Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones and All”

Bones & All (2022)

Coming of age romance built around original lore of cannibals is full of captivating performances, beautiful cinematography and an arthouse lens on what is on its surface, a pulp horror story though open to interpretation

This is an improvement over Guadagnino’s previous effort( the remake of “Suspiria”) which benefits from an intimate cast of immense talent. Invoking films like “Badlands”, “Let The Right One In” and Park Chan-wook’s “Thirst”, it’s lined up for comparison to some greats and does reasonably well. And because of its subject matter, it also draws comparisons to the likes of Julia Ducournau’s “Raw” but that in some ways isn’t a fair relation; it’s like comparing “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” to “Nosferatu” just because they’re both vampire movies.

Based on the book of the same name by Camille DeAngelis, it works best when looking at the actual cannibalism in the film as a metaphor which takes things to an extreme to explore self-loathing, isolation and the importance of honesty and openness in relationships. There’s also enough sleeve to allow for the audience to consider their own interpretations.

Despite the subject matter, the gore is infrequent and though convincing is often fleeting plus the film as a whole has a sweetness to it and moments of humour. This is manifested nonemoreso than in Taylor Russell’s lead as Maren Yearly whose performance more than stands toe-to-toe with Timothée Chalamet, André Holland and Mark Rylance, all of whom are on top form. I’m looking forward to what she does next.

Overall, “Bones and All” feels fresh, more accessible than the subject matter implies and is a solid addition to the genre. Avoid the spoilerific trailer.