Gun: That would be Taylor Russell. Director Luca Guadagnino does to her what he did to Timothy in “Call Me by Your Name”
Anton Chekhov once wrote to a colleague: “It is never permissible to put a loaded gun on a platform if it has not exploded. It is wrong to make promises that you do not intend to keep.” So when Michael Stolberg described to a pair of young cannibal enthusiasts the transcendent experience of consuming someone”bones and everythingCarrying bullets in the form of a corpse in Luca GuadagninoCinematic Venice.
The lovers consist of Marin (Taylor Russell) and Lee (Timothée Chalamet), both “eaters” with a hunger for human flesh passed down by their families’ bloodlines. We are first introduced to Maren as a shy-looking sunflower in a dilapidated high school. Immediately there is a slight strangeness in the hallways with the blood-red cupboards and walls lined with the flat watercolors of the American landscape that the movie will soon call home.
Marin is invited to the house of a friendly fellow to sleep, but her father (Andre Holland) does not allow it, locking her in her room with the windows closed. As a teen, she can’t resist defying his orders and sneaks up on an evening of girlish festivities. The movie has homosexuality up its sleeve all the time, and the sexual chemistry between Maren and an unsuspecting teenage girl under the table reaches a climax as she shows Maren her nail polish. Marin gently puts her finger in her mouth, agonizing for a moment before gnawing with all her might, blood splashing down her chin and on an oversized ’80s sweater.
Her father was furious but not surprised, shouting at her to take what she could for the next three minutes before rushing over before the police could find them. Holland, even with screen time limited to the opening ten minutes, the occasional dream flashback, and sound on cassette tape, is mesmerized in her role as a beleaguered father, struggling with the limits of his responsibility. On Marin’s 18th birthday, she wakes up to find him gone, leaving behind the cassette with an explanation of why he left him and her birth certificate. Marin returns to the cassette again and again, each time Hollande’s words heartbreaking and full of pain and regret.
Birth certificate in hand, and now with proof of who the mother she’s never met might be, Marin sets out across the country to find some answers about who or what she is. On her first stop in Maryland, she met her first fellow “Cannibal” in Sully, played with signature Mark Rylance. The two share a meal from a newly expired elderly woman who evokes Leatherface’s sinister life in the final chapter of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The two eaters share intense senses and the screen seems to smell of death. This is the first indication of Guadagnino’s carefully curated aesthetic that will strike the five senses to create an absolute feast.
Blood flows through gothic mahogany in rooms lined with floral wallpaper and 80s tchotchkes, made even better thanks to the movie’s stunning sound design. Some scenes bring a separate cannibal for chomping, others have winds surging across the American Plains. The soundtrack, which is largely appropriate, featuring a spin and a kiss, is used perfectly throughout. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross move on to the movie, “(You Made Him Feel Like Home)”, in eerie unison with the agonizing tragedy of the movie itself.
After learning about Sully’s very bad reactions, including an 8-foot strand of human hair (which inspired the movie’s hilarious moments: “Christ. That’s a choice!”) Marin sets out once more to meet Lee, another “eat.” The chemistry between the two threads is beautiful, but still the biggest love story between Chalamet and Guadagnino as the director shoots his face with adoration, and it’s hard not to be moved by their bond.
And the consequent apparent homage to Terrence Malick’s “Badlands”, as the two travel across the country through golden hour horizons, but the film is more gentle toward its patrons, capturing everything from an initial kiss at a slaughterhouse to swimming in a Kentucky lake with a childlike feel. of amazement. Most noticeable is when our lovers sit on the edge of a valley in Nebraska, where Chalamet shows off his unparalleled ability to weep with kindness. There’s nothing unconventional about showing two reclusive souls falling in love by having them stare into each other’s eyes against a sprawling landscape (Campion arguably did this best in “The Power of the Dog” last year) but Guadagno is still It gives us sweeping romance that is impossible to resist.
The movie is based on Camille DeAngelis’ 2015 YA novel, and like the source material, it sticks to some cliched ideas of adulthood. Stunning aesthetic, horrific physical horror, and compelling performance aside, the movie hits many worn marks of upcoming road trips, including some uncanny similarities to Britney Spears’ 2002 “Crossroads.”
Even with this familiarity, it is possible to get lost in the wonderful details of “Bones & All”. Fashion is especially worn beyond the typical signs of ’80s settings. Marine’s floral summer dresses, betty beige haircut, ripped Lee jeans and a pearl jacket look like they’re working in a bleak Reagan-era undercoat where everyone sheds the shackles of harmony as elegantly as possible. Best of all, Stuhlbarg appears with greasy, dirt-stained hair, no shirt under an ill-fitting Dungaree. Meanwhile, Rylance wears a feather-covered trio and the lapels of his jacket are bright, lightly military-themed insignia. It gives him the atmosphere of a man who is driven insane by the horrors of war - even if this war is due to his indomitable desire for human flesh.
Unlike the solid skeletons around vampires, zombies, and werewolves, Guadagnino has no real rules in this world beyond what eaters impose. Some are happy to kill and consume their fellow humans, others only prey on the dead, the cruel, or the dispossessed. This liquidity brings higher and more compelling moral bets to the central duo. Their choices are generally limited to eating humans, committing suicide, or locking themselves up; Beyond that they are adrift, not knowing what purpose they can serve themselves or each other. This is a love story of two people traveling through a world while it is said that “the world of love doesn’t want monsters in it”.
If this proves a star-making shift for Taylor Russell, the way Chalamet’s “Call Me By Your Name” does, it will be well-deserved, a testament to Guadagnino’s casting prowess (a famous alleged cannibal aside). The film successfully opens itself to countless readings, likely talking about everything from intergenerational trauma, to bizarre love, to addiction. But “Bones & All” is essentially a beautifully tragic and devastating romance in which at multiple moments Chekhov himself would have cried when the trigger was pulled.
Grade: A-
“Bones & All” premiered at the 2022 Venice Film Festival. MGM will be releasing in theaters on Wednesday, November 23.
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