Bones and All

Maren Yearly (Russell) is a teenage girl living in Maryland under the care of her father Frank (Holland). Having displayed cannibalistic tendencies ever since she murdered her babysitter at the age of three, Maren evaded the consequences of her following incidents over the years thanks to Frank's cover-ups, with the duo often relocating, even as he grew increasingly anguished over his daughter's apparent lack of remorse. He abandons her shortly after her eighteenth birthday, leaving behind some cash, her birth certificate, and a message on a cassette tape, in which he states his hope that she will someday learn to overcome her urges.

Maren decides to travel to Minnesota, listed as the birthplace of her mother Janelle (Sevigny), who left the family when Maren was still an infant. She is approached at a bus station by an eccentric man named Sully (Rylance), who introduces himself as a fellow "eater" and teaches her that their kind can identify one another via scent. He leads her into a house owned by an elderly woman, who has collapsed and is near death, and they feed on the corpse together the following morning, though Maren is initially reluctant. Sully expresses interest in taking Maren under his wing, but she is unnerved by him and flees the house soon after.

Whilst shoplifting supplies in Indiana, Maren witnesses an intoxicated customer harassing a woman and tries to confront him before a young man named Lee (Chalamet) intervenes, baiting the customer into leaving the store. She later spots Lee outside, covered in the man's blood, and the two admit to having previously recognized each other's scents. Lee steals his victim's truck and, once the pair spends the night at the man's vacated house, offers to help Maren find her mother. They embark on a cross-country road trip, during which they fall in love. After a brief stay in Lee's hometown in Kentucky, Maren notices his unwillingness to discuss certain aspects of his past, such as his father's absence and the reason why Lee avoids being spotted around town. His younger sister Kayla (Cobb), who is unaware of his true nature, chastises him for his sudden departures and unannounced returns.

Maren tracks down the home of her maternal grandmother, who, despite having no prior knowledge of her existence, informs her that Janelle voluntarily admitted herself into a psychiatric hospital in Fergus Falls several years before. There, Maren reunites with her mother, who she is shocked to find has self-cannibalized her own hands. A nurse hands Maren a letter that Janelle wrote to her in the event that their paths ever crossed again, which concludes with Janelle's belief that Maren would be better off dead than living as a "monster". Janelle proceeds to attack her daughter before being restrained. Disturbed and unwilling to go down the same path as her mother, Maren leaves while Lee is asleep. She is soon accosted by Sully, who has been stalking her. She again turns down his offer to become companions, causing him to curse at her angrily before departing. Once he realizes Maren is gone, a devastated Lee decides to return home.

Maren eventually makes her way back to Kentucky. She runs into Kayla, who reveals that, on the night of her and Lee's alcoholic, abusive father's disappearance, he beat both of his children before mysteriously vanishing while Kayla ran to get the police. Having been held as the prime suspect, Lee was cleared once it was proven that the blood found on him was his own. Maren and Lee reunite and rekindle their relationship, before deciding to travel westward with no clear destination in mind. Lee tells Maren that he realized his father was also an eater when he bit Lee during their scuffle, and that he hid him away before feeding off him, tearfully confessing to enjoying the thrill the act gave him. He asks Maren if she thinks he is a bad person, but she declares her love for him, they decide to attempt to live a normal life together.

Sometime later, they are shown to be living happily in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Maren comes home one day to find Sully, who murdered and cannibalized Kayla on the way, has broken into their apartment. He threatens Maren at knifepoint, bemoaning her past rejections. Once Lee arrives, the couple succeeds in killing Sully, but Lee is fatally wounded in the struggle. As he bleeds out in Maren's arms, Lee pleads for her to eat his body as he dies, "bones and all". Maren frantically refuses at first, but eventually gives in.

