**This post contains spoilers**
The Story- A young Maren (Taylor Russell) flees Virginia with her father, Frank (Andre Holland) after she tries to eat a friend’s finger at a slumber party. Frank, feeling the pressure of constantly covering up Maren’s cannibalistic attacks, eventually abandons his daughter.
Maren meets another cannibal named Sully (Mark Rylance) during her journey. Sully, offering his help and guidance, informs Maren that she is an eater, and the urge to feed on human flesh is too strong to ignore, a problem that’ll only get worse as Maren ages.
Maren crosses paths with Lee (Timothee Chalamet), another young eater, who agrees to help Maren find her estranged mother, Janelle (Chloe Sevingy). Maren and Lee develop feelings for each other, but Maren runs into trouble, when Sully returns with hopes of rekindling their partnership.
My Thoughts- Taylor Russell delivers an excellent performance, bringing the necessary vulnerability to Maren. There’s a noticeable layer of innocence to Maren’s character, but it’s also hard to ignore the fact that she’s willfully ignorant about the lifestyle of a cannibal. Russell did a good job of showing frustration and anger, because after all the eating and the deaths, Maren slowly realizes there’s no real moral high ground to stand on, when you’re attacking and killing innocent people.
Timothee Chalamet plays the edgy bad boy loner type, but he’s also a kid, who’s hurting inside, a broken young man. Choosing the path of a self imposed exile from his family, Lee wants to reconnect and bond with his sister, Kayla (Anna Cobb), but he’s carrying around the heavy burden of being an eater and killing his father. Chalamet nails a wide variety of emotions with a good performance. Lee is dangerous, but he can also be endearing and charismatic.
Taylor Russell and Timothee Chalamet share believable chemistry together. Maren and Lee are two people, who need each other, sharing a dark secret and a highly unusual lifestyle that only both of them can truly understand. Lee and Maren’s relationship feels real. A lot of ups and downs, with Maren slowly trusting Lee to the point, where she feels safe enough to lower her guard.
Mark Rylance is phenomenal as Sully, easily delivering the best performance here. Rylance brings a charming presence to Sully, complete with a soft southern accent. But there’s also a dangerous side to Sully, and there’s no denying he’s extremely creepy.
Rylance smoothly switches gears between the seemingly wise and helpful old man and a menacing threat. Sully wants to be the mentor and father figure that Maren needs. You’re isolated and alone in the world as an eater, so that’s why Sully was heartbroken, when Maren ran away from him after they ate the old lady. Great facial expressions from Rylance. The scene where a frozen and shocked Sully watches Maren leave on the bus with that devastated look on his face is just perfect.
Loneliness, abandonment, and how it affects people plays a big role in Bones And All. Frank was put in a tough spot, but you can understand why he left Maren. Still, it’s rough for a teenage girl to go out in the world alone after her father leaves without a warning, or any real preparations for survival. To make matters worse, Barbara (Jessica Harper), Maren’s adoptive grandmother, insists she honors her promise to never visit her again.
Sully is old. Living so many years alone with a secretive lifestyle will inevitably take its toll on anyone. That’s why Sully lashed out, when Maren sternly rejected his friendship. And it’s clear Sully was depressed about his family choosing not to look for him after he ran away as a child.
A lot of important details to pay attention to, as Sully and Maren are eating the old lady. You’ll see a bunch of pictures telling the story of a woman, who once had a family and friends. Imagine dying alone in that big house, while two strangers literally eat what’s left of you, leaving your mangled corpse on the ground surrounded by flies. That’s a depressing ending for anyone.
Maren has a rocky transition into adulthood, because she’s quickly forced to learn lessons about life on the fly. Maren runs away from Sully, and she runs away from Lee, when she panics for different reasons. Eventually, Maren realizes she can’t just run away from all of her problems. Confrontations and reconciling are cornerstones for adult life. Maren’s no longer in a position, where she can hide behind her father, while he takes care of everything.
Two big moments for Maren, starting with telling Sully that she no longer wants to be around him, and patching things up with Lee at the lake. Standing up for yourself and burying the hatchet takes guts. It’s uncomfortable, and Taylor Russell did a good job of showing how nervous Maren was with Sully, while also realizing shutting him out of her life was something that needed to be done.
She starts her journey into the world alone, only to wind up alone after killing Sully with Lee’s help. The timing of Sully’s attack was impeccable. Maren and Lee are living a normal and peaceful life together, but it’s all ripped away from them in an instant. It’s an unfortunate ending, with Maren eating a dying Lee. If anyone was going to eat Lee, he’d obviously choose Maren to do it, someone who cared about and understood him.
There’s also a callback to Jake’s (Michael Stuhlbarg) “bones and all” line at the campfire during Lee’s death scene. Lee wants Maren to eat him, bones and all, an experience that Jake romanticized as something special. According to Jake, leaving a bare bones corpse counts as the first real experience as an eater, passing the stage of foreplay, and transitioning to a legitimate achievement that’s basically a badge of honor.
Did Maren and Lee actually deserve a happy ending? Yeah, you could say they were young, two people with a strange condition doing what they had to do to survive, but that doesn’t erase the fact that they’re also murderers. The ending works as a full circle moment and karma coming to collect. Sully and Lee got what they deserved, while Maren is left to deal with the emotional and devastating aftermath alone.
Too many examples throughout the movie that clearly showed there’s no real happy ending for an eater. Maren was disgusted by Brad (David Gordon Green) and Jake’s joyous approach to cannibalism, especially Brad, who’s not an eater, but he still gets a kick out of the lifestyle. Sully and Lee were both predators. The big difference is, Lee was more of a cerebral tactician, manipulating his victim’s emotions before he attacked. And you can’t forget about Maren’s mother, Janelle. She’s alone, heavily medicated and deranged, living out the rest of her days in an institution.
So when you look at the big picture, Maren’s options are she can either spend the rest of her life running, hiding, or basically living off the grid. It’s a vicious cycle to literally feed her addiction. One problem after another, and not spending the rest of her life in prison or an institution is the best that Maren could hope for. I’m sure one of the reasons why Sully made Maren’s skin crawl is, she didn’t want to follow the same path during the later stages of her life: a monster, who was too enamored with the lifestyle, collecting locks of hair (including Kayla’s hair) from his victims.
Bones And All is a bloody and brutal love story, with a grotesque horror twist. All of the storylines and themes seamlessly connected for a smooth style of storytelling, leading to a gut-wrenching finale. Bones And All shows how having an addiction can ruin your life, and how it affects those closest to you. A bleak and genuinely emotional film, featuring a superb cast, and a number of creepy and unsettling scenes. Jake chasing after Maren and Lee in the darkness, and the sight of a distributed Janelle, including her mangled arms, because she couldn’t control her cravings and ate her own hands are two of my top picks.
And maybe I’m looking too deep into this, but I do wonder if the little girl at the diner was an eater? Sully did say eaters can locate each other by picking up on a peculiar scent. The child seemingly gave Maren a knowing look, so I guess it’s a possibility, an intriguing what if, without any definitive clues or hints.
So much blood and graphic gore, but Bones And All ironically feels homely and nostalgic. Placing the story in the 1980’s helps, while Maren and Lee traveled along the quiet backroads, passing through all the small and quaint towns.
Rating- 10/10
