★★★ out of ★★★★★
Directed by Luca Guadagnino
Maren (Taylor Russell) is a typical teenage girl with an atypical teenage problem- she is an eater, a cannibal, and has been devouring people since she was tiny. She has no memory of her mother who left years ago, so she lives with her father, the two of them moving from town to town each time Maren gives into her appetites. Exhausted from this lifestyle, her father abandons her so she decides to go on a quest to find her long lost mother and learn about who she is.
Along her journey she meets an eclectic cast of characters including Sully ( Mark Rylance) an eater of the dead who could smell her from blocks away and who keeps the hair of all the people he has eaten and Lee (Timothée Chalamet) a lanky and brooding drifter who is an eater like her. Lee joins her on her quest and a romance blossoms between the two on their road trip to find Maren’s mother. As their journey progresses they will discover if their love can last or if it will crumble under the weight of their condition.
Bones and All is based on the 2016 YA novel of the same name by Camille DeAngelis. While the novel is a weird and wonderful feminist coming of age story, in the the adaptation, Guadagnino unfortunately shifts the focus from Maren to Lee and makes this the Chalamet show. Russell still gives a wonderful performance but the film concentrates on the budding romance over the journey of self discovery that the book outlines. Thank goodness for Mark Rylance because his uncomfortable and disturbing portrayal of Sully steals the show.
Bones and All is currently in theaters and is available to rent on Amazon. You can also purchase the book it was based on at Amazon or wherever you buy your books.