It isn’t cannibalism for the sake of cannibalism, nor is it romance for the sake of romance — Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones And All” (2022) bleeds between cinematic lines. The film masterfully blends genre, dabbling in the gruesome horror of cannibalism and the all-consuming romance between two on-the-road cannibals, Maren (Taylor Russell) and Lee (Timothée Chalamet). Still, these themes are only important in the scope of the dramatic, coming-of-age lens through which the story flows. Here, “Bones And All” finds ground in a complex, unconventional and allegorical telling of what it means to be an outsider.
“Bones And All” cannot be read at face value — unless a subrace of cannibalistic humans is truly roaming the Earth. It’s an unlikely phenomenon, a novelistic creation penned by Camille DeAngelis in her young adult (YA) novel from which the film is adapted. YA content often receives the all-knowing sigh: “We get it, being a teenager sucks.” However, dismissiveness in the face of teenage and social actuality is the reason stories like “Bones And All” are told. The core thematic goals of the film affect the audience subconsciously; the extreme, grotesque and disconcerting metaphor that forces audiences to visualize humanity in young people, and likewise recognize the astronomical cost of being “othered.”
Maren is the victim of a generational curse. This is true of all “eaters” in the film — their fates are sealed in their genes, and the lonely, broken lives they lead are resounding proof. The eaters are drifters, forced into the uprooted uncertainty of life on the run by the very blood in their veins. Products of familial rejection, abandonment and societal ostracization, these characters are unable to easily conceptualize love. As the film juxtaposes the horrors of cannibalism with Maren and Lee’s romance, “Bones And All” emphasizes the outsider’s perspective. The film interrogates how rejection and isolation mangle one’s conception of self.
The key to being a successful cannibal lies in covering one’s tracks. Steal the victim’s wallet, dispose of their car, raid their house and, most importantly, get out of Dodge. Maren and Lee have their first official conversation when Lee emerges from an abandoned building, covered in the blood of his latest feed. They are immediately drawn together by the sheer vulnerability that exists in the loneliness of the outsider experience — eaters can smell when another is near. Together, they are safer and understood.
In 2017, Guadagnino directed the cinematic feast “Call Me By Your Name.” Guadagnino is an expert at translating landscape into emotion, at understanding the ways in which the physical world can be reflective of a character’s psychological thrills and burdens. This is true for the vulnerable desire felt through the fruitful Italian countryside in “Call Me By Your Name” and remains the case for “Bones And All.”
The film captures the bleak expanse of the Midwest as Maren and Lee traverse barren landscapes in Lee’s pickup truck. The story unfolds like a roadmap of the states they travel through, each exceptionally ordinary. Yet, Guadagnino manages to capture a sensation of serenity, even in the mundaneness of their travels. Through the soft purple-blue dusk hues of endless sky over rolling hills and vast flatlands, he gives life and beauty to otherwise unaesthetic places. Maren and Lee’s love is transformative in this way; the more they succumb to acceptance, love and the simple relief of togetherness, the more beautiful, calm and free the world around them becomes.
As much as “Bones And All” is a film about the outsider experience, it likewise explores the crucial journey to self-acceptance. The film uses cannibalism to crudely hyperbolize the ostracization and societal rejection found in “otherness.” While audiences are not asked to change their perspectives on cannibalism, its persistence and uncontrollable nature in the lives of Maren and Lee allows viewers to feel empathy and see humanity in considerably inhuman acts. This partly stems from the audience’s ability to witness rejected souls experiencing both raw passion and guilt.
By the end of the film, it becomes clear that Lee’s overbearing confidence is overcompensation: the result of the unexpressed guilt, shame and pain he feels with regards to his family. Tearfully, he asks Maren for reassurance: “You don’t think I’m a bad person?” Maren’s affirmation of love in the face of Lee’s confession, despite the shared monstrosity of their inherent needs, is enough to convince them to reenter society. After months living as drifters, they are ready to belong somewhere, unafraid and unashamed of themselves, each other and who they are.
“Bones And All” is the upside-down telling of a recognizable and widely-experienced, yet misunderstood, phenomenon. No, it’s not the cannibalism thing — it’s the question of identity in the face of the conventionality of society. DeAngelis knew this when she wrote her novel for a young audience: these are the problems that have always plagued the youth. Sure, YA can be cheesy, and “Bones And All” is not immune to a few cringeworthy one-liners here and there. But at its core the film is provocative in just the right ways, evoking simultaneous shudders, tears and giddy smiles. From the depths of her loneliness, Maren emerges as the heroine of the youth, the universal outsider.
