Bones and All

Plot

In 1988, teenager Maren Yearly lives in Virginia, where she is invited to a sleepover by a classmate. Although she knows she's not allowed to go, she sneaks out. During the sleepover, she compulsively bites her classmate's finger, partially severing it. Maren and her single father, Frank, quickly move to Maryland. Shortly after Maren's 18th birthday, Frank abandons her, leaving her cash, her birth certificate, and a tape.

In the tape, Frank tells the story of Maren's first cannibalistic episode, when she killed her babysitter as a young child. Similar incidents continued to occur over the years, and while Frank helped her evade the consequences, he became distressed by Maren's lack of remorse. He concludes the tape with the hope that she will overcome her urges. Maren decides to go to Minnesota, the birthplace of her mother, Janelle, of whom she has no memories.

She takes a bus to Columbus, Ohio, where she meets Sully, an eccentric fellow "eater" who located her by smell. She follows Sully to a house with a dying, elderly woman. The next morning, Maren awakens to find Sully devouring the woman's corpse and joins him. Maren flees shortly after. While stealing supplies from a convenience store in Indiana, Maren meets Lee, later finding him having eaten a man who harassed a customer inside the store.

Stealing his victim's truck, Lee offers Maren a ride. As they embark on a cross-country road trip, Maren and Lee fall in love. During a brief stay in Lee's hometown in Kentucky, Maren notices his unwillingness to talk about his father's absence and why Lee avoids the town. His younger sister, Kayla, unaware of his true nature, scolds him for constantly leaving.

Maren and Lee encounter what also appear to be a pair of “eaters”, Jake and Brad. Maren rebels at the fact that Brad doesn't share their cravings, but instead voluntarily chooses to participate in cannibalism. Jake also speaks of the intensity of consuming a body "bones and all". Lee and Maren leave while the men are asleep, causing Jake to wake up and chase after them. After Maren expresses hunger during a stop at a local carnival, Lee seduces, then attacks a booth worker and kills him. Once she and Lee have feasted on the body, Maren is guilt-ridden to discover that the man was married and had children.

Cast

Taylor Russell as Maren Yearly

Timothée Chalamet as Lee

Mark Rylance as Sully

André Holland as Frank Yearly, Maren's father

Michael Stuhlbarg as Jake, an eater

Chloë Sevigny as Janelle Kerns, Maren's mother and an eater

David Gordon Green as Brad, a police officer who is a paraphilic cannibal but not an eater

Jessica Harper as Barbara Kerns, Maren's adoptive grandmother

Sean Bridgers as Barry Cook, a drunk man who becomes Lee's first victim

Jake Horowitz as Lance, a carnival worker and weed dealer who becomes Lee's second victim

Kendle Coffey as Sherry

Anna Cobb as Kayla, Lee's sister

Production

Development

One of the film's producers, Theresa Park, was on a trip to the London Book Fair in 2015, when she discovered Camille DeAngelis's Bones & All, and described it as one of the "most heartbreaking" novels she had read. She "optioned" the screen rights in 2016. Park only sent the book to one screenwriter, David Kajganich, as she thought he would like it based on his work on AMC's The Terror. The screenwriter found the story to be a "surprising blend of genres" and described it as "exciting". He and Park met with DeAngelis to know if she approved of him adapting it, as the story centered on a young woman, which she did.

Kajganich's first choice for director was Luca Guadagnino, as he trusted him due to their previous collaborations. Guadagnino was busy with other projects at the time, and declined. Kajganich decided to contact director Antonio Campos, with whom he had also worked in the past, and he boarded the project in 2019. The script was developed by Park and Kajganich over a period of five years. Neither of them was fond of the idea of having a film studio meddling with the project, so they started it independently. The first draft took around two and a half years, due to Kajganich's other commitments, he nevertheless appreciated the long process as it allowed him to make decisions that would have not been possible if the film had studio backing. The screenplay was finished over the COVID-19 lockdown but Campos had to drop out to work on another project, at that point Kajganich reached to Guadagnino again, who only read the script as a favor due to their friendship. Guadagnino joined the project a couple of weeks later, with the condition that actor Timothée Chalamet, with whom he had worked on Call Me by Your Name (2017), got on board as well.

