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

The compulsion to equate young love with ruin and death is perhaps due to Shakespeare and Romeo and JulietFirst love rarely lasts and youth never lasts.

For most people, the burning intensity of young love, the sense of infatuation and discovery that “everything is new and wonderful, and we are the first to experience sex,” is immediately apparent. And for adults looking back on that era in their lives, the sense of loss and nostalgia can feel akin to the feelings associated with navigating death. Few things are as stunningly vivid as the metaphor of bones and alla gory shocker that contains a lot of familiar horror movie elements, but plays much more like a classic road romance.

It’s a bizarre movie, and one that seems designed to confuse fans of both Guadagnino’s previous horror-influenced feature, 2018’s messy Giallo remake. Suspiriaand fans of his 2017 tanned gay romance call me by your name in the meantime bones and all It bridges these two films so cleanly that it feels calculated, but it also raises the question of how much audience crossover there is between the two films. You might be disappointed that so much of the film is low-key relationship drama and coming-of-age, with less breathtaking tension and jump scares. But genre agnostic movie buffs will be spoiled for choice with a totally bold and unique story adapted from Camille DeAngelis’ 2015 YA novel of the same name. will occupy a large portion of

bones and all Reunited with Guadagnino, call me by your name A second love story starring Timothée Chalamet. However, it will be some time before Chalamet appears. Initially, the film revolves around Mullen (waveTaylor Russell), a high school student with a series of secrets. Alone with her father (André Holland), Maren lives in a run-down, crumbling house. There’s a furtive sense of shame hanging over every detail of their home and their interactions, but for the film to reveal why it’s true and what they’re navigating It takes a while. And when it’s revealed, they’re both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. This is because the details are unexpected.

Be prepared not only for a great deal of bloodshed and short bursts of intense violence, bones and all is the kind of film that lets you experience the moment better than it is explained. New revelations about Mullen’s past and present unfold with caution, in part because she doesn’t really understand her own nature and has to learn about it with the audience. Kajganich (writer, producer and developer of the much-loved horror series) Fear) never feels rushed to get to a certain part of the story. He and Guadagnino create enough room for Maren to learn, first through conversations with new acquaintance Sally (bridge of spiesMark Rylance, who once again disappeared into an incredible performance), and with a newer acquaintance, Lee (Charamet), a world-class boy about her age.

Viewers who don’t yet know the film’s premise and want to experience it in theaters should stop reading here. bones and all We’ve been shy about what sets us apart from Mullen, Lee, and others, but the film’s public description shares that secret widely: bones and allThe wide-eyed central couple are both “eaters,” effectively ghouls driven to devour human flesh. Their victims don’t have to be alive, but they must continue or die once they start consuming human bodies. bones and all more or less in the footsteps of cinema bonnie and clyde to Terrence Malick badlands It’s about putting two pretty people on opposite sides of the law and making them go on the run, but in this case, it’s questionable how human they are. Not as sexy or stylish as Hanger — Guadagnino makes the ritual of consumption a bloody, grotesque, animalistic, and uncomfortable matter of survival.

All of this gives him more room to play when it comes to romanticizing Lee and Mullen’s connection. bones and all It leans hard into it while building a story around the old coming-of-age pattern of the protagonist finding himself (and finding courage in the process). A family mystery, her first love, her first understanding that there are other Eaters, and the rules that bind them. He knows more about the world and Eater’s life than she does, but she knows better what she wants and who she wants to be.

Photo: Yannis Drakoulidis/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures

favorite call me by your name, bones and all is a sensual film, especially visually — Guadagnino luxuriates in Andrea Arnold’s similar summer vacation-themed sky country scenery. american honey Very impressive, he warms during the day and enthusiastically lights the reeds at night. But the way he and Kaiganich push and pull between the story’s romantic elements and horror themes is more remarkable. A great metaphor is at play here for how parents, family and friends allow aberrant behavior until it feels normal, and how being shielded from the world makes it harder to get into it properly. Both through the lens of two young children taking a romantic road trip, and as two growing monsters who lure and kill other people for food.

There’s an equally complicated fascination and disgust at work in Maren and Lee’s relationship. They are very different people and rarely seem right for each other — but they also have that core and unshakable similarity… their conflicting goals and beliefs. The filmmakers keep humming the question with lively intensity throughout the film — should these kids stick together or go their separate ways? Do they help each other as much as they are? It makes the limits of the much more tense.

bones and all It would be a poor sell for many audiences, given the strange way it straddles genres and tones. There are elements. latest victim. But the technology throughout the film is impressive and compelling. And the whole enterprise is a movie that’s deliciously weird and makes people walk away. that Previous. “The film draws on age-old tropes and familiar ideas. But it does it in a way that feels new, fresh, and exhilarating, like young love itself.

bones and all is currently in theaters.