‘Bones and All’ Review: Everything Is Shocking and Worthless

Article content

“Bones and All” presents critics with the ultimate conundrum. How do you do a fair assessment of a movie that does a fine job of adapting that source material while discovering it equals shallow and jarring parts?

Article content

Luca Guadagnino’s visualizations of Camille DeAngelis’ young adult novels glorified Gore, moody teen angst, and references to classics like “Badlands,” “Bonnie and Clyde,” and “Near Dark.” Knowing mention plunges the audience into a gross but occasionally engrossing slough. of cognitive dissonance. The main character of the story, Mullen (Taylor Russell), is a shy teenager she meets as her jar, and she wants to make friends in what appears to be her new high school. Sure enough for her, she’s invited to join the cool girls at a sleepover, where they do each other’s nails. Showing one of her new acquaintances manicure, Maren looked at it with admiration and put her girl finger in her mouth and bit it down.

Article content

Mullen turns out to be a cannibal, and when her panicked father (played by Andre Holland) realizes what happened, he accepts that her worst impulses can no longer be regulated. He leaves her a note and her birth certificate. This will come in handy later. Mullen embarks on an urgent existential investigation, taking him from Maryland to the Midwest. There she meets Lee (Timothy Chalamet), a charismatic vagabond.

Article content

Call Me By Your Name fans will remember the first collaboration between Guadagnino and Chalamet. Full of moments of stunning beauty, I warn you here that this is not that movie. Situated in the dingy suburbs of American society, “Bones and All” is a raw, gritty, and seemingly useless act that seems to use the ultimate in antisocial behavior as a convenient stand-in for all manner of contemporary social problems, from otherization to addiction. An often unpleasant travelogue. Its metaphorical ambition feels flimsy at best for a film that enjoys shocking value, with two charming protagonists slurping, chewing, and devouring their latest ill-fated victims. Lee shares the same pixie temperament and well-worn ethics, but a menacing wanderer named Sally who is overrated by another secret sharer she meets along the way, Mark Rylance. “Bones and All” becomes a chase film, culminating in a Grand Guignol of brutality and self-sacrifice.

Article content

Chalamet and Russell excel in a film that asks the lead actor to wear baggy jeans and a red-dyed mullet (“Bones and All” is set in the 1980s). He looks like the sexiest Kearney you’ve ever flirted with at a state fair. Russell delivers a calm and cautious performance as a young woman who just wants to love and be loved like any other woman.

Like many films this season, Triangle of Sorrow, The Menu, The Whale, and Bones and All are all about eating and why it’s so hard to get your most basic needs met. We deprive ourselves and each other of nourishment. Or, at least, it’s the most generous reading of this perverse picaresque. I’m counting on your call. Choose your own adventure. And maybe bring a barf bag.

Rating: 1.5 stars