Bones and All

The next movie in my Saturday double feature was Bones and All and I have to admit that, while I was really looking forward to seeing it because of all the buzz from the fall film festivals, I was also a bit nervous because a movie about cannibalism did not sound appealing.  It is definitely incredibly thought-provoking (and not as graphic as I feared).  Maren (Taylor Russell) is a young woman with a secret craving for human flesh but it is becoming harder and harder for her to control her urges.  After an incident with a fellow student, her father Frank (Andre Holland) is forced to relocate with her once again but he soon abandons her once she reaches her 18th birthday.  He leaves her a small sum of money and a tape with information about the mother she never knew so, without many options, she decides to go in search of her.  Along the way, she meets Sully (Mark Rylance), another "eater" who takes a proprietary interest in her and tries to introduce her to the lifestyle, but she is unnerved by him and soon flees.  Then she meets a drifter named Lee (Timothee Chalamet) who shares her same proclivities and they begin a relationship as they travel to find Maren's mother.  She is horrified by the lengths to which Lee will go in order to feed but she ultimately participates until she finds her mother (Chloe Sevigny) and learns that she is also a cannibal and that she voluntarily admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital to control her urges.  Maren vows that she will never be like her mother and leaves Lee but, because she loves him, she seeks him out again and convinces him to live a conventional life with her.  But can they overcome the odds?  I really enjoyed the effective blending of the romance and horror genres (I think Guadagnino gets the tone exactly right) and the performances are all outstanding (Russell and Rylance are amazing and this is Chalamet's best work, in my opinion, because he is understated but still incredibly powerful).  The social commentary about people who are relegated to the fringes of society for being different is brilliant and I think cannibalism could be a metaphor for many things (I'm leaning towards addiction but it could also just as easily be queerness, generational trauma, or poverty) that are difficult to outrun.  I will certainly be thinking about its themes for some time to come.  There are some brutal and grisly scenes but the aftermath is often shown rather than the violence itself (characters are covered in blood after feeding).  Honestly, the worst scene for me was more shocking for what was heard rather than what was shown.  This might be too disturbing for some but I definitely recommend it.