“Bones and All” is a love story, set in the 1980s and centered around modern cannibals. The film is based on Camille DeAngelis’ novel by the same name. The screenplay adaptation is by David Kajganich and the director is Luca Guadagnino.
Where does one begin? Maren (Taylor Russell) is abandoned by her father at the age of 18, leaving behind a tape that is a record of her earliest episodes as a cannibal, along with her birth certificate. It’s assumed that her father knows that she craves human flesh, and to stop possible forays into the brutality of the lifestyle, he removes himself from her life.
Maren is drifting in the world, alone, when she realizes that her hunger to eat human flesh can’t be controlled. To her horror, she discovers that she’s not alone, and her kind are called “eaters” (as they refer to themselves) and can find their others through their scent. The eaters have a hard and fast rule not to eat each other, but there are renegades who find the idea of devouring each other enticing.
At the start of her self-discovery as a cannibal, she meets Sully (Mark Rylance), a bizarre eater who shows her the ropes. He makes it feel natural-as-rain to eat others, having curated his bigger-than-life personality, living his “best life” without regret. In fact, he keeps an organic memento of those that he hunted and devoured.
Imagine the awakening that begins to shape Maren, who steps into a perpetual state of self-discovery: first an innocent victim to genetics, she’s filled to the top with aching guilt. Then she falls in love—complete with the butterflies and all—with Lee (Timothée Chalamet). His mop of hair dyed orange, he’s an eater who kills without an ounce of remorse. When they finally connect, partners in crime, they disagree on how to go about satisfying their cannibalistic needs.
This movie is complicated. It’s hard to look away and the chemistry between all of the key characters crackles. Sound is a major part of the cinematic experience and the sound of human flesh being rapturously devoured, early in the movie, sets the tone.
Kajganich’s adaptation of DeAngelis’ novel beautifully infuses the bloody and
gruesome part that marks the journey of all of the eaters. As told through the lens of
cinematographer Arseni Khachaturan, it almost makes the cannibal life a romantic journey. Almost.