Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All is as beautiful as it is disgusting. When I sat down in theaters to watch the highly-anticipated film (based on the novel by Camille DeAngelis), I was utterly oblivious to the rollercoaster of emotions it would induce.
The gorgeous cinematography and sensual feel to the film can be expected from Guadagnino, but the acting really makes this film unique. Set in mid-80s America, Taylor Russel stars as Maren, a recently disowned young girl on a quest to find her long-lost mother. Timothée Chalamet stars as a young and alluring orange-haired drifter named Lee, and his magnetic chemistry with Russel is palpable even through the screen. It’s clear these two see something in each other that the rest of the world cannot. In this way, Bones and All is a romance through and through.
What sets this film apart, though, is the fact that Maren and Lee are self-described “eaters”. They may order pancakes at the local diner, but what they really crave is human flesh. Their survival depends on regular cannibalistic binges. Together, they explore this dark impulse, driven by the need to eat but terrified by what it could mean to find someone to share this lifestyle with.
Bones and All doesn’t hold back in its use of gore. I spent much of the movie holding my breath in shock at the scenes of our eaters, face-deep in the human flesh, smeared in the blood of their victims. The blunt gorey imagery was a stark contrast with the otherwise dreamy tone of the film, but Guadagnino made it work. However, despite its violence and carnage, Bones and All is remarkably intimate and heartfelt.
Maren, sincere and curious, wants to find an ethical approach to cannibalism. If the compulsion to eat other people can’t be suppressed, could it somehow be controlled? She is certain in her belief that she is a good person. It seems that eaters make their own rules. For example, Sully, an elderly eater who Maren meets along the way, attempts to seek out victims who are on the verge of death – “Never, never, ever eat another eater,” he warns Maren. Lee, on the other hand, persuades himself that it’s the compulsion that makes him do it and that his victims had it coming.
Since the two disagree on how to go about satisfying their needs, Maren moves through her newly discovered lifestyle with innocence and guilt. The vulnerability of falling in love for the first time clashes with the moral conundrum she has to confront. But Maren soon realizes that Lee is her only hope in this world where she is so different, and they agree to try their hand at a peacefully mundane life. “You wanna be people?” says Lee, “Let’s be people.”
There is something about Maren and Lee that makes it nearly impossible to see them as monsters. What defines Maren and Lee is something they’re born with, something that cannot be understood. It can’t be changed, only controlled. Their journey, with its ups and downs, is a path to self-discovery. They love each other so deeply that they want to become one with each other. Through Lee’s final sacrifice at the end of the movie, he allows them to do just that.
Bones and All proves to us that there is always someone out there for you in this world, no matter how alone you feel.
i love this article!