Movie Review : Bones & All (2022)
It's difficult to say whether Luca Guadagnino's cannibal romance movie Bones & All would've garnered more interest from critics and moviegoing audiences if pal of the director and co-Oscar nominee Armie Hammer hadn't been caught in a scandal involving alleged real life cannibalism, but it is safe so affirm not many people have seen it. It has not quite made its budget back, which is quite rare and qualifies the movie for the dreaded label of "flop". But I'm here to tell you it's a fucking tragedy that it is.
Bones & All is one of the best films I've seen from 2022.
In case you're unfamiliar, Bones & All doesn't have anything to do with Armie Hammer's deviousness. It's the adaptation of a 2015 novel by Camille DeAngelis. The protagonist is a young woman named Maren Yearly (Taylor Russell) who has the irrepressible need to eat human flesh. It’s something that she doesn't understand or control and which drives her to the very margins of society. This is where she meets Lee (Timothée Chalamet), also unwilling cannibal and redneck heartthrob who shows her how to survive.
Cannibalism, Marginality and Fucking Romance
Alright, let's talk about that cannibalism thing.
If you're looking for romantic Cannibal Holocaust, you're going to be disappointed by this movie. But you already knew that, didn't you? Eating human flesh is an important part of this story, but it's also quite accessory. They could've sucked unsuspecting people's blood or inject heroin into one another's eyeballs and the point would've been the same. Maren and Lee have a "condition" that marginalizes them. It's fucking awesome that this condition if cannibalism if you ask me, because it's fucking terrifying.
The cannibalism is an allegory for marginality, but it's a pretty vivid one. Maren and Lee are unwilling monster with a craving to feed and not just superpowered heartthrobs in grungy clothing. In many ways, heir behaviour mirrors the behaviour of addicts who hurt whoever they come across. They're not nice. They're surviving. But what makes Bones & All work is interweaved between all that. It's the moments where nothing happens. The pregnant silences. The brief respites where Maren and Lee can be themselves.
Our two protagonist power through some gnarly shit together even if there isn't much of a light at the end of the tunnel because they're found a reason to. Their world is grey, oppressive and grimy, but whenever the sun literally or metaphorically pokes through the ugly, greasy clouds, it feels so warm and real that you almost feel it on your skin. It's the struggle not to lose their humanity, greatly counterpointed by the character of Sully (the always underrated Mark Rylance), that makes Maren and Lee original and powerful.
They're experiencing one of the best things about being human although they’re not exactly that and they nurture it.
Guadagnino's Seedy Underbelly
Movies about "the seedy underbelly of America" are a dime a dozen. You know what movies I'm talking about: the movies about the dirty, forgotten towns and byzantine highways. Bones & All is kind of one of these movies, albeit it has more heart and creative vision. Obviously, the road is a super important character in this movie. The concept, not the endless slabs of asphalt. But Luca Guadagnino's America feels wildly alive where other underbelly movies feel like a horror move prop.
Sometimes it's gorgeous and warm. Sometimes it's dark and cold. Sometimes it's fucking murderous. Maren and Lee are traveling backwards to places of their past, but the road writes their own story as they’re traveling through the territory. Bones & All might seem like a very simple movie about two young people falling in love, but it's not simple at all. It's about survival too and seeing beauty where no one else does. Not everyone will get it, but if you’ve had a part of your life where you didn’t have much to live for, you will.
*
I enjoyed Bones & All even more than I expected to. It's a sweet, warm movie about two young people who do criminal and morally reprehensible stuff in order to survive. They live in a way that would eat at anyone's soul and yet they refuse to part with what connects them to the very society who rejected them. Bones & All is beautiful and nuanced and understated like only Lucas Guadagnino seems capable of. Now that it's becoming available on VOD, this one needs more love than it has been given.
