Direction: Luca Guadagnino
Country: USA
Bones and All, the first English-language film from Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, was filmed in the US and feels very American. The story, set in the 80s, is an adaptation of the 2015 novel by Camille DeAngelis, and reconnects the director with the actor Timothée Chalamet and the screenwriter David Kajganich, after Call Me by Your Name (2017) and Suspiria (2018), respectively. Contrarily, the young actress Taylor Russell (Waves, 2019) and the celebrated actor Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies, 2015; The Outfit, 2022) work with Guadagnino for the very first time here.
It’s hard to resist a good cannibal movie, and this one has daring moments and poetic attempts. As a tone poem of dangers and transgressions, the film retains the romantic and melancholic density of the director’s signature, focusing on the unspoken complicity between a couple of drifting young cannibals who have to deal with a lonely, cunning, and more experienced “eater”.
The emotion surfaces tardily in a film that intermingles drama, teen romance, and gory horror. Filming with paradoxical gentleness, Guadagnino captures his ravenous characters with assurance, but the mix of styles is not always winning. Even when working outside the typical genre conventions with occasional reference to films from the canon, the film lacks the spark that would set fire to such a carnivorous road trip.
This horror doesn’t bite to the bone and should only work for those willing to accept the tenets of Guadagnino’s doomed cannibalism and dark romance. In my eyes, the ultimate success of this experience comes from Rylance’s creepy performance, and not so much from the cannibal teens.
