Bones and All Review: An age-old love story brought to a bloody new life

Shakespeare’s urge to equate youthful love with doom and death may be as old as Shakespeare’s and Romeo and Juliet. It’s a natural way of pairing the story: First love rarely lasts and youth certainly doesn’t.

For most people, the burning intensity of young love — the feeling of infatuation and discovery “Everything is new and wonderful, and we were the first to experience sex” — capable of fading quickly. And for adults looking back on that period of their lives, feelings of loss and nostalgia can resemble the emotions surrounding navigating death. But metaphors are rarely as stunningly vivid as they are in Luca Guadagnino. bones and alla bloody shock film with many familiar horror movie elements, but much more like a classic romance.

It’s a weird movie, seemingly designed to confuse even fans of Guadagnino’s earlier, messy 2018 horror feature. giallo rework, do it again suspectand fans of his 2017 sunny gay love affair Call Me By Your Name. While bones and all connects those two films so neatly that it feels calculated, which also raises the question of how many audiences intersect between the two films. Horror movie buffs may be disappointed as much of the film’s run is light-hearted relationship drama and coming-of-age story, with little to no breathless tension and scares. . Fans of the romantic drama genre are sure to see more gory scenes than they’re used to seeing in their movies. But for movie enthusiasts of no genre, the sheer boldness and originality of the story — an adaptation of Camille DeAngelis’ 2015 teen novel of the same name — will be part of the story. main attraction.

Photo: Yannis Drakoulidis/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures

bones and all reunite Guadagnino and Call me by your name Timothée Chalamet stars for the second love story. But it took a while for Chalamet to enter the picture. Originally, the film focused on Maren (Wave‘ Taylor Russell), a high school student with a bunch of secrets. Maren lives alone with her father (André Holland) in a dilapidated, dilapidated house. An insidious sense of shame pervades all the little details of their home and their interactions, but it takes a while for the film to reveal why that’s true and both. what you’re aiming for. And when the revelations came, they were both horrifying and exciting, in part because the details were so unexpected.

In addition to getting ready for massive amounts of blood and some brief, intense violence, bones and all is the kind of movie that offers a better experience in the present moment than in the description. Each new revelation about Maren’s past and present is carefully unfolded, in part because she doesn’t really understand her own nature and has to learn about it with the audience. Screenwriter David Kajganich (a writer-producer-developer on Horror series is loved by many people Horror) never felt like I was in a rush to get to any particular part of the story. He and Guadagnino create plenty of space for Maren to learn through conversations, first with new acquaintance Sully (spy bridge‘ Mark Rylance, disappearing once again in an astonishing performance), then with her newer acquaintance Lee (Chalamet), a wise boy around her age.

Audiences who don’t know the film’s basic premise and want to experience it in theaters should stop reading here. First trailer and festival recap for bones and all apprehensive about what sets Maren, Lee and others apart, but public descriptions of the film share the secret widely: bones and allThe eye-opening central couple are both “Cannibals,” actual vampires controlled to eat humans. Their victims are not necessarily alive, but once they have begun consuming human bodies, they must continue or die. bones and all more or less follow in the footsteps of the movies from Bonnie and Clyde to Terrence Malick’s barren land in putting a beautiful couple on the wrong side of the law and sending them on the run, but in this case, what matters is what kind of person they are. And their crimes aren’t as appealing and stylish, like Bonnie and Clyde’s bank robbery or the vampire slaying in hunger — Guadagnino makes the rituals of consumption bloody, grotesque, and beastly, a nasty survival problem.

All of which gives him more opportunities to romanticize Lee and Maren’s relationship. There is a centuries-old tradition of sexualized monsters and predatory behaviorand bones and all focuses on it the hard way, while still building the story around old stereotypes about coming-of-age of the main characters finding themselves (and finding their courage in the process). Maren has a lot to uncover — a family mystery, her first love, her first understanding that there are other Cannibals and the rules that bind them. But most of all, she must find out who she is in Lee’s shadow and beyond it. He knows more than she does about Eater’s world and life, but she knows more about what she wants, and who she hopes to be, and how she must navigate those desires. his own understanding of the world.

Photo: Yannis Drakoulidis/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures

Alike Call me by your name, bones and all It’s a sexy film, especially in terms of visuals — Guadagnino is immersed in the country’s vast skyscapes that give rise to Andrea Arnold’s similar summer vacation theme American honey memorable, and he lights up his leads passionately by day and with stealthy enthusiasm by night. But what’s more remarkable is how he and Kajganich navigate the impulse between the romantic elements and horror themes of the story. There’s a big metaphor going on here of how parents, family, and friends trigger abnormal behavior until it feels normal, and being protected from the world can make it hard to fit in. what the world is like. And it plays out in completely different ways at the same time: both through the lens of two children on a romantic road trip and as two growing monsters seducing and killing others for food.

There is an equally complex sense of attraction and repulsion in Maren and Lee’s relationship. They were very different people and rarely seemed to fit together — but they also had a central thing in common that was unchangeable, and the fact that neither of them knew another Eater of their age that drew them together. each other, even when they are angry at each other for their conflicting goals and beliefs. The filmmakers continually ask questions with direct intensity throughout the film – should these kids stick together or go their separate ways? Are they helping each other as much as they are hurting each other? That’s very complicated for a movie about young love, and Guadagnino makes the limits of their relationship far more strained than any question of who can hunt them down or who they are. who can be hunted.

bones and all would be a tough sell for many audiences, given the uncanny way it blends genres and tones. There’s almost an element of camp to the way Guadagnino contrasts with the compelling image of Lee and Maren quietly embracing each other for a private moment, and the repulsive image of them with their dark, coagulated arterial blood. and drag flies as they flee from their own dead bodies. latest victim. But the technique throughout the film is very impressive and attractive. The cast and performances are amazingly great, especially when Michael Stuhlbarg and director David Gordon Green are completely unrecognizable and take on a stunning cameo in one part. And the whole business is deliciously weird, the kind of movie that makes people walk away thinking “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” that before.” This movie is based on some old, old, and familiar ideas, but it does it in a way that makes them feel as new, fresh, and exhilarating as young love itself.

bones and all Currently showing in theaters.