• Taylor Russell as Maren Yearly
• Timothée Chalamet as Lee
• Mark Rylance as Sully
• André Holland as Frank Yearly, Maren's father
• Michael Stuhlbarg as Jake, a cannibal
• Chloë Sevigny as Janelle Kerns, Maren's mother
• David Gordon Green as Brad, a cannibal
• Jessica Harper as Barbara Kerns, Maren's grandmother
• Jake Horowitz as Lance, a carnival worker whom Lee picks up
• Kendle Coffey as Sherry
• Anna Cobb as Kayla, Lee's sister

On April 8, 2019, it was announced that David Kajganich would adapt Camille DeAngelis's 2015 novel Bones & All for the screen, and that the film would be directed by Antonio Campos.[3] On January 28, 2021, it was announced that Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet would star in the film,[4] now to be directed by Luca Guadagnino.[5][6] Chalamet is also a producer on the film.[7] Filming began in May, by which time Mark Rylance, Michael Stuhlbarg, André Holland, Jessica Harper, Chloë Sevigny, Francesca Scorsese, and David Gordon Green had joined the cast.[8][9] Shooting took place in Chillicothe, Ohio and Cincinnati, Ohio, which makes it Guadagnino's first film set and made in the United States.[10] Production was affected by break-ins that occurred for some of the crew's cars, leading to a request being submitted to Cincinnati City Council in late June to provide $50,000 for increased security.[11] While there was some criticism over the proposed use of taxpayer funds for a private enterprise, City Council ultimately passed a measure to grant the funds.[12][13] Filming wrapped in July 2021.[14]

Executive producers are Giovanni Corrado and Raffaella Viscardi. The film is fully financed by Italian companies: The Apartment (a Fremantle group society), 3 Marys, Memo, Tender Stories, Adler, Elafood, Elafilm, Manila, Serfis and Wise.[15]

Guadagnino said that Bones and All is "a very romantic story, about the impossibility of love and yet, the need for it. Even in extreme circumstances."[16] He also said that Chalamet and Russell have "a gleaming power" and are able to "portray universal feelings".[16]

The first teaser for Bones and All was released on August 10, 2022.[17] American artist Elizabeth Peyton was commissioned by director Luca Guadagnino to create a painting based on the film. The resulting painting, which she titled "Kiss (Bones and All)", was turned into the film's first poster, which was on display during the Venice International Film Festival, hanging on the 13th-century palace Ca' da Mosto in Venice.[18]

The official poster for the film was released on September 29, 2022, accompanied by its first trailer, which featured a rendition of Leonard Cohen's "You Want It Darker".[19][20] The song was chosen by lead actor Timothée Chalamet.[21] Safeeyah Kazi of Collider called the trailer "chilling" and "intense".[22] Toussaint Egan of Polygon noted similarities to 1994's crime thriller Natural Born Killers.[23] Allegra Frank of The Daily Beast called it "gorgeously bloody", and praised it for not sharing too much information.[24] Lauren Milici of Total Film described the trailer as Let The Right One In meets Bonnie and Clyde."[25] An extended trailer was released on October 5, 2022.[26]

The film's score was composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and was released on November 18, 2022, on Reznor's label The Null Corporation.[27][28] In an interview with TheWrap, Reznor and Ross explained that they had extensive discussions with Guadagnino regarding the score, who stated that he wanted it to be "a melancholic elegy, an unending longing. It needs to be a character in the film, a part of the landscape" and requested the use of acoustic guitars to complement the Americana visuals. Reznor and Ross noted how the duo had to experiment with a lot of different sounds before figuring out how the score would sit in the film and explained the creation of the film's original song "(You Made It Feel) Like Home", which stemmed from their personal connections to Russell and Chalamet's characters.[29]

Bones and All had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 2, 2022, followed by screenings at the 60th New York Film Festival, 17th Fantastic Fest, 49th Telluride Film Festival, 2022 AFI Fest and 2022 BFI London Film Festival. It had a limited theatrical release beginning on November 18, 2022, before opening wide on November 23.[30][24]

• List of Italian films of 2022

• Official website (Italy)
• Official website (US)
• Bones and All at MGM Studios
• Bones and All at IMDb 
• Official screenplay