The world of love wants no monsters in it

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's top 50 films of 2022

#15 : Bones And All

<redacted> romance with Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell, who dazzle in Luca Guadagnino’s blood-soaked parable of poverty and rebellion.

Hmmm - "<redacted>" (for sake of spoilers, but do Google it if you're not going to watch the film) and "blood-soaked parable" aren't phrases designed to draw me towards a film - but even so, I'm quite surprised I've never heard of this.  We have met a Luca Guadagnino film before but I'll be amazed if this is anything like that.

Well, that's quite some start to the film - it starts off looking like a very average American high school drama and then things take a very weird turn.  The Guardian slightly spoiled things for me with their review but even so I was pretty shocked by what happened because I totally didn't see it coming.  And the thing that happens means that Maren (Taylor Russell) has to leave her normal American high school drama and so she ends up drifting around the country and meeting some very strange characters indeed.

Of these, Lee (Timothée Chalamet) is the person she has most interaction with - they travel together and grow closer traversing the land.  He's quite an interesting character but he has a very annoying mumbly accent - he's also very thin!  Sully (Mark Rylance) is considerably weirder - he's actually not unlike Rooster Byron, Mark's character in Jerusalem (except for one major spoilery difference!).  We also get to meet Maren's mum (Chloe Sevigny) and she's probably the weirdest of the lot.

Deciding not to talk about the spoilery thing does make this review trickier, but if you decide to watch it, I think it will make it a "better" experience.  A lot of the film is quite absurd in its normality because some quite "unusual" behaviour is presented as absolutely normal and it's quite jarring.  It also has a lot of very relatable behaviour, particularly around relationships - mostly between Maren and Lee (it's surprisingly romantic at times), but there are various family interactions that also ring true. I should also warn you that some of the behaviour is extremely violent - it's really not suitable for a younger audience.  Most of the time the film is completely calm but when it kicks off, it really kicks off.

It's Taylor and Timothée's film to carry and they do so very well (except for his annoying accent) - it's a well portrayed relationship, mostly quite normal and natural except for that thing I can't talk about.  Most of the other parts are incidental in comparison to them - Mark Rylance is pretty much as you'd expect and it's definitely not a role that challenges him but I will call out André Holland as Maren's dad and Anna Cobb as Kayla, Lee's sister, for both making the most of their small roles.  It's actually the third time we've met all of Taylor, Timothée, Mark and André in something on these lists - which is a cast with quite some pedigree.  However, somewhat surprisingly they're all exceeded by Michael Stuhlbarg who has a very minor part in this but is making his fourth appearance on the list - the man has been in an impressive list of films.

There's a lot of imagination on display here and I think we probably have Camille DeAngelis to thank for that because she wrote the novel on which the film is based.  But Luca Guadagnino and David Kajganich (who wrote the screenplay) have done a good job transferring it to the screen.  If anyone came to this expecting anything like Call Me By Your Name then they're going to be very, very surprised - it has some nice scenery in it, but that's about it for similarities.  I've actually no idea what any of his other films are like but I'd be surprised if they were like this.  It's well directed though - nice use of colour and light and shade and some slightly unusual camera angles at times to keep you engaged.  And you can't really make a US road trip look bad, can you?  Some of the sound work on this film is also impressive in a way you really don't want it to be.  It really didn't need to be 140 minutes long though - a taut 90-100 minutes would have been much better for me.

All in all, it's an odd one - there's a lot to like about this film in terms of acting, plot and direction.  However, the thing I've not talked is a very big elephant in the room - it's certainly an interesting choice and it puts a very different spin on things, but at times it's just taken a bit too far for my liking.  It also makes it hard to actively recommend the film because it will turn a lot of people away but if you ever find yourself in the mood for an arthouse horror-romance film then you could do a lot worse than this - if you watch the first fifteen minutes it will give you a good idea what it's going to be like without being too horrific.

At time of writing, it's available to stream on Amazon Prime or to rent in all normal locations.

#16 - Surprisingly watchable
#14 - A great central performance