Bones and All: Fine Young Cannibals in Love

Virginia, 1988. Having no recollection of her mother, high school outcast Maren plucks up the courage to embark on a long, challenging journey to find her. Instead, as Maren struggles to understand, facing her well-hidden adolescent longings on the fringes of Ronald Reagan-era America, a chance encounter with enigmatic pariah and handsome soulmate Lee gives voice to the unspoken expectations of first love. Now, uneasy feelings and all-consuming impulses take over, and the raw, visceral need for companionship and connection in an indifferent society brings to light the wild side of humankind. More than anything, Maren wants to come to terms with her past to find her place in the world. But what’s it like to give in to love, bones and all?

Review:

Bones and All, a cannibal love story directed by Luca Guadagino, is everything the Twilight movies could have but never dared to be. It’s transgressive. Cannibalism is probably the ultimate human taboo. It’s romantic. It has Timothy Chalemet, this decades heartthrob and hotest young actor. It’s scary intellectually in the way it tries to normalize the taboo, fuck with your head to understand the metaphor as the process of love itself. Cannibalism is just not chaste bloodsucking neck biting. it’s consuming one totally body and soul. it means going all in. It’s gruesome enough for the avid horror fan.

Especially noteworthy is the way Bones and All aestheticize the feral as essential human nature. Eaters, as cannibals refer to themselves, can smell each other miles away. They are portrayed as a marginalized subculture. Snacking on babysitters is usually their introduction to their essential genetic identity. Their moral code permits them to eat the very old, sick and dying- never each other. They’re the ecological cullers of the human race. And like vampires, they’re behavior can only exist in the shadows, safeguarded by the most trusted love ones and other eaters. Bones and All literally and figuratively eats under your skin. It builds up to the violation of the last taboo itself, the preeminent romantic gesture, once you think the metaphor totally through.

Guadagino twists it all to make Bones and All the ultimate outlaw romance- Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands for the 2020’s. Chalemet and Taylor Russell have a chemistry and sweetness that makes them sympathetic You’re not scared of what these two fine young cannibals might do to anyone else. They are not drawn as monsters. They’re misunderstood teens. They’re always striving for an emotionally and ethically sustainable approach to cannibalism. They’re trying to fit in.

Despite its R rating, its commitment and unwavering passion Bones and All is definitely and resolutely adolescent, in a very Romeo and Juliet way. It never seems undercooked, and is faithful to its Camille Deangellis source novel.