Rating: R | Runtime: 131 minutes
Release Date: November 18th, 2022 (USA)
Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) / United Artists Releasing
Director(s): Luca Guadagnino
Writer(s): David Kajganich / Camille DeAngelis (novel Bones & All)

Never eat an eater.

That’s the advice Sully—the creepy, talks about himself in the third person, wannabe mentor played with panache by Mark Rylance—gives eighteen-year-old Maren upon smelling her from miles away. She had always thought she was the only one who craved human flesh. The only biological cannibal who simply could not control her urges. Sully’s fateful appearance proves otherwise, preparing her for a coming-of-age adventure unfit for happy endings.

Based on Camille DeAngelis’ acclaimed novel, Bones and All follows Taylor Russell’s Maren on a cross-country journey to find the mother who left before she could remember. Now that her father (André Holland) has followed suit, unable to keep protecting her when she slips and unable to turn her into the police, this teen has nowhere to go but back to the beginning to try and figure out how to move forward.

Luca Guadagnino’s film (adapted by frequent collaborator David Kajganich) works best when it focuses on that quest. Strip away the high-concept horror conceit and this is a poignant search for identity. Unfortunately, however, that conceit is also the draw and thus requires to be taken with the utmost earnestness to the point where it’s practically screaming, “Monsters deserve love too!” I get it. It’s as much a part of this template as anything else, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel goofy the moment Maren finds that love with Timothée Chalamet’s Lee.

Both leads are very good. Rylance steals the show with his own fight for love and the destructive nature of being without for too long. And Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloë Sevigny, and, yes, director David Gordon Green lend some unforgettable cameos. The gore is subdued with most violence off-screen after the first couple bites or knife slashes (until the climax, which proves much bloodier) and the romance’s heart is surprisingly pure. I just wish I didn’t constantly have to wonder if every other scene wouldn’t have been better as straight farce.

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Taylor Russell (left) as Maren and Timothée Chalamet (right) as Lee in BONES AND ALL, directed by Luca Guadagnino, a Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film. Credit: Yannis Drakoulidis / Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures © 2022 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.