RUST AND BONE MAKES STRONG DEBUT AT CANNES

The second day of the Cannes film festival opened with a press screening of yet another strong entry in the 65th annual competition for the top Palme d”Or award, director Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone, starring Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts. Closing credits were greeted with sustained applause by the audience. The film, about a series of tragic events that ultimately remake the lives of the two protagonists (for the better), received mostly positive early reviews. Peter Bradshaw of Britain’s Guardian newspaper concluded: “It is a passionate and moving love story which surges out of the screen like a flood tide.” Todd McCarthy of the Hollywood Reporter praised the “unvarnished, forthright performances” of the two stars. Sasha Stone of TheWrap.com called it “beautifully rendered, deeply felt.” But the Chicago Tribune‘s Michael Phillips, acknowledging that he was “probably in the minority” commented that “the entire picture feels like a poetic-grunge generality, with a penchant for jacked-up tension that feels applied to the situation, not pulled from within the people on screen.”