Rust and Bone (Jacques Audiard, 2012)

“Rust and Bone” features yet another fearsomely committed performance from Marion Cotillard, a charismatic turn by Matthias Schoenaerts that confirms his breakthrough in last year’s “Bullhead,” inventive and attentive direction from the gifted director Jacques Audiard (“A Prophet,” “The Beat That My Heart Skipped”), dazzling cinematography, the hushed hipsterisms of Bon Iver on the soundtrack, and a novel setting.

Stéphanie (Cotillard) is a hard-living trainer of killer whales at the local Marineland. (If that seems baroquely, uniquely French, it’s worth noting that the screenplay by Audiard and Thomas Bidegain is based on a short story collection by Canadian writer Craig Davidson.) She and Ali meet at the club; he drives her home and casually puts her pompous boyfriend in his place. There’s an accident at the water park, filmed by cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine with jagged beauty, after which Stéphanie wakes in the hospital to find her legs bitten off. Cotillard’s performance in that scene alone is worth the price of admission: She makes what could be a bizarre joke seem terrible and present.

“Rust and Bone” is thus about two castoffs who comfort each other without realizing how tightly they cling. Reconnecting, Ali takes Stéphanie swimming in the ocean, and the look on Cotillard’s face as her character realizes she won’t be denied her single greatest pleasure is something to see.