BONES AND ALL

BONES AND ALL is an ill-conceived drama about an 18-year-old black teenage girl who has an “uncontrollable” urge to engage in cannibalism and becomes involved with a young man engaged in the same disgusting habit, including murder, but they seem to leave their evil urges behind when they finally establish their own home together, though their idyllic existence doesn’t last. The writer/director of BONES AND ALL apparently wanted to explore the question of how people can overcome intense feelings if those feelings are beyond their control, but cannibalism is too extreme, disgusting, absurd, abhorrent, and evil a topic to do such an exploration, no matter how sincere the “artist.”

The movie opens with shy Maren finally finding some teenage girls at school with whom she can be friendly. However, one night at a slumber party, she bites off the finger of the friendliest girl. She runs home to her single father, but he’s naturally upset when he finds out what happened at the party. Apparently, this isn’t the first time Maren’s cannibal urges have disrupted the family’s life. The next morning, however, the father has left home. He writes a note to Maren that he can no longer help her.

Maren strikes out on her own. She runs into a strange middle aged man named Sully, who introduces her to the life of an “eater,” a person with an uncontrollable urge toward cannibalism. He tells her that he doesn’t purposely kill people but tries to find someone who’s already dying or recently dead. He brings her to a two-story house where an elderly lady has had a terminal stroke upstairs. He’s just airing on her to die before he cannibalizes her. Meanwhile, Sully gives Maren some regular food to stave off her hunger.

Sully and Maren finally consume the dying woman. However, Sully now seems obsessed with Maren, so she runs away from him.

Eventually, she meets a young man named Lee, who not only is a cannibal but also murders his victims after he personally decides they aren’t worthy of living any longer. Maren and Lee drift from state to state in the Midwest, consuming Lee’s murder victims as they go. They part when Maren goes to locate her mother, who’s been committed to a mental institution in Minnesota.

The meeting doesn’t turn out like Maren planned. So, she gets back together with Lee. Their love for one another grows stronger, and the couple decides to find jobs and live a normal life. However, their idyllic life of non-violence is brutally interrupted.

BONES AND ALL explores the question of how people can overcome intense feelings if those feelings are beyond their control. It suggests that the love that develops between Maren and Lee, including their desire to settle down and live a normal life together, is what helps them overcome their disgusting, uncontrollable obsession with cannibalism. However, their cannibalistic past is what ultimately destroys their idyllic home, ending in tragedy.

BONES AND ALL is also designed to play like a road movie. As such, the movie explores the lives of two wandering outcasts traveling across Middle America. Ultimately, the two leads want to stop their wandering and find a home so they can leave their troubled pasts behind and rejoin society.

Neither of these two themes are inherently bad. However, BONES AND ALL moves too slowly. Also, the movie’s gruesome scenes of cannibalism, and a brutal scene of violence and murder at the end, are too extreme, disgusting, absurd, abhorrent, and evil. BONES AND ALL also contains lots of strong foul language and some lewd content and nudity. Some younger viewers will become attracted to this abhorrent content.