Bones And All Movie Review
Nathan Swank
December 5th, 2022
I’ve said this sort of thing before, but I am so thankful that I knew virtually nothing about BONES AND ALL before watching the film. With an incredible opening that tells so much about our characters through the action and culminates into a deliciously dark surprise, BONES AND ALL hooks its teeth into the viewer for one fascinating ride.
Hopefully, I didn’t sell the film as some sort of action film because it is purely drama with a mix of dare I say horror? BONES AND ALL is a coming-of-age and love story with family drama told through a Regean era midwest road trip genre while all utilizing the horror of cannibalism as a centerpiece. And yet it is quite beautiful in its humanity as an allegory of being an outcast. I know that sounds like a lot of genres and themes to conquer, but director Luca Guadagnino achieves this complexity with simplicity and ease. Yes, that may seem contradictory, but it works and it works wonderfully.
The cinematography by Arseni Khachaturan is incredible, fully realizing the space and time of the open road midwest where our characters exist. The screenplay by David Kajganich based on the novel by Camille DeAngelis wonderfully captures the emotional struggles of our protagonists. Timothee Chalamet and Taylor Russell give amazing performances as complex characters dealing with deep rooted issues from their past and present while balancing some sort of morality. They are good people who crave to do a bad thing. Mark Rylance delivers a supporting Oscar worthy performance that is hauntingly quiet and commanding. The few times his character appears on screen the film jumps alive in a wickedly strange way, which somehow grounds the abnormality. Maren (Russell) and Lee (Chalamet) deal with shame, guilt, and loneliness with this dark and horrific craving as they try to survive on the outskirts of society.
I may have been one of the few people who did not like Luca Guadagnino’s CALL ME BY YOUR NAME. I found it to be an awful depiction of love masked in a sympathetic view of the misunderstanding and difficulties of homosexuality while ignoring the problematic situation of confusing lustfulness with love in youth. However, BONES AND ALL succeeds giving sympathy and understanding to all who struggle with their own demons and wish they didn’t or in simply trying to survive being an outcast and finding a companion.
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