Bones and All: A "Foodie" Romance Set Among People Who Eat People
By Thom Ernst
Rating: B+
It's odd, a bit ironic, and—if there is any intent to imitate and justify a disturbing reality—a tad troubling that the man who directs Bones and All is the same man who directed an actor accused of cannibalistic intent..
Of course, this story about young lovers cursed with an unnatural taste for human flesh already existed as a novel before director Luca Guadagnino was called upon to direct. To attach any responsibility for the film's concept on Guadagnino is not wrong, but neither is it accurate.
Yes, Guadagnino directed Armie Hammer, the handsome Call Me By Your Name (2017) star accused of a cannibalism fetish. But he didn't hire Hammer to be in the film—that would be insane.
Lee (Timothée Chalamet) (left) and Maren (Taylor Russell) ponder their next meal in Bones and All
Bones and All is a romantic horror film that has, I think, a close relationship to Terrence Malick's Badlands. Bones and All is steeped in the sullen existence of backroads America, where the impression of small-town peacefulness is betrayed by stints of poverty and isolation.
It's unlikely the bizarre connection between Guadagnino's Bones and All and the accusations against Hammer goes unnoticed. But that doesn't mean Guadagnino was selected to direct because of any personal sympathy he might have for his former star, even though the film does count on the audience embracing (i.e. empathizing) with its main characters, Maren (Taylor Russell) and Lee (Timothée Chalamet).
Russell and Chalamet are young cannibals who find each other (by smell) and fall in love. They aren't the bad guys. One strives for a life of normalcy, and the other has a philosophical acceptance of their affliction and simply does what needs to be done.
Sometimes that means luring unsuspecting family men into a deadly trap. Generally, their hunt is confined to loners and bullies, the Dexters of cannibals. The accuracy of their performances and others in the film don't distract from the story, but lends perfectly to the film's pitch-black absurdity.
Other performances also excel. David Gordon Green, director of the latest Halloween trilogy, appears as a fellow (but suspiciously more malicious) 'eater,' Jessica Harper as Maren's estranged grandmother, and Chlöe Sevigny as Maren's mother. But the most significant performance, surpassing even Russell and Chalamet, is Mark Rylance as Sully, an older eater with a disconcerting habit of referring to himself in the third person.
Rylance's Sully is intentionally off-putting, a man who exerts an uneasy and unqualified benevolence. Sully's creepy attempts to mentor the much younger Maren lacks compassion and show signs of suffocating neediness even in early scenes.
I have not read the book Bones and All by author Camille DeAngelis, but sensed from Guadagnino's direction and screenwriter David Kajganich's script, the story's scope as it must have appeared on the page.
The movie feels like a novel with well-developed characters weaved through the story without feeling like segmented excerpts from a more extensive work. The film's love story is made more palatable by casting two beautiful people as the leads. And Kajganich's script finds all the right words and tone to tell the story.
Bones and All received praise when it appeared at the Venice Film Festival where it won the Silver Lion Award. It received equal praise at the screening I attended, where the entire audience was either a critic or related to the industry.
I feared this might be my Bosley Crowther moment, the famed, highly influential (back when film critics were influential) New York Times critic who saw his relevance wane after slamming Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde. It was enough to drive me to a brief conversation with a colleague who writes films for one of Canada's premiere dailies and bemoans my inability to embrace the movie with the same kind of enthusiasm.
I can't say I like Bones and All because I didn't, but I recognize the rationale for championing this dark, unsettling film. I don't doubt the intent of the film is to disturb. This is a movie to be appreciated, not liked.
And if the measure of a film's success is whether it fulfills its intent, then there is no recourse but to announce Bones and All as an inequitable success.
Bones and All.Directed by Luca Guadagnino. Starring Timothée Chalamet, Taylor Russell, Mark Rylance, Jessica Harper, Chlöe Sevigny, and David Gordon Green. Opens in selected theatres November 25.