“Bite me!” doesn’t strike me as the most romantic thought in the lover’s lexicon, but hey, I’m not a cannibal. While not quite aligned with the punchline: “Does this clown taste funny to you?” Bones and All is about cannibals. Not vampires. Not werewolves. Cannibals. But you may as well be talking about vampires or werewolves because they’re all discussed in the same mystical self-sensing outcaste terms. Shame that cannibals don’t have magical superpowers to match their repulsive habits, huh?
Maren (Taylor Russell) ran out of parents. Mom left her years and years ago. Dad gave up following a sleepover. Maren snuck out of their trailer house, sidled up to potential teen-age friends, and at a time of sharing and vulnerability, she … chowed down on her friend’s finger.
All right, movie, you have my complete and undivided attention. Make it worth it.
First the film punished me by showing Mark Rylance in tighty-whities. Then I reminded myself it was indeed a horror film. So I guess that’s fair, although a bit cruel. After dad leaves Maren alone, the kid has a fab idea to track down mom wherever she may be. At a greyhound stop, she meets Sully, a fellow “eater.” He can smell her from half a mile away. Good Lord, can you imagine having a sense of smell that strong? Can you imagine wanting a sense of smell that strong?
A corpse or two later, Maren finds Lee (Timothée Chalamet) near to another bus stop in another state. Geez, do all you folks just hang out at bus terminals? Despite bring both a cannibal and a murderer, Lee gives off a much sweeter vibe than Sully (Rylance). His indifferent attitude and his mis-colored and randomly arranged hair matched with a 140-pound frame make him something of an ideal companion for your average nomadic cannibal. Either that or anything beats Mark Rylance in tighty-whities.
Oh, here’s a question: when do you think Timothée is going to grow into his adult body?
The relationship between Lee and Maren is the core of this film, and it’s a good one. Maren’s sole objective is meeting her mother … and then what? Lee lives from day-to-day. His “and then what?” happens on an hourly basis. In some ways, this is the classic outcaste teen romance, just with cannibals. Reluctantly we grow to like both Maren 
and Lee; we even feel sorry for them a little. Can they help being how they are? I ask you, in all honesty – isn’t killing still taboo? Can you really kill a guy just because you’re hungry?
Well maybe YOU can.
Bones and All is a very odd horror/romance. The one unforgivable flaw of the film is the metaphor. This semi-supernatural cannibal sensory power and subsequent alienation is meant to represent an otherwise ostracized group of people, like homosexuals, except it’s rarer, which suggests maybe the trans community or something along those lines. I feel good about extending olive branches to the trans community, except then the film implies they’d murder just to feed their hedonistic hunger. (The film is very unclear about exactly how powerful the desire to feed is. Can you go weeks without? And, if so, can you be satisfied with flesh substitutes?) Of course, it could be there is no metaphor here. The writer and director may just want to be telling a tale about … cannibals … who are still murderers. I certainly liked this film, but only a cultist would claim Bones and All has greatness embedded within it. Perhaps they can sense it. I, myself, cannot.
This teenage cannibal, you see
Lived a life that wasn’t so free
She was pleasant enough
Yet her interior rough
Don’t you tempt her with “EAT ME!”
Rated R, 131 Minutes
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Writer: David Kajganich
Genre: Monster lovin’
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The misunderstood
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Authoritarians
