keen to understand as much of the political situation as she can in order to bring her fella home. She wants it more than we do, and it shows. Jolie has so much impact as a personality than she ever has as a figure of pity; despite pregnancy, false hope, loss, the raw power she evokes is that of our superwoman beaten. Beaten admirably, but heartbreakingly beaten nonetheless.



Sienna Miller
Interview

I actually have trouble acknowledging that I value Sienna Miller's dogged, neurotic performance in Interview, a film I didn't care for, above Laura Linney, Anamaria Marinca, and the tireless Ellen Page. But this is the girl I wanted here most, and in all honesty, it's because I saw more of myself in her than I did the others. Judging and interpreting films is ultimately an altogether personal experience, and consequently Miller, whose Katya is restricted despite her power and independence; naive, shallow, but capable of duping even the most psychologically-apt of counterparts, feels more close-to-home and complex than the others. Outwardly confident and superior, inwardly self-conscious and needy, she teases, provokes, and ends up feeling like the real throwaway victim of a piece that doesn't know enough about what it wants to say, but crafts two characters that has enough to keep you entertained for the vast majority of its modest running time. Sienna can hack it with the best of them.

Tang Wei
Lust, Caution

Like Lust, Caution itself Tang Wei's role is a concealing contradiction. Complete with all the makings of the schoolgirl who has an affair with a high-school professor, she is a foxy female that veers far from the standard path through adolescence, and her double-role in this luscious sex-fest skates the boundary between girl and woman extremely finely. A wannabe-rebel and seductive spy she undergoes a transformation but retains that naive, ingestant childishness that feeds her need to mean something to someone. To matter. And when imposed upon by everybody Wei is able to let the resillience and individuality of Mai Tai Tai shine through. Her performance is assured, magnetic, mature, and often reminded me of Greer Garson, whose modesty was surely unrivalled, but given a run for its money by Wei, who like Garson, never really gives any indication that she knows how beautiful, clever, and charismatic she is, although there's an inkling that amidst it all the girl probably does.

Winner: Tang Wei, Lust Caution
Runner Up: Julie Christie, Away From Her

Sad To Exclude: The aforementioned ladies: Anamaria Marinca, Ellen Page, and the excellent Laura Linney, who I'd say is probably 6th, as she has a much weaker written character than the others.