Luca Guadagnino, the director behind the Oscar nominated Call me by your name, returns with this beautifully disturbing romantic drama starring Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell.
Set in the Reagan era American mid-West, the film begins innocently enough, with Russell’s Maren, a young high schooler, enjoying a sleepover with friends. However, the night quickly turns sour when she inexplicably bites off her friends finger. Fleeing the scene, the teenager is consequently abandoned by her father, a single parent who can take her cannibalistic nature no more, and forced into a life on the streets. There, she crosses paths with Chalamet’s wiry young drifter Lee, an enigmatic outsider, who Maren soon discovers shares her bizarre desire to consume human flesh. Bonding over their secret shame, the pair become kindred spirits and embark on a road trip to find Maren’s estranged mother. Hoping the woman they’ve never met, may be able to shed light on Maren’s past and the source of her uncontrollable urges. Adapted from the award winning 2015 novel by Camille DeAngelis, Italian director Guadagnino and screen writer David Kajganich craft an absorbing drama, which despite its methodical pacing, is utterly captivating viewing. Integrating moments of truly gruesome horror, the film successfully blends genres to create a legitimately romantic coming of age story.
The 80’s setting works well and is accompanied by an eerie Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score, which interspersed with songs from the time period, give the film an atmospheric road movie feel.
Taylor Russell’s lead performance as Maren, is elegant and delicately nuanced, while Chalamet is perfectly cast as the streetwise Lee.
Drawn together by a special sense that allows them to ‘smell’ other eaters, but also by their deep yearning for connection, the couple’s desperation for a normal life is clear as they embark on their thousand mile odyssey. Somehow the film succeeds in making the pairs cannibalism palatable, despite it’s grisly nature, which is testament to how invested you become in the characters.
As the story progresses, it oozes with a dark foreboding, as the pair encounter other less scrupulous members of their kind. Michael Stuhlbarg is one such eater, and he produces a scene stealing, but all too brief performance, while Mark Rylance has a much more prominent role, delivering a brilliantly creepy turn as the sickly-sweet Sully.
With beautifully captured visuals from cinematographer Arseni Khachaturan, Guadagnino’s film is part teen romance, part macabre horror, with a wandering narrative that somehow never loses its focus.
As mesmerising as it is heartbreaking, Bones and all is a late, blood soaked contender for film of the year.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Paul Steward @grittster
8/12/22