Year of Release: 2022
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Starring: Taylor Russell, Timothée Chalamet, Mark Rylance, Kendle Coffey, André Holland, Chloe Sevigny, David Gordon Green, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jessica Harper, Sean Bridgers
Genre: Drama, Horror
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 7
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Synopsis and Review
Director Luca Guadagnino has stayed steadily busy since his underrated "Suspiria" came out in 2018. He has shot a variety of short feature films, tackled the series "We Are Who We Are" and already has two films ready to be released. "Bones and All" is an adaption of the book by Camille DeAngelis, with a script by his usual collaborator David Kajganich, and it follows the narrative of Maren, a teenage girl who lives with her father Frank in the Maryland area. Maren is a cannibal, something that is a genetic aspect of who she is, and her father has been the "cleaner" of whatever situations unravel as a result of her nature. He decides to leave her after she turns 18 and does so in the middle of the night, leaving her some cash and a cassette tape explaining his decision and giving her some guidance. She decides to go seek her mother, who abandoned the family when she was but an infant. She decides to go to Minnesota, since it is listed as her own birthplace and she assumes her mom is still living there. She decides to take the bus to get to her destination, but as she begins her journey she encounters situations and people that challenge what she has experienced thus far. Firstly she meets Sully, who introduces himself as a fellow "eater", and they both end up sharing a feast, though Maren quickly grows weary of him and boards the greyhound bus to continue her journey. Next she comes in contact with a young man named Lee, who is also another "eater", who decides to help her locate her mother. Lee has a past of his own, but they both become close, and eventually fall in love. Maren tracks down the home of her maternal grandmother, who lets her know that her mother has been in a psychiatric hospital for years. When she finally visits and meets her mother, she suddenly realizes the solutions she seeks are not there.
What has now become a trait or central motif for Luca Guadagnino's films, is a narrative thread where his lead characters go through a journey of finding out who they actually are, where they come to terms with their true nature, no matter what the cost of that acknowledgement actually is (even if it means alienating family, lovers and confidants). That has been the case for Tilda Swinton's character in "I Am Love", Dakota Johnson's character in "Suspiria" and even "A Bigger Splash", and even Timothée Chalamet's character in "Call Me By Your Name". This is something that is also present in "Bones and All", where Maren is on a journey of finding out who her mother is, but in reality is seeking out answers that may explain why she is the way she is, something that justifies her own nature. She eventually finds love in the process, but not before actually coming to terms with her own uniqueness. Luca Guadagnino is a stylistic director, in parallel with being one who is able to build universes that are perfectly illustrative of a certain time period and locale, for instance, this time around he focuses in Middle America during the 1980s (in "Suspiria" it was Berlin of the 70s). He also manages to find beauty in the shots he captures, echoing at times the alienation or isolation of his characters by representing the emptiness and desolation of the spaces in which they move. In "Bones and All" as Maren and Lee become closer, it's interesting to witness their closeness, their interactions and even the spaces in which they move themselves into, all of which becomes sunnier and brighter. It's a road movie, that is somehow much more than that, a geographical journey that is echoed in an internal journey of self discovery for Maren, and to a certain extent with Lee. The characters could have benefited of a bit more attention, particularly the supporting ones (Maren's mother alone could have deserved an entire chapter of her own), but the narrative is arresting and compelling nonetheless. The cast is uniformly solid, led by Taylor Russell, Timothée Chalamet, Mark Rylance and Chloe Sevigny. The cinematography from Arseni Khachaturan is stunning, as is the score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. A very good film from a very interesting author worth watching.
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