Maren and Lee are outcasts not because of what they do, but because of when they do it. Set in 1988, the film captures the pre-internet terror of being truly, irredeemably different. There is no online community for eaters. No subreddit, no support group, no dating app. There is only the open road, a dog-eared copy of The Odyssey , and the gnawing knowledge that you will never be safe. If the premise sounds exploitative, the performances shatter that expectation. Taylor Russell, whose career was launched by Waves , gives a performance of astonishing interiority. Maren is not a predator; she is a child who has been told she is poison. Watch her hands—clenched in her lap, trembling at a diner counter, reaching for Lee’s face. Every gesture is a negotiation between desire and disgust.
But the film is not interested in the mechanics of gore. Unlike the stylized excess of Raw or the survivalist grimness of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre , Guadagnino shoots the kills with a strange, anthropological distance. The violence is abrupt, ugly, and over in seconds. The true horror lies not in the act of eating, but in the loneliness that precedes it. Bones and All
When Sully finally snaps, the film earns its R-rating. The climactic confrontation is not a jump-scare but a slow, excruciating boil. It is a scene about the terror of being possessed—of having your autonomy devoured by someone who mistakes obsession for love. Cinematographer Arseni Khachaturan (working under the pseudonym “Mukdeeprom,” a nod to Guadagnino’s frequent collaborator Sayombhu) shoots America as a decaying postcard. Abandoned slaughterhouses, beige motel rooms, and golden wheat fields stretch to the horizon. The palette is autumnal: ochre, rust, bruised purple. It is a country of leftovers, of lives half-lived. Maren and Lee are outcasts not because of
The film’s final shot—a quiet, brutal act of mutual sacrifice—will linger long after the credits roll. It is not a happy ending. It is not a tragic one. It is an earned one. Because for Maren and Lee, the only promise they can keep is this: I will eat the bones of anyone who tries to take you from me. And when we are old, and hungry, and lost, I will eat your bones, too. And you will let me. No subreddit, no support group, no dating app
Rylance’s performance is a masterclass in unease. He whispers his lines, punctuates his sentences with wet-lipped smacks, and smells the air like a bloodhound. Sully represents Maren’s possible future: a lonely, middle-aged predator preying on the kindness of strangers. “You don’t have to be alone,” he coos. But his definition of “together” is a cage.
Together, they create the most honest depiction of young love in years. Their courtship is awkward, fumbling, and born of mutual recognition. Their first kiss is not a kiss at all, but a shared meal—a raw, desperate act of communion. In the world of Bones and All , intimacy is not about sex. It is about finding someone who sees your abyss and decides to jump in anyway. Of course, no romance is complete without an antagonist. Enter Sully, played by a near-unrecognizable Mark Rylance. Sully is an older eater, a sad-eyed ghoul with a receding hairline and the syrupy manners of a funeral director. He approaches Maren like a wolf circling a stray lamb, offering mentorship in exchange for companionship.
Bones and All is available on [streaming platform/theaters].