Bones and All – Film Review

Love blossoms between a young woman on the margins of society and a disenfranchised drifter as they embark on a 3,000-mile odyssey through the backroads of America. However, despite their best efforts, all roads lead back to their terrifying pasts and a final stand that will determine whether their love can survive their differences.

Few movies this year have left me feeling totally razzled and completely disturbed the way that Luca Guadagnino‘s Bones and All made me feel. It’s a disgusting thrill-ride into the lives of two cannibalistic teenagers who fall in love with each other and travel the world while also feasting on some bodies along the way.

Obviously, this movie isn’t going to be for everyone. Some are going to watch the first fifteen minutes and feel so sick to their stomach that they’ll be forced to turn it off, never to watch it again. Guadagnino invoked a similar response with his 2018 remake of Suspiria.

Not only was that film stylistically intense and out there, but it was also a film that would definitely not sit well with everybody. But I must say that Bones and All is easily his most refined yet terrifying work of art to date. There’s hardly a scene in this over two-hour journey into madness that feels out of place or unnecessary.

Even just watching these two teenagers drive around and sit with each other in total silence is filled with meaning, and it’s these small character beats that are my absolute favorites. There’s just something so off-putting about watching these two youngsters enjoying a summer day minutes after feasting on a human body.

And what makes all of this even scarier is the fact that the film makes the decision to show them eating normal food too. It’s not as if they’re living in a post-apocalyptic world in which human bodies are the only source of nutrition. They just enjoy eating people, period. It’s sickening to watch and yet you’ll find yourself incapable of looking away.

Taylor Russell has been on my radar ever since seeing her in Escape Room and its sequel Tournament of Champions. She was great in those films but I was waiting for her to star in a film that would truly blow me away, and now that day has come. Russell is totally awards-worthy here in the role of Maren. Even just looking into her eyes is occasionally terrifying. Russell has mastered facial expression acting.

There’s also Timothée Chalamet as Lee, who is definitely the most intriguing character in the film, right next to Mark Rylance‘s creepy Sully. The cast of this film is absolutely superb, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a ton of them getting Oscar nominations for this film when the time comes.

If you think that you can stomach all of this movie’s madness, then I implore you to watch Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All. It’s one of the best movies of the year and serves as even more proof that Guadagnino is one of the best directors working today. I can’t wait to see what he does next.

Disturbing, sickening, and downright thrilling, Bones and All serves as even more proof that Luca Guadagnino is one of the best filmmakers working today.