Formula: Romeo & Juliet + Raw
You know, the A Bigger Splash and Call Me By Your Name Luca Guadagnino is fun but the Suspiria and Bones and All Guidagnino is even funner. Bones and All is a fairly ridiculous idea (adapted from a book): two cannibal drifters fall in love and travel around the Midwest in the 80s. It's a lot, especially when you consider that it had awards potential in the buildup. For the most part though, it works. I like that the story is episodic. Taylor Russell plays Maren, a girl whose father abandons her after her latest flesh-eating outburst; not because he doesn't love her. He just doesn't know what to do anymore. Maren ends up meeting other cannibals like a creepy older one, Sully (Mark Rylance), and a younger, dreamier one, Lee (Timothee Chalamet). The film moves through Maren figuring out the ins and outs of her life as a cannibal. Her main mission is to find the mother who she never met and see if she can learn anything about her...condition.
Unfortunate haircuts aside, the whole cast is pretty good. Russell and Chalamet have good chemistry. I like that I can imagine a relationship between them even if there was not cannibalism. Granted, the cannibalism pretty much shapes everything about them. Rylance is creepy, veering into unintentionally comical. It's a fine line that he likes to ride with his performances and he mostly pulls it off. A few other Guadagnino regulars show up for a spell, like Michael Stuhlbarg and Chloe Sevigny.
Bones and All falls into that "I liked it more than I expected but not enough" space. While I liked the decision to tell it episodically, none of the episodes were particularly great. It revels in the white-trash Midwest aesthetic a bit too much for my taste. The movie is a bloody mess, literally. The cannibalism felt like a poorly defined metaphor though. Like the movie was being smart despite not being sure what point it was making.
Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend
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