The American Midwest, the 1980s: After having bitten another girl's (Kendle Coffey) finger off during a sleepover, young Maren (Taylor Russell) flees the scene in a frenzy, back to her dad (André Holland) - who's well-prepared for an event like this and they skip town in a matter of minutes. Because you see, Maren has a natural penchant to eat human flesh, she's a cannibal by nature rather than choice. In public she can control her urge, in private, not so much. So she and her dad are pretty much constantly on the run - which at one point gets too much for her dad, and he abandons her, but leaving her with a wad of money and a tape relaying her story, and giving her a clue to her backstory, the address of her grandmother (Jessica Harper). Trying to get to grandma, Maren makes the acquaintance of Sully (Mark Rylance), who turns out to be a natural cannibal just like herself and offers to take her under his wing. And to his credit, he's very caring and never tries to take advantage of her - but he's also a creepy old man, so in an unguarded moment she runs away. Eventually, she runs into yet another natural cannibal, Lee (Timothée Chalamet), an attractive young man with his heart in the right place, even if his condition has forced him into becoming a thief and occasional murderer. The two quickly fall in love and decide to travel together, and Lee even takes Maren to her grandmother. That doesn't work out well at all, but Maren learns that her mother's (Chloë Sevigny) still around, kept locked up in an asylum. When Maren goes visit her, she finds mum has gnawed off both her arms up to her elbow, which of course comes like a big shock to her, and she wisely decides she doesn't want to become her mum. So she and Lee decide to settle down to try to live a normal life in Lee's hometown, very much to the delight of Lee's sister (Anna Cobb), who didn't approve of Lee's habit of relentlessly crossing the country and only coming for short visits. Problem is, Sully has been trailing Maren for all these weeks as he to a point sees her as his protegée, maybe even more, and now he wants to reclaim her, if need be by force ...

The film starts out very promising, like a subversive cannibal anti-horror movie, with all the gruesomeness intact - but before long it descends into a Midwestern coming of age drama/romance about two attractive people naturally drawn to one another on the run. There's nothing against this per se, it's just that Bones and All despite its suitably gritty aesthetics can't help but just heap on cliché after cliché, while soon abandoning the gruesome foundations of the premise (until the finale at least), concentrating on its generic love story instead, and really in the end solving the premise's moral dilemma by blaming everything on a bad guy that actually has nothing to do with the central, internal conflict. Too bad, because the beginning was great, but as a whole the film feels like a failed opportunity.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

Feeling lucky? Want to search any of my partnershops yourself for more, better results? (commissions earned)

The links below will take you just there!!!

Find Bones and All at the amazons ...   amazon.com   amazon.co.uk   amazon.de Looking for imports? Find Bones and All here ...   eThaiCD.com Your shop for all things Thai Something naughty? (Must be over 18 to go there!)   find Bones and All at adultvideouniverse.com

Thanks for watching !!!