Jacques Audiard's new movie features poverty, bare-knuckle fighting and a killer whale attack. The French director says it's a sunny romance.

"Rust and Bone" — a strange and surprising love story starring Academy Award-winning French actress Marion Cotillard ("La Vie En Rose") and Belgium's Matthias Schoenaerts, ("Bullhead") — is one of the most hotly anticipated entries at the Cannes Film Festival, but sharply divided its first audience of journalists on Thursday. "Pretty terrible," tweeted Time Out critic Dave Calhoun. "Enthralling and moving," said The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw.

Audiard won the festival's second prize in 2009 with taut prison drama "A Prophet." He said "Rust and Bone" was his attempt to do something completely different.

"('A Prophet') was very male. It took place in prison, the area was very confined and there were no women," Audiard told reporters. "We wanted to portray a love story full of light and space, and this is what happened."