★★✩✩✩
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures 2022
Horror/Romance/Drama
By HOWARD MCQUITTER II
How do I describe Director Luca Guadagnino’s film Bones and All? Icky. Unique but macabre. Achingly prosaic. Presents an anemic romance that seems to be not natural. The chemistry between the two lovers is mostly tepid. And cannibalism is the theme where the main characters deliberately prey on other humans for food. Yes, this horror-romance-drama will not be pleasing to your palate.
A young woman, Maren (Taylor Russell), realizes she has a need for human flesh (not just blood like vampires). Her propensity for snacking on human flesh gets her in serious trouble at a slumber party when she bites off a girl’s finger. Her father (Andre Holland, Moonlight [2016], Passing [2021]) is aware of her affliction and immediately leaves with her to an undisclosed place. Soon he abandons her. Maren is 18 years old and has to fend for herself. She wanders through back country roads, perhaps for miles on end.
She stops in a convenience store to shoplift when she sets eyes on Lee (Timothée Chalamet), an outcast like her, also an “eater” of humans. But shortly before meeting him, she’s spotted by a strange older man called Sully (Mark Rylance), who claims he can smell an “eater” like himself. Sully will become a nuisance later on in the film. He’s a stalker, something she will come to realize. But with Lee, she goes to various states (Nebraska, Ohio, Minnesota, etc.) to find her mother she’s never known. Looking for her mother is one of the few redeeming things in the movie. Think about a child with a father who abandons her and a mother who she’s never seen. Lee has a sister and mother in Kentucky he doesn’t visit much. But the two young people thrive on murdering and eating people. Lee leads by finding unsuspecting victims they both can chew on. At the end of the film I have had far too much for my mind, spirit, body and, last but not least, my palate.
Guadagnino directed Timothée Chalamet in another film, Call Me by Your Name (2017), about forbidden love set in the 1980s in Italy.
Cast: Timothée Chalamet (Lee), Taylor Russell (Maren), Mark Rylance (Sully), Andre Holland (Maren’s father), Ellie Parker (Jackie), Madeleine Hall (Kim), Chloë Sevigny (Janelle).
Director: Luca Guadagnino.
Running time: 131 minutes. (R)
