Bones and All (2022) Movie Review
Director Luca Guadagnino has reunited with actor Timothée Chalamet for his latest film, Bones and All. The two last collaborated on the Oscar winning film, Call Me By Your Name (2017). Since that film, Guadagnino has dabbled in absurdist horror with his remake of Suspiria (2018) and a documentary about Salvatore Ferragamo who is well known for making shoes for Hollywood stars in the silent era.
Guadagnino pivots again with Bones and All. The film is set in the 1980’s and we meet Maren (Taylor Russell) at a girls’ sleepover. Everything is seemingly normal until Maren bites through one of the girl’s fingers. She runs home and her father (André Holland), noticing her bloody clothes, packs their things and they leave town. We see that this type of lifestyle is not new for them and that Maren’s cannibalistic ways have caused them to uproot their lives constantly. When Maren’s father leaves, she is left to fend for herself. She decides to head to Minnesota in the hopes of finding her mother, who left when she was very young.
While on the journey she meets a man named Sully (Mark Rylance) who can smell that she is an Eater (this is the term for cannibals used throughout the movie). They feed together on the body of an elderly woman who was dying anyways. Maren, perhaps sensing that something about Sully is a little off, leaves to continue the journey on her own. But she happens to meet another Eater (apparently they are everywhere) named Lee (Timothée Chalamet). From here the story takes on a coming of age romance quality that is sharply contrasted by the cannibalism that takes place every so often. At times it is shocking to see (or hear) someone devouring a human. But the grotesque takes a back seat to the love story between the two young cannibals. Like all lovers, they have their disagreements, although theirs is not quite so relatable. Maren feels guilty about their victims while Lee kills them and eats them without remorse. This ideological sparring pulls them apart even as their love for each other draws them together.
While the idea of Bones and All is intriguing, the film gets bogged down in the final act. The two hour and eleven minute runtime could have been cut by about twenty minutes and it would have helped the story to be more impactful. Russell and Chalamet have good chemistry together, but both give quiet performances without much range. The real standout is Mark Rylance, who makes Sully come to life in a way that feels incredibly realistic. Rylance is able to walk the tightrope of being creepy and being a sympathetic character at the same time.
Showing loneliness and the search for someone who understands you is universal, Bones and All effectively makes cannibalism a metaphor for being different and searching for acceptance. And in that, the movie was successful despite its other flaws.
You’ll like this movie if:
1. You love anything Timothée Chalamet does
2. You enjoy movies about cannibals
3. You like coming of age stories with a twist
