Dispatch From Venice: Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet Are Dangerously in Love in ‘Bones and All’

It’s the late 1980s in suburban America, and a teenage girl named Maren has snuck out of her family’s home for a sleepover. As she and her friends gossip and paint their nails shades of copper, all seems well—but deep down, Maren is trying desperately hard not to chew the skin off the finger of the sweet, brown-haired girl lying next to her. She ultimately fails, dragging the sinewy meat off the bone while her friend shrieks, blood everywhere—and by morning, Maren and her single father have fled town to start their lives over elsewhere.

This is the opening scene of Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All, a stunning and barbaric fairytale-slash-road movie about a young woman, played by Waves star Taylor Russell, and her near-unquenchable craving for human flesh. It’s Guadagnino’s first feature-length film since 2018’s Suspiria, and it marks his second collaboration with Timothée Chalamet, who appears as Lee, a down-and-out loner finding his way (and sharing Maren’s hunger).

Bones and All is as much about desire and connection—flesh as a sensual object—as it is about the body as a rich and valuable asset, primed for consumption. If that sounds like surprising subject matter from a man best known for his deeply intimate romantic dramas (Call Me By Your Name, A Bigger Splash, I Am Love), the connection between the two makes Bones and All perhaps his most sweeping love story yet.

When the dangers of Maren’s appetite become too much for her dad (Moonlight’s André Holland) to bear, he leaves her with a stack of cash, her birth certificate, and a tape explaining his reasons for running away. So begins Maren’s cross-country journey to find the only other family member she knows, but has no memory of: her mother. Along the way, she’ll encounter a sinister, cartoonish “eater” named Sully (Mark Rylance), who braids the hair of his victims into a rope to remember them by; and then Chalamet’s Lee, who’s seeking flesh to eat, too. They talk and share stories about their pasts before deciding to drive a stolen blue Chevrolet pick-up to Maren’s mother in Minnesota together.

As the emotional yet fiercely resilient Maren, Russell is the real star here, turning in a startling performance. But Chalamet—who is often at his best playing nervy, introspective characters—is in full control of Lee’s guard, dropping it as time passes. He is, for once, not sleazy or especially charming, but deeply vulnerable and loving.