Maren, a young woman, learns how to survive on the margins of society.
Luca Guadagnino’s latest film reunites him with his ‘Call Me By Your Name’ star Timothée Chalamet for a tale of young lovers who fall in love as they flee across the United States together. The reason for them fleeing is that they are both cannibals, which naturally does not really allow them to fit into normal society, and ‘Bones and All’ explores how they try to reckon living a ‘good’ life with these insatiable urges. It is an interesting fusion of genres – horror, romance, crime, anchored by strong performances from Chalamet and Taylor Russell as the protagonists, and borrows as much from films such as ‘Badlands’ and ‘Bonnie and Clyde‘ as it does from horror movies.
The movie is led by Taylor Russell as Maren, a teenage cannibal who finds herself on her own when her father (Andre Holland) decides he can no longer protect her, after a final incident that sees her viciously bite into a friends finger. Now out on her own, she encounters fellow cannibals beginning with Sully, a creepy older man played by Mark Rylance, who introduces her to the ‘cannibal code’ (never eat an eater) and providing her with a meal of an elderly man to satisfy her urges. Soon fleeing him, she bumps into the similarly aged Lee (Chalamet) and tells him of her plan to get to Minnesota to track down her mother, with Lee choosing to join her on this road trip.
The film follows this duo as they set off on their journey, encountering fellow cannibals along the way whilst being introduced to the grim reality of what they must do to survive, all set to a good soundtrack and nice chemistry between Russell and Chalamet. Where I felt it struggled is it’s a little meandering and the screenplay feels like it’s missing something, to the extent I felt a little unsatisfied with how it all played out. The ingredients are there, but the final result is a little bit lacking, and I thought ‘Bones and All’, whilst an enjoyable watch, could have been better than it was.
Rating: 3/5
Directed By: Luca Guadagnino
Starring: Taylor Russell, Timothée Chalamet, Mark Rylance, Andre Holland, Michael Stuhlbarg, David Gordon Green, Jessica Harper, Anna Cobb, Jake Horowitz and Chloë Sevigny
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