I adore the three lead actors chosen for this film. They're absolute powerhouses in every story they take part in, and this is no exception. Here, they embody their characters with subtlety and an eerie yet graceful presence that allowed me to see them as simultaneously monstrous and sympathetic.

There's quite a lot that Bones and All has to love, from the cinematography to the many powerful scenes that focus on Maren's struggle with whether or not she's a monster who deserves to be alone.

It's just a shame that I don't think the film every really hits the mark on what it's trying to convey.

This adapted screenplay skirts around the moral implications of these cannibalistic characters' actions without ever really nailing down a purpose for it all.

There are two or three wonderful scenes in which their horrific and brutal actions are discussed; Maren doesn't want to have these desires, while Lee embraces them. The conflict is there, and it's tangible, but it never goes beyond this point.

For most of the movie, nobody's boundaries are pushed. Every contentious moment either has a rapid resolution or is forgotten and not resolved at all.

The events of the story play out and the impact that they have on the characters is...never really felt. I never really felt anything because the characters just seem to move on from each happening like nothing happened at all.

There isn't really a sense of cause and effect from scene to scene. Beautiful images and captivating performances just appear and disappear on screen until the movie is over.

If the writing had been tighter and the characters felt more involved in their own story, it could have been truly special. Instead, I'll forget it rather quickly.

"Bones and All" follows Maren, a young woman in 1980s Maryland who discovers she has an inherited "curse" of sorts--one that propels her to give into vampiric cannibalism, from which her father attempted to protect her for years. As she attempts to make her way on her own, she becomes emotionally involved with Lee, another "feeder" of her own kind, spurring a romance over a weeks-long period of drifting through the midwest. Naturally, the two leave a trail of blood behind them.

This film marks director Luca Guadagnino and screenwriter David Kajganich's follow-up to 2018's "Suspiria" remake, and is based on a novel of the same name (which, for context I have not read--so I cannot really comment on how the film treats its source material). While this is an imperfect film in some ways, I found it particularly enjoyable for the first several acts, largely due to its intoxicating atmosphere, which is probably what this film achieves best above anything else. The period details, dreamy cinematography, and rustic filming locations make the first hour or so of the film particularly engrossing as the two main characters drift through them, leading up to a search for Maren's biological mother.

Aside from the haunting, gothic midwestern locations and cinematography, the film also offers strong performances from all involved. Taylor Russell gives a pointed and intelligent performance as the lead, who is marred by internal conflict and questions about who (and why) she is. Timothee Chalamet plays counterpoint as a troubled but likable youth from the Kentucky rustbelt whom she soon falls in love with, while Michael Rylance gives a disturbed portrayal of another elder eccentric "feeder" who becomes strangely obsessed with Russell's character. Folded into the film's psychological conflicts are some clear metaphors for disenfranchised youth--particularly lost gay teenagers--though the film appreciably does not browbeat this theme.

As the first several acts of the film roll on, the film feels like a 1980s-set take on "Badlands" with a quasi-supernatural twist, and leads up to a chilling confrontation between Russell and Chloë Sevigny, who plays a small (but pivotal) role that is as perplexing as it is haunting. The emotional gravitas of the film unfortunately loses steam as it moves from this peak toward its conclusion, which, though disturbing (and oddly moving),feels somewhat disconnected in tone from what leads up to it. I got the sense that the filmmakers stumbled a bit in the way the finale is telegraphed, and, though it is still emotionally fraught, the material nearly edges too far into speculative teen fiction territory, which it mostly seemed to be working against in the first hour or so.

Despite the somewhat clunky finale, however, I found the film largely absorbing due to its pitch-perfect atmosphere and smart performances. While I have little hope that the film will make a mark in terms of financial success, I do see "Bones and All" having a future in the years to come as a pulpy midnight movie appreciated for its haunting depiction of youth drifting along the fringe of society. 7/10.

Two birds of a feather with a common appetite, living in the shadows with a curse they try to fight, struggle to give in, to temptations that spellbind, an addiction of the mind that leaves them hamstrung and confined; finding others with dependencies more practiced and distilled, whose lives have little meaning, all alone and unfulfilled, helpless and exposed by the hand they've all been played, the promised life and expectations, all diminished and betrayed.

Some great performances but all eclipsed by Taylor Russell who is outstanding as the conflicted Maren struggling to come to terms with who she is and what she can and cannot do about it.