Italian film director Luca Guadagnino’s latest project “Bones and All,” based on Camille Deangelis’ 2015 novel of the same name, is as equally peculiar and passionate as a tale of two cannibal lovers can be.
The film melds the fleeting romance of Guadagnino’s previous work “Call Me by Your Name” (2017) with the strangely beautiful gore of his remake of the 1977 horror film “Suspiria” (2018).
It is a heartfelt movie that has more layers than the premise lets on.
The movie’s beginning introduces a mixed teenager named Maren Yearly — masterfully played by the alluring Taylor Russell — who is settling down in a new town in 1980s Virginia with her father, played by André Holland. She sneaks out of her father’s dilapidated house to meet her more privileged high school acquaintances for a slumber party.
Overcome by a seemingly random ravenous desire, Maren bites into one of the girls’ fingers and flees the scene.
From there on, the story leisurely unravels as Maren embarks on a journey to find her long-lost mother after being abandoned by her father, Frank, who left home after the slumber party disaster. He leaves only a wad of cash, Maren’s birth certificate and a tape cassette.
Along her voyage, Maren crosses paths with the enigmatic Lee, played by Timothée Chalamet, who shares the same cannibalistic tendencies as she does.
The pair’s on-screen chemistry is by far the strongest limb of the film’s frame. Russell and Chalamet both deliver some of the most riveting performances of the year. Their bittersweet connection is as believable as their cravings for humans. For a moment in time, the audience is completely lost in the two’s tenderness only to be gruesomely ripped away by the overwhelming reality that the characters are far from innocent; they’re cold-blooded killers who run on an inhumane impulse for human flesh.
Despite its stomach-churning exploration of cannibalism, Guadagnino manages to lace luscious guitar strings into the movie’s score and a charming color gradient into the cinematography that transforms the film into a wildly different experience than what the audience may have predicted.. By the end of the movie, the viewer finds themselves rooting for the animalistic lovers.
“Bones and All” proves that award-winning director Guadagnino is proficient in mastering an array of genres; young love and cannibalism have never worked so well together.
At its core, “Bones and All” is a challenge to make the ugly seem beautiful, and savagery appear nuanced. It is a dreamy allegory for two outcasts coming of age and falling in love.
Maren and Lee are consistently at odds with the morality of eating people; they recognize its consequences yet are incapable of quitting, like a drug an addict feels they can’t put down without losing a piece of themselves.
As alarming as the subject matter is, Guadagnino handles it wisely. The violence isn’t too self-indulgent, and the depictions of cannibalism serve as pitiful reminders that even monsters require love.
While the film may lack the horror genre’s classic usage of jump scares and fictional monsters, “Bones and All” is just as nail-biting as its horror movie cousins. It relies more on suspense and its uncanny ability to make the audience feel empathy for cannibals.
“Bones and All” stands tall and strong as a film about accepting love when you feel undeserving and protecting the ones you love from yourself.
“Bones and All” is available for viewing in theaters.