This Oscar season is sort of slim when it comes to contenders for a Best Actress slot; earlier in the year, pundits wondered whether Beasts of the Southern Wild star Quvenzhane Wallis was too young to score a nod, but there have been so few apparent challengers that she looks like a sure bet to be nominated. However, there is one strong piece of work coming from a former winner in the category, Marion Cotillard. The French star dazzled Cannes audiences with her tough, smart work in Rust and Bone, the latest drama from Jacques Audiard (A Prophet), in which she plays a former whale trainer who loses her legs, wallows in self-pity, and then finds strange renewal in her relationship with thuggish bare-knuckle fighter Matthias Schoenaerts. Cotillard’s a whiz with dialogue in any language, but in this movie, there are some stunning long takes on her face as she says nothing … yet everything. You’ll get a sense of that from this new trailer, since it tries to protect you from all that fancy French-talkin’ by omitting lines altogether.
