Jacques Audiard has followed his 2009 masterpiece, the multi-award winning ‘A Prophet’ with an intense exhilarating emotional roller coaster of a movie that has you sitting right on the edge of your seat throughout the entire 2 hours. Just as you think that life cannot get any worse for the two protagonists, it does … M. Audiard is determined to ensure that neither his characters or you are ever off the hook. But then at the very end when we are all in total despair, he shocks us all with an happy ending after all.
Penniless Ali and his 5 year old son Sam have, for some unexplained reason, left Belgium and the boy’s mother to land on his sister’s doorstep in Antibes seeking refugee. Anna leads a far from glamorous life one thinks of as the norm in the South of France, she is a cashier in a supermarket on minimum wage, and she and her truck driver husband barely stay afloat financially. Nevertheless she takes Ali and Sam in, and soon finds her ex-boxer brother a job as nightclub bouncer.
One night at work, Ali meets Stephanie who he helps out after a brawl, and although he gives this very attractive woman a lift home, nothing passes between them. Much later after a near fatal accident, Stephanie, alone and desperate, finds Ali’s phone and on a whim, calls him. She needs to be shaken out of her despair, and also get out of the house again, and she feels that he just might be the one to help her do just that. He is and does far more than she, and we expect.
Ali is now involved in some very dodgy security work involving surveillance cameras to spy on store staff, and is also doing illegal bare-knuckle fighting. As his unlikely friendship with Stephanie flourishes he starts to take her along to his matches, and she gets hooked on the sheer brutality of it all, as well as on Ali himself.
When his surveillance gig ends up getting his sister fired for being filmed taking discarded out of date food, she asks Ali to leave. And he does surreptitiously in the middle of the night abandoning his son and Stephanie who has become to depend on him in more ways than one. When he relents and contacts his family again, Sam comes up for a visit, and just as we think life may start getting rosy again, there is another devastating near fatal accident.
It’s a stunning gritty drama where against the backdrop of the sun washed Mediterranean, just making ends meet is a constant daily battle. Life is tough and they fight for everything they get, and whilst on the surface there seems very little room or time for emotion, feelings actually run extremely deep. The improbable relationship between Ali and Stephanie is extraordinarily powerful : this rough uneducated giant of a man has a natural generosity that exposes him to the possibility of the unexpected … in this a case a beautiful sophisticated damaged soul and a friends-with-benefits situation that leads to much more.
The chemistry between Ali and Stephanie is totally electric. Matthias Schoenaerts who stunningly also boxed his way through ‘Bullhead’ plays Ali and is the perfect foil for Marion Cotillard who gives another Oscar worthy performance as Stephanie. She is nothing less than mesmerizing, and with those piercing eyes of hers has this ability to say everything and more with just a mere look. I couldn’t imagine anyone else even getting close to playing this role as superbly as she does. She (and he are) breathtaking.
It’s impossible not to mention the computer wizardry that makes Ms Cotillard’s physical appearance possible and so convincingly realistic. It’s refreshing to see such state-of-the-art technology used in this manner than just to make those blue men in ‘Avatar’!
Did I love it as much as A Prophet (which was on my Top Ten List that year)? Probably, and I’ve given it the highest rating and I know that it will resonate with me for some time yet.
P.S. As I’ve loved all three of Jacques Audiard last movies (the 3rd being ‘THE DAY MY HEART SKIPPED A BEAT’), I’m delving back to see another 3 earlier ones, which thanks to Netflix & Amazon I can.
This movie is now available on DVD & VOD at Amazon
Jacques Audiard has followed his 2009 masterpiece, the multi-award winning ‘A Prophet’ with an intense exhilarating emotional roller coaster of a movie that has you sitting right on the edge of your seat throughout the entire 2 hours. Just as you think that life cannot get any worse for the two protagonists, it does … M. Audiard is determined to ensure that neither his characters or you are ever off the hook. But then at the very end when we are all in total despair, he shocks us all with an happy ending after all.
When his surveillance gig ends up getting his sister fired for being filmed taking discarded out of date food, she asks Ali to leave. And he does surreptitiously in the middle of the night abandoning his son and Stephanie who has become to depend on him in more ways than one. When he relents and contacts his family again, Sam comes up for a visit, and just as we think life may start getting rosy again, there is another devastating near fatal accident. 
