Despite the alleged increasing “openness” of society to those who are “different,” there remains a paucity of films about cannibals. And even literary tales of such ilk remain scarce… which is why Camille DeAngelis’ 2015 novel, Bones and All, was such a unique revelation. Too unique for someone like Luca Guadagnino to pass up the chance to turn it into a cinematic tour de force, in addition to the opportunity to reteam with screenwriter David Kajganich. Notably, Kajganich also wrote the scripts for the Guadagnino films A Bigger Splash and Suspiria. Both movies being horror-esque (Suspiria obviously more so), Bones and All feels like a natural fit for the expansion of their collaborative filmography. For, while Bones and All is not outright “horror,” there is something altogether slow-burn terrifying about what happens to Maren Yearly (Taylor Russell) in this fantastical coming-of-age narrative. Because, yes, Guadagnino manages to imbue cannibalism with a sense of the fantastical and the Blink-182 adage “I guess this is growing up.” Or maybe “fucked-up fairy tale” is a more appropriate term than fantastical.
Flipping the scenario from the book, wherein Maren goes in search of her father, Kajganich adapts the material so that it’s actually her mother that abandoned her and her dad, Frank (André Holland), when she was a child, and who she now seeks out with the information Frank left behind after also ditching her in the end. Yet, “at least” he waits until his parental responsibility for her is legally over, choosing to bounce right when she turns eighteen (in the novel, Maren’s mother leaves the night after her sixteenth birthday—far crueler, no?). For anyone who ever said parental love was unconditional must have been extremely naïve. This latest abandonment doesn’t do much to make Maren feel better about the constant guilt she has over her need to feed upon human flesh. Most recently doing so at a sleepover where she bites the finger off a would-be friend apropos of nothing. It’s so absent-minded as to make it come across as it truly is: like complete second nature to Maren.
Among the things Frank left behind for her to help uncover who she really is and how to deal with it includes her birth certificate with her mother’s name and city of birth on it, as well as a tape (because, don’t forget, this is the 1980s) recounting all the victims Maren collected over the years. Per Frank’s rehashing, the first time she ate human flesh was as a baby of three years old. The victim in question was her babysitter, whose face Maren ate. This also marked the first time Frank had to pick up and move them to another state, never using the same last name from that instant forward. In the book, the babysitter, named Penny Wilson, is given far more thought by Maren, who notes of what she did, “I loathed myself even then. I don’t remember any of this, but I know it.”
And yet, when she happens upon her first fellow “eater,” the ultra-creepy and disgusting Sully (Mark Rylance), after being left to her own devices, she begins to give in more fully to who and what she is. Even though seeing Sully in his underwear eating the dying old woman he “smelled” from afar and preyed upon doesn’t really make her feel all that “great” either. Nor does Sully’s ominous warning of her attempts to quell her urges, “Whatever you and I got, it’s gotta be fed.” So it is that Maren does join in on eating the now-dead old lady, but she doesn’t stick around much longer to engage with Sully, who eerily refers to himself in the third person, indicating some kind of split personality or dissociation technique from what he does. Though, lucidly enough, he assures Maren, “I got rules. Number one is never, never, ever eat an Eater.” Famous last words, as a certain character says in the movie.
Mercifully, on her Greyhound route (for she’s on her way to the Minnesota town where her mother was born) that stops in Indiana, Maren encounters a far less disgusting (at least physically and aura-wise) eater in Lee (Timothée Chalamet). As the two both rally to verbally defend a woman shopping at the grocery store from being harassed by some dickhead, Lee is the one to lure him outside under the pretense of getting into a garden-variety fight. But what Maren sees later on after leaving the store is that Lee clearly ate this man. Therefore, his own number one rule seems to be: target assholes only. Thereby using his “condition” for some good, one supposes.
Upon confirming his “predilection,” Maren is quick to join Lee in the truck of the victim, “Barry Cook” (as his ID indicates), and ask if he can help her, essentially, figure out how to “be.” As for Lee’s own “post-eating” ritual, it usually entails going to the home where his victim lived to double-check that they don’t have anyone in their life who might notice their absence. And so, at Barry’s porno poster-filled house, Lee puts on “Lick It Up” by KISS. Just one of the many pointed musical selections designed to remind us that this is the 80s (along with a macabre Americana score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross). Not to mention the wielding of politicians like Rudy Giuliani and Ronald Reagan in the background of it all.
Another moment of overpowering sonic 80s-ness is when Lee and Maren finally succumb to their overt attraction to one another at a carnival, kissing on the Ferris wheel to the tune of Joy Division’s “Atmosphere.” It’s then that Maren confesses, “I’m hungry, Lee.” So Lee does what men have been programmed to do since time immemorial: hunt food for “his” woman. The ensuing experience of eating a carnival worker together is in direct contrast to what Maren felt with Sully, of whom she describes to Lee at a diner as, “…creepy, I guess.” Lee ripostes, “Did that dawn on you before or after you ate Mrs. Herman together?” She corrects, “Mrs. Harmon.” He scoffs, “Does that help? Memorizing their names?” Lee obviously being in total disagreement with Maren’s incessant need to moralize her inherent nature—as though there’s actually something she can do about it.
The guilt hits her again after realizing that the carnie worker, an on the downlow gay (quite easy for someone with Chalamet’s aesthetic to lure), actually had a wife and child that Maren discovers at his address when they perform Lee’s post-eating ritual. Forced to reconcile every time with this feeling of culpability and sin, Lee’s presence becomes a source of comfort to Maren as they persist on her journey to Minnesota. One that results in yet another heartbreaking epiphany. So much so that Maren feels obliged to go her own way for a while, deserting Lee similarly to how she did with Sully. Except, this time, it’s much more callous because it’s evident the two have fallen in love. Even if that love has formed almost entirely from a bond of profound mutual alienation from society.
As Guadagnino’s first movie shot in the U.S. (the milieu one automatically associates with the “road movie”), the subtlety with which he conveys the acute loneliness of being in this landscape is only further accented by the duo possessing the added burden of being cannibals. Despite the Shakespearean quality of Bones and All painting Maren and Lee as a pair of doomed “star-crossed lovers,” Guadagnino asserted that it’s also “a very romantic story, about the impossibility of love and yet, the need for it. Even in extreme circumstances” (see also: Badlands).
Alas, the greatest “sin” of this particular set of Eaters is their reluctant assumption that they can “have nice things,” like love. Which is why, after reuniting in the third act, Lee foolishly inquires of Maren, “You wanna be people? Let’s be people.” Maren agrees, “Yeah, let’s be them for a while.” A.k.a. normies with jobs and a fixed residence. One that turns out to be in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as Maren manages to secure a job at a bookstore. Of course, these attempts to “go straight” are inevitably in vain. Because nothing is going to prevent the tragic fate that awaits them both in the final minutes of a film that may just end up prompting The Silence of the Lambs to step aside as the “premier” book and movie about cannibal life.
