Bones and All

 

Bones and All

Director – Luca Guadagnino

Writers – David Kajganich (screenplay by), Camille DeAngelis (based on the novel by)

2022, Italy-United States

Stars – Timothée Chalamet, Taylor Russell, Mark Rylance

 

All I knew was that Luca Guadagnino was directing and that this was covered on the Evolution of Horror podcast. I knew nothing else, and that the poster looked like a coming-of-age drama but being featured on EOH peaked my interest even more. So, thoroughly clueless, the opening shocker came as a pleasant and gruesome surprise. Oh, so this’ll be the real deal, I thought. And it is that too.

 

[And here’s the spoiler alert.]

 

Then Maren (Taylor Russel) is left by her father and starts a road movie to find her mother. Then she meets a tour de force performance of ambiguous creepiness from Mark Rylance – a balancing act he keeps up right up to the end – and then meets Timothée Chalamet, translating their otherness as a junky hustler’s odyssey. This otherness, outsiderness, is what they call being an “eater”. Then they meet Michael Stuhlbarg, who matches Rylance creep-for-creep, possible threat for possible threat. It becomes obvious that this tale is almost as freewheeling as a Jarmusch ramble, except a little more control of the pace and a little trimming might have stopped the Young Adult source starting to dominate. This is despite the fact that the editing will chop short scenes to keep the flow (the opening montage of the empty school hallways that begins the film immediately set the tone and got me). And yes, we are in the realm where screenwriter David Kajganich says he doesn’t really think it’s a horror and seems a little disappointed when Mike Muncer says that’s how he sees it (Evolution of Horror podcast). Horror has long been gleefully eloquently mashing-up genres so somewhat dreamy coming-of-age horror for strong stomachs really shouldn’t be seen as beneath intelligence or sophisticated emotion.

 

But the horror moments are strong stuff, and the film-makers conviction that it had to be was why it had to be independently financed, surely why the supporting cast is so, so impressive – everyone gets a memorable showpiece – and why the YA tropes don’t quite come to dominate. Indeed, Guadagnino will fade out the dialogue when it threatens to get bad and leaves Reznor and Ross’ score or a moody song take over, which simultaneously circumnavigates cheesiness but steers unapologetically into wordless melodrama. As well as the eating.

 

Perhaps a little too slacker, a little too YA for those looking for straight-out horror, but it’s a fascinating wandering road movie horror with the dangerous youths just trying to mimic normality and fit in. That it takes its potentially adolescent concept of all-consuming love equating to cannibalism means it is never quite sentimental or silly - and the players steer clear of this too - grounding their moral conflicts in the gore set-pieces. And yes, as is typical of the road movie genre, it’s quite often a series of vignettes and for that occasionally it feels it isn’t quite gelling. But the cast are fantastic, it’s beautifully shot, Guadagnino leaning on the poetic-romantic and gonzo-gruesome in equal measure, and although it is not poignant or revelatory in its portrayal of outsiders, its meandering nature means you never quite know which genre it’s going to pit stop next. It also means you can take the morsels you want from it, romantic, mood piece, actor's showcase, arthouse road movie or horror.