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Cinematic Releases: Bones and All (2022) - Reviewed
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| Courtesy of MGM |
His latest endeavor Bones and All, based on the novel
by Camille DeAngelis and cowritten by Suspiria screenwriter David
Kajganich, reunites the director with Call Me by Your Name actor Timothée
Chalamet in what can be best described as a fusion between the Summer romantic
drama of that picture and the gruesome transgressions of his Suspiria remake. Think of it as a horror film starring the
characters of the film that put Guadagnino on the world stage of important new
contemporary directors to watch for.
While not quite as extreme or harsh as, say, Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day or Julia Docournau’s Raw, it will live bite and claw marks on
you.
Maren Yearly (Taylor Russell) is on the run, abandoned by her
black father Frank (André Holland) while her mother remains missing, after
another bout of needing to feed on unsuspecting living human flesh. Taking place in the midwestern rural areas of
America sometime in the 1980s, identified by state abbreviation transparent title
cards onscreen, the film follows Maren on her sojourn where she is accosted by
another cannibal named Sully (a terrifying Mark Rylance) with a keen sense of
smell. Quick to evade the other
mercurial predator in her midst, she high tails it out of town where she bumps
into homeless drifter Lee (Timothée Chalamet) who shares in her cannibalistic
needs and takes her under his wing.
Shifting freely between coming-of-age romantic drama and
uncompromising body horror, musical nostalgia piece peppered with hyperkinetic
interludes, Luca Guadagnino’s blood-soaked road movie is an enthralling
cinematic experience that feels at once intimate and expansive. Led by a gifted performance by its leading
actress Taylor Russell who gives the central cannibal a measure of sympathy
where we find ourselves caring for ostensibly a monster, her performance takes
on the feel of a lioness in the wild, afraid yet cunning and in desperate need
to still exist in the world. Chalamet as
her uncertain new beau and new partner in crime winds up making the film into a
bloody love story which, like Trouble Every Day, finds the means to
consummate the relationship in flesh, teeth and gore.
Visually, Bones and All is warm with a lush and
almost tender naturalistic visual palette, lensed gorgeously by Belarusian Beginning
cinematographer Arseni Khachaturan, making the world of Bones and All a
beautiful place to wander even if a bloodthirsty flesh eater might be eyeing
you up for their next meal. Equally
powerful is the masterful electronic score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
with some tracks that echo A Warm Place from Trent’s hit Nine Inch Nails
album The Downward Spiral. Understated
but abrasive when it needs to turn the horror up, the soundtrack for Bones
and All is also a series of needle drops from a wide variety of artists
including Duran Duran, Joy Division, New Order and even Kiss.
In a year already rife with great horror movies, Bones
and All sits perched at the top for its ability to take the concept of
cannibalism and weave it into a complex character study of two lost predators
in the world which find some measure of love and companionship. These people might want to eat us, but we
come to care for them as people too and find ourselves caught up in their dilemmas
and moral quandaries. For anyone who had
second thoughts about whether or not the man behind Call Me by Your Name could
do a horror film, think again. Inarguably
the man ordinarily known for Summertime dramas has repositioned himself as one
of the most interesting horror directors working today.
--Andrew Kotwicki
