Review of Bones and All (2022) by Hnestlyonthesly — 10 Jan 2023

Bones and All is the movie Armie Hammer would have made if he could have played himself in Call Me By Your Name. "Cannibal romance" as a phrase really hits all the pleasure centers of my damaged brain. I could not resist. So instead of being a good father, I abandoned my family late one night this week and assembled a group of similarly inclined deadbeat dads and friends.

This movie fits into a sort of five act structure, through pairing the main actress, Taylor Russell (from Vancouver! what a life where you have to constantly introduce yourself as "I'm 18 in case you're wondering" when you're really 28) with her costars: father, Sully, Lee, the hospital, and the final act. Russel was one of the very few shining stars of Escape Room, a movie (series!) that capitalized on the emergent (?!) escape room craze of the late 2010s. Her delicate voice belies a confidence and sense of self-assurance which lets her tactfully stand up to the Chief Creep of the film, Sully. Maren navigates Sully's halting talk with tact that contrasts with her comfort and ease when she finally meets Lee. Much of their roadtrip sequences are wordless tableaus of intimacy. Their chemistry is palpable, even though the film does its best to leave Maren un-sexualized except when she feeds, e.g. the way she smells the girl next to her at the sleepover, or the way she lingers voyeuristically out of sight watching Lee work his mark in the Kentucky cornfield.

Cannibalism slots nicely into a metaphor for shameful sexuality and the forbidden, care of Julia Ducournau's Raw. Some extended comparison with Raw feels fruitful. Camille DeAngelis's YA fiction horror romance was published in 2015 and Ducournau's film came out the following year in 2016, which really makes you wonder what was in the water that year that had eating humans top of mind. Raw uses cannibalism in part as a kind of vehicle for taboo sexuality, destructive, anti-social behavior, and unhealthy addiction. Until we learn about (and here are some spoilers) the past history of our protagonist's older sister, we think her obsession must be entirely her own, a horrific but unfortunate quirk. It's only when we learn that her older sister has been coping with and designing ways to live her truth comfortably that the film really takes off. In some ways, Bones and All seems to provide a counterbalance to the loneliness and isolation of Raw, asks the question how could meeting a co-dependent addict change your outlook? Raw feels like it has legs to bear the metaphorical weight of discovery of one's queer identity while also getting a lot of mileage out of the cis-het experience for young women learning how to fit in in college. Bones and All echoes some of the notes of HBO's Euphoria, the exploration of self-loathing and the joys of finding someone who encourages your base instincts rather than counseling you to be better. While we're adding television similarities, look at VE Schwab's short-lived but excellent First Kill found ways to put a spin on the vampire hunt by critiquing the violence inherent in feeding by considering and flipping power differentials of traditional gender roles. First Kill features a sister trying to teach her sibling to cope with her violent cravings.

First Kill, Raw, and Bones are all concerned with the collateral damage of one's violent and secret compulsions. First Kill and Bones consider the erotic elements of those desires, whereas Raw and Bones concern themselves internal struggle. First Kill and Bones consider genetics and family history as a means of explaining urges, whereas Raw, until we are further along, focalizes the experience of recognizing oneself as different and aberrant. Maren expresses a number of times early in the movie her disbelief that there were so many like herself, and that one could smell out others. The concept of "passing" for normal is something that the characters of each of the films and television shows plays with a lot. Luca Guadagnino, director of A Bigger Splash, has made a film that is almost perfect in every way, the perfect date movie, the perfect horror romance, something messy and hot but not unseemly for an audience coming out of a sterile and lonely time.