After meeting with the director in Rome, Chalamet accepted the offer and joined as producer as well. Guadagnino and Chalamet wanted to keep the production independent so they sought out Italian financiers at the end of 2020. Guadagnino first contacted The Apartment's Lorenzo Mieli, with whom he had worked previously on HBO's We Are Who We Are, Mieli teamed with

Memo's Francesco Melzi d'Eril and Marco Morabito, both frequent Guadagnino collaborators, to front the $20 million needed for the film. Guadagnino and Chalamet also contacted Call Me by Your Name producer and personal friend, Peter Spears to join them. Spears remarked on the uniqueness of the story as one of the reasons, to not look for studio involvement. Once they reached the budget, the North American distribution rights were bought by MGM in a negative pickup deal. The team including the producers, Guadagnino, Chalamet, and the rest of the actors, deferred their salaries until after the distribution rights were bought, which "really helped with investors," said Melzi d'Eril. Both Guadagnino and Kajganich credited Chalamet's involvement as the main reason the film got financed in the first place. The film was executive produced by Giovanni Corrado and Raffaella Viscardi; with investment coming from The Apartment, 3 Marys, Memo, Tenderstories, Adler, Elafood, Elafilm, Manila, Serfis and Wise.

Marketing

The first teaser for Bones and All was released on August 10, 2022. American artist Elizabeth Peyton was commissioned by director Luca Guadagnino to create a painting based on the film. The resulting painting, which she titled "Kiss (Bones and All)", was turned into the film's first poster, which was on display during the Venice International Film Festival, hanging on the 13th-century palace Ca' da Mosto in Venice.

The official poster for the film was released on September 29, 2022, accompanied by its first trailer, which featured a rendition of Leonard Cohen's "You Want It Darker". The song was chosen by lead actor Timothée Chalamet. Safeeyah Kazi of Collider called the trailer "chilling" and "intense". Toussaint Egan of Polygon noted similarities to 1994's crime thriller Natural Born Killers. Allegra Frank of The Daily Beast called it "gorgeously bloody", and praised it for not sharing too much information. Lauren Milici of Total Film described the trailer as Let The Right One In meets Bonnie and Clyde." An extended trailer was released on October 5, 2022.

Music

The film's score was composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and was released on November 18, 2022, on Reznor's label The Null Corporation.< In an interview with TheWrap, Reznor and Ross explained that they had extensive discussions with Guadagnino regarding the score, who stated that he wanted it to be "a melancholic elegy, an unending longing. It needs to be a character in the film, a part of the landscape" and requested the use of acoustic guitars to complement the Americana visuals. Reznor and Ross noted how the duo had to experiment with a lot of different sounds before figuring out how the score would sit in the film and explained the creation of the film's original song "(You Made It Feel) Like Home", which stemmed from their personal connections to Russell and Chalamet's characters.

Release

In early 2022, MGM's then-chairman Kevin Ulrich met with Guadagnino to discuss distributing Bones and All. During the meeting, Guadagnino showed Ulrich a 10-minute reel of the finished film, and told him he was also in the midst of developing his next project, Challengers (2024). A two-picture deal was negotiated over the next 24 hours, alongside then-heads of MGM Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy. The sale was handled by WME, De Maio Entertainment, and Range Media Partners. It is the first film to be acquired by United Artists Releasing and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures following its merger deal with Amazon on March 17, 2022. Bones and All had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 2, 2022, followed by screenings at the 60th New York Film Festival, 17th Fantastic Fest, 49th Telluride Film Festival, 2022 AFI Fest and 2022 BFI London Film Festival.

