One of the films riding waves of critical acclaim out of the fall festivals is Bones and All, an adaptation of Camille DeAngelis’s novel of the same name. The film reunites Luca Guadagnino and Timothee Chalamet (as well as Michael Stuhlbarg in a supporting role), and brings in new players Mark Rylance and Taylor Russell. It follows a pair of teen lovers road-tripping through 1980s America. Oh, and they’re cannibals.
The Bones and All trailer is giving big Near Dark vibes. That film, a true cult classic from Kathryn Bigelow, follows a group of vampires as they kill their way through the backroads of small-town America. Near Dark sucks all the romanticism and sexiness out of vampires and leaves only the husk of reality—that vampires would be pathetic nomads by default, unable to pass in modern society, unable to conceal their crimes from rapidly expanding technology and increasingly brutal humans, and driven by the desperation to survive. Near Dark is the least sexy vampire film that also deals the most in classic vampire lore, of the predatory outsider hunted to the brink by paranoid, hateful humans. It also features an insanely good Bill Paxton performance, you should check it out.
Bones And All has a similar feel. The Eighties rural American setting is a big part of it, but it’s also in the combination of romance and violence, and how one stands to destroy the other. But which one? Does the story break romantic, with love filling the existential void represented by cannibalism? Or do the cannibals literally devour everything? And how will Timothee Chalamet’s stans cope with their sad boy prince playing such an, er, unappetizing character? I really cannot wait to see Tumblr try to cope with this movie. Or will the Chalamaniacs, or whatever they’re called, just demand to be eaten alive by Timmee? Let’s be honest, there’s probably just going to be a lot of “devour me daddy” memes.
