Bones and All

Bones and All had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 2, 2022, where it won the Silver Lion for best direction and the Marcello Mastroianni for Russell. The film was released theatrically in the United States on November 18, by United Artists Releasing, and elsewhere by Warner Bros. Pictures, with the exception of Italy, where it was distributed by Vision Distribution. The film received positive reviews, with critics praising the performances of Russell, Chalamet, and Rylance, Guadagnino’s direction, the cinematography, score, and fusion of genres. However, it underperformed at the box office, grossing $15.2 million against a production budget of $16–20 million.

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. Maren is unsettled by Sully, as he displays creepy mannerisms – especially when he uses his nose to identify scents. Sully informs Maren of his number one rule for their kind—”never eat another eater”—and asks Maren if she can abide by that rule, too. Maren tentatively agrees. Sully tells Maren to follow him, and leads her into a house owned by an elderly woman, who has collapsed and is near death. Maren wants to get the old woman help, but Sully yells at her aggressively and tells her that whatever they “have,” it needs to be fed. Upset by the moral dilemma, Maren tearfully states that she needs in a minute and falls asleep in another room. When she wakes up the next morning, the woman has passed away naturally, and Maren witnesses that Sully has already begun feeding on the woman’s corpse. Though initially reluctant, Maren also begins to feed. After they are through, Sully expresses interest in taking Maren under his wing and teaching her about their kind, but she is alarmed and unnerved by him and flees the house soon after when Sully is cleaning himself up. As Maren quickly boards a Greyhound bus, she sees Sully staring her down with a deep look of hurt on his face as the bus drives by him.

Maren’s heads toward Minnesota and makes a pit stop in Indiana on the way. While shoplifting supplies at a convenience store, Maren witnesses an intoxicated customer harassing a woman. Maren attempts to confront him, before a young man named Lee (Chalamet) intervenes and baits the customer into leaving the store. Maren later spots Lee outside, who is 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, Barbara, who, despite having no prior knowledge of her existence, informs her that Janelle was not her biological child, but was taken in by her and her husband as an infant after being found abandoned behind a police station, and 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 if 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, and they decide to attempt to live a normal life together.

Sometime later, they are shown to be living happily in Ann Arbor, Michigan as a regular, everyday couple. Maren comes home one day to find that their apartment has been broken into by Sully, who admits he’s been following her since her rejection of him earlier. Sully threatens Maren at knifepoint, bemoaning her past rejections and his obsession with her. Lee arrives home, and confronts Sully; a violent altercation ensues. The couple succeeds in killing Sully, but sadly, Lees is mortally wounded in the chest during the struggle. As Lee bleeds out in Maren’s arms, he pleads for her to eat his body as he dies, “bones and all”. Maren frantically refuses at first, but eventually gives in. The scene then cuts to their apartment being cleaned out, and Maren and Lee out in the wilderness together.