Hungry Hearts

Movies: Bones and All

General spoiler warning

Well...I spent $20 to rent this movie "early access" on Amazon. That's how much I wanted to see it. Was it worth it? Eh, not the full 20, but probably worth the 12 bucks I would have paid to see it in theatres if I could have.

Bones and All is the latest Luca Guadagnino film (he directed my favorite movie of the last 10 years, Call Me By Your Name) and he brings his signature dreamy style to a story about two fine young cannibals who fall in love on a road trip across America.

Based on the young adult novel by Camille DeAngelis, the movie takes place in the 1980s and follows Maren (Taylor Russell), a teen girl who has intense, cannibalistic urges. Her single father, Frank (Andre Holland), protects her from the consequences of biting and eating people by moving them from state to state whenever Maren gives in to her urges. But shortly after her 18th birthday, Frank abandons Maren, leaving her some cash, her birth certificate, and a cassette tape explaining that Maren first began eating people when she was 3 years old and Frank came home to find the babysitter dead and Maren covered in blood. 

With nowhere to go, Maren buys a bus ticket to Columbus, Ohio to begin a road trip to Minnesota, where she believes her mother, Janelle, lives. In Ohio, she meets Sully (Mark Rylance) and man who approaches her after smelling her from half a mile away. Sully explains that he is an Eater and that Eaters can smell other Eaters. Maren, thinking she was the only one with this problem, is shocked that there are others. She goes with Sully to a house where he reveals an elderly woman dying on the floor. When the woman passes, Sully and Maren eat her together. But Maren is creeped out by Sully and leaves the next day.

With her new knowledge that she can smell people like her, she sniffs out Lee (Timothee Chalamet, wonderfully genderfluid and queer in this film), another young Eater, in a grocery story in Indiana. Lee offers to drive Maren to Minnesota, and the two develop a relationship along the way. Lee even introduces Maren to his sister, Kayla (Anna Cobb)--a teenager who doesn't know about Lee's proclivities.

The two lovebirds also run into some potentially dangerous Eaters along the way. An excellent scene with Jake (Michael Stuhlbarg) and Brad (David Gordon Green), two very creepy Eaters they meet while spending the night near a lake, was my personal favorite scene in the movie: a scene of genuine unease and danger. But the film focuses less on the underground world of the Eaters and more on Lee and Maren's relationship, which disappointed me a bit.

They do eventually track down Maren's mother, which leads to perhaps the most devastating scene in the movie. Janelle, played by Chloe Sevigny, is in a mental institution. Both of her forearms are amputated, as she cannibalized herself. A nurse gives a letter to Maren than Janelle wrote, but instead of providing love and comfort, Janelle tells Maren in the letter that she, Maren, would be better off dead than living as a "monster". Janelle then tries to attack Maren, who runs away.

All the tragedy they experience brings Lee and Maren closer together. Lee reveals that he killed and ate his abusive father and Maren doesn't judge him for it. The two resolve to find a place to live, get jobs, resist their urges, and try to be "people" together. But fate has a different plan for them.

I'll forgo revealing the ending, but let's just say that Bones and All is a tragedy...and how could it not be? Every older Eater Lee and Maren meet is screwed up. The isolation, the nomadic lifestyle, the justification of constantly violating a universal taboo--it makes any Eater who survives into middle-age a weirdo at best and a violent sociopath at worst. Lee and Maren attempt to live a normal life for a while, but like all the other Eaters they encounter, life as a normal person is simply not in the cards.

Overall, I found Bones and All to be good, but not great. As I said above, I was more interested in the secret world of the Eaters. I wanted to know more about Sully and Jake and Brad. But the film is ultimately a romance, focusing on the emotions between Lee and Maren. This is fine, and the romance is believable and intense (the way Chalamet and Russell kiss each other looks a bit like cannibalism in and of itself), but I feel like there was another movie in the periphery of this one that I would have enjoyed more.

Some have said that this is the grossest movie of the year, but to be honest, I found it to be pretty tame for what it is. It's a cannibal movie for cripes sake. I mean, I ate chicken tacos and beans while watching it and I was fine! 

I would recommend this movie to people who feel like they can handle it. I know that cannibalism in particular is a hard no for many people. If you're the kind of person who thinks "young love cannibal road trip movie? I'm in!", then you'll probably enjoy Bones and All. Me? I liked it...but it left me hungry for more.

Grade: B+