Call it the Armie Hammer effect. After spending time with a vile, real life cannibal, Luca Guadagnino and Timothee Chalamet found a safe space to explore whatever Armie Hammer believes in, I guess? And because it’s Guadagnino and Chalamet, Bones and All is about as cinematic and well crafted as a movie about cannibals is ever going to be….until the Oscar Winning documentary about that piece of sh*t Hammer.
It’s strange that Frank (Andre Holland) will not let his daughter Maren (Taylor Russell) go to an all girl slumber party and even reinforce the windows to keep her from going out at night. Well, once Maren finds a way out, it’s clear why: she’s an “eater”, driven by an urge to taste human flesh. After Frank flees with her in the night, Maren wakes up to find he’s left her with her birth certificate, money, and a tape of her history of this type of behavior. In 1980s Ohio, at 18, on her own, Maren decides to find out what happened to her mother, working her way to Minnesota. Along the way, she encounters other “eaters” including elderly strange Sully (Mark Rylance), good ol’ southern boys Jake (Michael Stuhlbarg) and Brad (David Gordon Green), and the young and seemingly nice Lee (Chalamet), who Maren forms an uneasy alliance with.
I don’t want to keep eating badly. But how many times can you stare at Oreos and not want to eat them? Bones and All is the worst case scenario of this problem. Maren has this biological need to eat human flesh, just a horrific issue to live with. How will she choose to live? Luca Guadagnino takes her on a road trip across Middle America, where she encounters all sorts of lifestyle choices. The more “eaters” Maren meets, the more range of options are available to her. Danger lurks everywhere. Even apart from the police or society finding Maren out, the various eaters, used to living on the fringes of “normal” society, aren’t exactly the most welcoming folk for an 18 year old female cannibal. And even when people like Lee and Sully show up and help the lonely girl, Maren’s observing closely, setting up clear boundaries. In the end, despite the fact that her urges tell her to eat human flesh, Maren realizes that she still has a choice in how she chooses to do that, and no one can take that choice away from her, even if they have seemingly good intentions.
I remember liking Taylor Russell in Waves, but otherwise I hadn’t seen her in much. If she was meant to be front and center, writer/director Luca Guadagnino makes sure to make her job as easy as possible. The director really transports the audience to the 1980s, making the movie feel like a VHS tape we put into the VCR. Guadagnino surrounds Russell with mega talent too, letting his young star react to the fastball throwing supporting characters. I particularly love Michael Stuhlbarg and David Gordon Green, carrying a sinister, twitchy menace, and Mark Rylance, who can’t help but be creepy even when he’s being super nice here. Russell does really well around these great actors, more than carrying her own. Most importantly, when red haired Timothee Chalamet eats his way onscreen, Russell rises to the occasion and holds her own opposite him. The two are great together, slowly revealing who they are and finding excitement and kinship in one another.
It’s possible that Bones and All could end up being an awards contender in 2022. Luca Guadagnino, Timothee Chalamet, and Taylor Russell really deliver this crazy story to the best of their ability. The one award I want them to win? Best kiss at the MTV movie awards, as the teens watch in horror as someone starts quasi eating someone else. Now THAT’s an awards show moment!