‘Bones And All’ – A horrific romance

There have been many love stories throughout cinema. So many that at a certain point, you start to think you’ve seen them all. Boy meets girl, girl meets vampire, Santa meets Mrs Claus. There’s been no shortage of unions on the silver screen yet, Bones And All serves up one that stands out.

The main character Maren, played by Taylor Russell, feels ever so familiar. She’s a young girl, whose greatest desire is to find her place in the world with someone who loves her for her. Maren’s second most desire is to quell her insatiable hunger for human flesh.

As Bones And All puts it, Maren is an eater. A person afflicted by cannibalistic urges. It’s not something you put in your dating app profile, so finding a partner isn’t exactly a walk in the park. Thankfully, Timothee Chalamet’s Lee suffers the same proclivity. He offers her a romantic road trip across America, with the two getting by on a quarter tank of gas, and a whole lot of love.

For the faint of stomach, Bones And All is a formidable watch. It’s grotesque in its depiction of people eating people, but if you can get past the gore, the film itself is far from garish. While it never asks you to approve of the two criminals, the movie positions them as no greater offenders than your typical bank robbers or con artists. Going from town to town getting by on the kindness of strangers to get their next meal.

At the heart of it Bones And All is about lost souls trying to make sense of the world and their place in it. Both characters have baggage that they unpack in the film’s two hours, with Chalamet and Russell giving their characters an impressive treatment.

It also doesn’t hurt that Bones And All is extremely pretty to look at. The tour of the countryside is put on display with incredible shots, and manages to find beauty among the macabre mayhem of the film’s plot. The movie also sounds amazing, with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross delivering a film score that breathes life into the film’s melancholy.

It’s not your typical romantic drama, but it’s one that presents its story and its characters with confidence and doesn’t buckle. I didn’t think I’d ever see a film about two cannibals touring the American countryside, but now I have. And you know what? It was pretty good.

Rating: Big Screen Watch

Damian Levy is a film critic and podcaster for Damian Michael Movies.