Bones and All (Luca Guadagnino, 2022)

Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell in Bones and All

Cast: Taylor Russell, Timothée Chalamet, Mark Rylance, André Holland, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jessica Harper, Chloë Sevigny, Anna Cobb, David Gordon Green. Screenplay: David Kajganich, based on a novel by Camille DeAngelis. Cinematography: Arseni Khachaturan. Production design: Elliott Hostetter. Film editing: Marco Costa. Music: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross. 

A horror movie from the point of view of the monsters, Luca Guadagnino's Bones and All features three remarkable performances. Taylor Russell is revelatory as Maren, the young woman who discovers that her compulsion to eat human flesh is not just an idiosyncrasy; Timothée Chalamet once again proves that he's not just a pretty face as Lee, a fellow "eater"; and Mark Rylance skillfully disappears into another role as Sully, Maren's mentor and nemesis. There's enough gore to satisfy sanguinary horror devotees, but the film focuses mainly on the psychology of people whose desires put them on the fringes of society, doing so without becoming heavily allegorical. Released during the ravages of the covid pandemic, Bones and All underperformed at the box office, but although it transcends the horror genre, its subject matter meant was probably never going to achieve a higher status than cult film.