In what is arguably the most physically, mentally and morally challenging film in some time, Luca Guadagnino reunites with Timothée Chalamet for Bones and All: simply put, a cannibal love story. Of course, there is a great deal more to it than that, but those three words will undoubtedly set the tone and your level of willingness on this epic journey.
Outsiders forced to hide their true emotions finds themselves on a 3000-mile road trip through 1980s America, confronting a nature that will push them even further into society's fringes. Starring Chalamet alongside Taylor Russell, with support from Mark Rylance, Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloë Sevigny, Bones and All is as gripping as it is grisly, and a film that sinks its teeth into you and remains completely unrelenting for the 130-minute runtime - and beyond.
Cinema is at its best when it provokes and it is safe to say that Guadagnino's fascinating fifth feature achieves that with a fearless pursuit of something so brutal and honest. Fusing genres and tones that would succeed in so few hands, Guadagnino's work is so meticulously considered but enriched by an organicness that now feels so freeing, open and honest in the director's work. Combining the romanticism of Call Me By Your Name with the terror of Suspira, alongside a dash of the moral complexity of A Bigger Splash, Guadagnino proves himself as a master of the cinematic language, continually evolving and developing his strengths as a creative, unafraid to test expectations and push both himself and his audiences. And with a director who has such a deft understanding of his own vision and is willing to push boundaries as well as he does so here, it's hard not to be swept along for the ride, wherever he goes.
Life is complicated and Guadagnino explores that like so very few creatives have done so before. Finding beauty is undeniable darkness, the placement of character at the forefront of the picture extracts a tenderness, distilling a heartfelt love story from a tale often dripping in bloodshed and gore. There is such texture to the environment and the places we visit, each town - no matter how long we stop for - is full of its own stories we only begin to peel back the layers of. Illustrating such a strong sense of place and exhibiting it on the screen so vividly, Guadagnino, alongside the remarkable cinematography from Arseni Khachaturan, crafts a visually rich picture so, ironically, full of life.
Based on the novel of the same name by Camille DeAngelis and adapted for the screenplay by David Kajganich, Bones and All does not ask what is right or wrong, but what is true: such nonjudgmental writing is wholly remarkable, particularly when exploring the thematic content the film does. Softening these characters so beautifully, particularly Russell's Maron who is imbued with a humanity that instantly connects you to her, the writing sets the groundwork so strongly for the filmmakers to build on. We remain firmly rooted in their present and even as they reflect on the lives they have led and the reasoning behind their afflictions, we keep driving forward - as they have to. Such unjudgemental writing is a thrill to experience.
Timothée Chalamet is reliably mesmeric in Bones and All, pushing his already extraordinary talent in a direction you may have never once expected him to venture into. It's such a daring performance, one that questions our entire understanding of Chalamet's already well-established abilities, exposing a darkness that just about confirms, for those foolishly in doubt, that there may be nothing this young talent is incapable of doing. Possessing grit and gravel, interlaced throughout his obscenely magnetic performance, it's impossible to take your eyes off Chalamet - his cinematic presence and mastery growing with every screen appearance.
Taylor Russell is the film's beating heart, however, with a powerful turn that enriches the emotional currents of the feature. There's a surprising, much-needed gentleness to Russell's work, crucial for the audience to feel most at ease in connecting with the love story that plays out in front of us. When you consider that we are dealing with such grisly, extreme material, that we are ever able to feel somewhat relaxed is a remarkable achievement, and it is mostly the radiating warmth of Russell's performance that allows that to be the case. A well-matched pair, the wonderful chemistry cultivated casts a spell that is hard to ignore.
Of the revolving door of supporting actors we meet along the journey, Michael Stuhlbarg terrifies us most of all. It is a comparatively quiet performance when juxtaposed against Mark Rylance's scene-chewing turn, for example. Still, there's such a pervasive, pervading nastiness in his short screen time that feels horribly disconcerting, and he bleeds every morsel of intensity out of his appearance. While on the subject, Rylance's work appears the most out of place, a rather theatrical interpretation not quite in keeping with the more naturalistic approach everybody else has to the material.
Provoking cinema represents, in my eyes, the medium at its most exciting and led by such complexity and undaunted ambition, Bones and All's willingness to wander into such grim territory is a genuine thrill, no more so in today's landscape of safe, formula-based filmmaking. Unique, surprising, and devastating, Luca Guadagnino seems to have achieved the impossible: a beautiful, bold and creative story about cannibals in love. Armed with a tremendously well-balanced and considered screenplay, and the remarkable talents of two of the industry's strongest talents in Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell, the results are a grisly, unforgiving yet powerful fable about desires, outsiders, abandonment and love.