How does this art-house darling about a paraplegic look on the page? Pull up your wheelchairs and find out!
Genre: Drama
Premise: When a woman loses her legs in a killer whale accident, she engages in a strange friendship with a street fighter.
About: This is a Belgium film that’s heating up the indie circuit and is as an Oscar contender in the “Best Actress” category for Marion Cotillard. The film is directed by Jacques Audiard, who directed the hit 2009 French film, A Prophet. Audiard has been writing for film and television since the 80s. This is the promotional version of the screenplay being used for Oscar consideration, so I assume it’s the shooting draft. I’ve also been informed that the movie is in French (didn’t know that when I read it) which means this is a translation. However, it’s unclear who translated the screenplay to English, and why they wouldn’t format it properly upon doing so…
Writer: Jacques Audiard
Details: 125 pages – August 16th, 2011
Whenever you’re sitting around and someone says, “Oh my God. Have you seen xxxxx? It’s amaaa-zing,” you don’t forget that movie title. You place that one up there on the mental “must-see” list. That’s what happened a few months ago when I heard someone raving about Rust and Bone. I knew then I had to see this movie.
But let’s be honest. The title “Rust and Bone” doesn’t exactly have you microwaving a big bag of popcorn and melting down a half stick of butter to coat it in. It’s the title for a movie you watch alone in the dead of winter when your life is spiraling out of control and the only way you’re going to feel better is to watch something that’s more miserable than you. Sort of like the movie version of Hoarders.
I know, I know. That’s “title stereotyping.” I shouldn’t be doing that. For all I know, Rust and Bone is about two best friends who win the lottery and buy a candy factory.
Orrrrrr…..maybe not. Turns out this one is just as dreary as its title. Hold on to your Paxil people. Shit’s about to get depressing.
Rust and Bone introduces us to Ali, a sort of tough-guy brawler who’s yanking his tiny little kid, Sam, through the forest. After a few phone calls, we gather that he’s just stole Sam away from his ex because of her lousy parenting skills (which include using him to smuggle dope). After a long train ride, the two arrive at his sister’s, who’s not happy to see her bro but allows them to stay with her as long as they pay their way.
This forces Ali to get a job as a bouncer for, I think, boxing matches, though the writing was consistently vague when it came to anything important so that’s actually just an educated guess. It’s there where he meets Stephanie, a loner party-girl with an attitude. When she gets beat up in a fight, he ends up driving her home, where the two have a really awkward disinterested conversation.
The next day we learn that Stephanie is a killer whale trainer at a European version of Sea World, and during the very first stunt of the day, there’s a whale collision (I think??) that results in her losing both her legs. Stephanie goes through a depressing couple of weeks accepting her new life as a paraplegic, then decides to call her old bouncer buddy out of the blue, even though she seemed to hate him at the time.
Ali is surprisingly blasé about Stephanie’s lost legs, and agrees to fuck her if she’s ever horny, since there aren’t many stand-up guys looking for paraplegics (sorry, I had to go there). She goes along with this agreement and, soon, the two start to actually like each other. Ali eventually gets pulled in to the very boxing matches he’s bouncing, starts winning a bunch of money, and the two end up happily ever after – or as happily ever after as two can be when one person doesn’t have any legs.
Whoa. Where do we begin?
I was so dismayed by this screenplay that I couldn’t write a review without doing some research on the film and finding out how anyone was able to make it out of the theater alive. Things started to make sense when I found the trailer, which is actually really good. If that was my only reference to the movie, I would want to see it. I also found out it was from the same director who did The Phophet, which is one half of an awesome movie. And even though it eventually wanders into total randomness (Go watch it if you haven’t yet. It just keeps going and going and going), there’s no doubt that the director is extremely talented.
But the same problem with the second half of that film is the problem with all of this film. The story is all the hell over the place. I mean it’s a French film, so focus and structure aren’t going to be a priority. But there’s a difference between a script that doesn’t depend on structure and a script that completely ignores structure. This script felt like skin without any bones inside. There’s nothing propping it up.
Let’s start with the kid. Why was he in the movie? We start on him. The implication is he’s important, maybe even the primary focus. His dad having to take him away from his overbearing mom reinforces this. He then proceeds to disappear for 110 pages (spoiler) until he gets caught under an ice lake in the final scene!!! Wtf???
Then there’s Stephanie, who we meet out partying. The next morning, she’s all of a sudden a Killer Whale performer. Just something that seemed totally out-of-character from the person who had been set up (and not in a “that’s the idea” way). But what was more startling was that one scene later her legs are chomped off during a performance. Don’t we need to establish her life as a trainer first before turning her into a Halfsie? It would be like in Million Dollar Baby if in the very first fight, Hilary Swank fell on that stool and became paralyzed. Not only that, but the scene was so poorly described, I didn’t know it was the whale who bit her legs off until page 95 when it was explicitly stated. At the time, I thought some electrical equipment fell on her legs. That’s how often I was confused while reading this.
Then there was the dialogue. Now, in retrospect, I realize this is translated, but still, the translator should’ve prevented unbearable lines like “Stop this car on the double!” And when a defeated intern is being scolded for her job performance, she counters, “What are you trying to make me believe, that I wasn’t up to par?” I can’t imagine anyone saying that sentence ever. If you’re having your script translated for Oscar voters, make sure it’s from someone who knows what they’re doing.
Then there were these elaborately described characters who were presented as potential cornerstones of the story, only to disappear two scenes later. Like Giles, the heavily scarred fellow paraplegic Stephanie meets in rehab. I mean this guy was more well-drawn and memorable than probably anyone except for Stephanie. Yet he’s gone before you can press your scroll button.
I’m still wondering if this is a culture thing. These character-driven movies with floating storylines and zero structure fit better with European audiences who don’t need everything to be so clean-cut, so buttoned-up. Their movies are more like real life (or as real-life as someone getting gobbled up by a whale can be). So I’m really curious what the European (and particularly French) Scriptshadow readers think of this. But I just could NOT get into it at all. I need structure! There’s a fine line between “purposefully unfocused” and “sloppy,” and this felt sloppy to me. Despite this, I will see this movie based on the trailer. In winter. Up in a mountain. Inside a shack. With a stack of Hoarders DVDs. Wish me luck.
[x] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I’m going to be honest. When something isn’t formatted correctly, I completely lose confidence in the writer. Every little misstep or confusing moment or badly described scene or muddled motivation I see after that is just confirmation of what I already assumed, that the script is going to be bad. Rust and Bone has left-margined character names in the dialogue, underlined slugs, lack of spacing between some action blocks. I’m not ruling out that this format may be commonplace in France. But if you don’t already have the movie made (like Jacque) and you’re writing for the American market, good formatting has to be a given. Once I see even ONE PARAGRAPH that’s incorrectly formatted in a script, I think to myself, “They’re not using professional screenwriting software which means they’re not serious about screenwriting which means this is going to be bad,” because that’s what’s happened the last 99 scripts I read with bad formatting. So please don’t make this very avoidable mistake!