Bones and All had a limited theatrical release beginning on November 18, 2022, before opening wide on November 23. Vision Distribution released the film in Italy on November 23, 2022, in collaboration with Prime Video and Sky, while Warner Bros. Pictures handled all other international territories through MGM and UAR under a new multi-year pact with the former beginning with this film.

Home media

The film was available on rental PVOD on December 13, 2022. It was released on Blu-ray and DVD, on January 31, 2023, by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.

Reception

Box office

Bones and All grossed $7.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $7.4 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $15.2 million; it underperformed against a $16–20 million budget.

In its limited opening weekend, Bones and All grossed $120,000 from five theaters. The film expanded alongside Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Strange World, Devotion, and the wide expansion of The Fabelmans, and was projected to gross around $7–9 million from 2,727 theaters over its five-day opening weekend. It made $921,000 on its first day, including $345,000 from Tuesday night previews. It went on to debut to $2.7 million (including $3.5 million over the five days), finishing in eighth. In its third weekend of release, the film made $1.2 million. Its underperformance in the United States was attributed to the increasing decline of interest in prestige films by the general public in a moviegoing environment altered by the COVID-19 pandemic, despite being a film of the horror genre, which saw a surge in popularity during the summer with the releases of Nope, Barbarian and Smile.

The film debuted first at the Italian box office, grossing a total of €109.036 (US$113,643).

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 82% of 292 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The website's consensus reads: "Although its subject matter may be hard to stomach, Bones and All proves a deeply romantic and thought-provoking treat." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 74 out of 100, based on 54 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it an overall positive score of 71%, including an average three out of five stars.

Reviewing the film following its premiere at Venice, where it received a 10-minute standing ovation, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian called it an "extravagant and outrageous movie: scary, nasty and startling in its warped romantic idealism" and gave the film a perfect rating of 5 stars. Stephanie Zacharek, in her review for Time, wrote "Bones and All is fastidiously romantic. It's so carefully made, and so lovely to look at, even at its grisliest", praising the direction and cast performances, particularly Russell's. Taylor Russell, Timothée Chalamet, and Mark Rylance have received acclaim for their performances with critics praising Russell and Chalamet's chemistry together. Bloody Disgusting called the duo "profound" and "touching and genuine". The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney also praised the duo, adding their performances are "unforced and underplayed to subtly stirring effect," while calling the film "strangely affecting, even poetic" and commending the direction and cinematography.

Leila Latif in her review for IndieWire wrote, "Bones & All is fundamentally a beautifully realized and devastating, tragic romance which at multiple moments would have Chekhov himself weeping as the trigger is pulled." Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair called it an "alternately plodding and engrossing YA road movie" praising the cast performances, but ultimately found the film unsatisfactory, writing "Bones and All has its merits, but the film is only a decent side dish at the feast of Guadagnino." Writing for Sight & Sound, John Bleasdale described it as "wryly funny, gleefully entertaining and oddly touching" and praised the direction, cinematography, score, and cast performances. Comparing it to Call Me by Your Name, Selina Sondermann wrote "like two sides of the same coin – both cunningly display the love we find for ourselves when we are allowed to truly love another person, bones and all."

"There's real pleasure in Bones and All, an insistent sweetness that somehow both nourishes and cleanses away the horror" wrote Justin Chang in his review for the Los Angeles Times. Clint Worthington Flow of Consequence described the film as "an oddly sweet—presumably a little coppery, too, due to all the blood—alchemy of love and murder" and compared it to Badlands (1973) and Bonnie and Clyde (1967), with their tales of "lovers skirting human morality and forging their own sense of paradise with each other". In one unenthusiastic review, Slant's Keith Uhlich criticized the screenplay, direction, and cast performances, concluding: "Straining to be a YA spin on Trouble Every Day, Bones and All barely eclipses Twilight." Mick LaSalle, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, provided a firmly negative review, criticizing the use of gore by saying "the problem is [cannibalism] can’t stay a metaphor" and "Guadagnino has a choice, whether to be an artist or just the maker of artistically rendered, conscientiously realized garbage."