She lies there on the floor of the room, still and barely moving. Her gaze is gentle, almost innocent. A girl is next to her; pretends to be interested in what happened in her past. But Maren herself knows that she is only fooling her. She hardly remembers herself. And the fragments her brain can still put together are memories that others her age don’t have. The unknown girl wants to show her the freshly painted nail polish – she doesn’t like the orange at all, but Maren has no eyes for it. She suddenly feels this need, this desire that she has buried long and deep within herself. And then it happens: she can’t control herself, she has to satisfy this hunger. That’s why her teeth spring out and she can taste it, the blood, the bones, the everything. Only then does Maren really realize: she’s not like everyone else, she’s an eater.
Luca Guardagnino’s latest film “Bones and All” is a love story with a very special taste. Its protagonists, Maren and Lee, don’t have to come to terms with finding themselves like other teenagers. No, they’ve already done it. They know exactly who they are and that they can’t retreat from uncontrollable cannibalism. So the two embark on a journey together through the interior of the United States, accompanied by wonderful landscape shots and sunsets and an unforgettably melancholic soundtrack delivered by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor.
It was in its horror moments that I found the film strongest; the gore settles on your body and makes your hair stand on end. There were several moments where I almost jumped up out of my seat because I couldn’t believe the moral values these characters held. You can suddenly smell the flesh as well, feel the vermin on your skin, and are completely lulled by the natura and lore of a killer. Paired with the love story, however, it creates a two-pronged sword: the genre transitions unfortunately failed to satiate my appetite, mostly due to the fact that I got the feeling while watching that a lot of character development from the book was edited down for the film and especially the romance aspect has suffered from it.
While the first half is based primarily through an incredibly gruesome Mark Rylance, with Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet close behind, the characters were told off over the running time quicker than the film wanted to admit. Taylor Russell’s Maren embarks on this journey with simply quite precise character motivations, and after that plot point is ticked off, you’d think this journey would be nearing its climax. Eventually, Maren wants to change and take her life into her own hands. She can’t go on the way she did before. But it comes as it must, and the cycle continues. The big cartesian moment is also less of a revelation than it wants to be, because when you follow characters with such diabolical leitmotifs, you know what past demons they have to contend with and where their journey will end.
“Bones and All” is a film that I would have loved to pick as my personal highlight of the year, but for me, after watching it, there are still too many unanswered questions about the script. Still, every acting performance, regardless of screen time, absolutely must be singled out. And such original and extraordinary concepts, either way, you have to admire for their courage and intrepidity. Despite the problems I had, I’m happy that most people can eat this completely up.
