It’s a tale of girl and boy that has a bloody bite.
Director Luca Guadagnino’s highly acclaimed coming-of-age romance is a masterpiece. All Bones Camille DeAngelis, a young adult cannibal author, adapts the story. Some major changes were needed to get the story across from the page onto the screen.
Mashable interviewed Guadagnino, screenwriter David Kajganich, over Zoom to explain the differences in how cannibalism affects the central relationship, the title of the film, and its hopeful, yet devastating, ending.
Both versions of Bones, All Maren (Taylor Russell), is a lonely young woman who is compulsive cannibal and also known as an “eater.” Traveling alone across the United States, she meets fellow outcast eaters, like the young and intriguing Lee (Timothée Chalamet) and the old and unnerving Sully (Mark Rylance). Maren’s journey, in film and novel, is one of self-discovery. It’s about learning to live with her food cravings. This journey is different in each version.
How do you accomplish this? Bones, All How can you change from a book to a movie?
Maren and Lee’s relationship to their family is one of the main differences between the book & the movie.
Maren’s mom abandons her and asks the young cannibal for more information about her father. In the film, it’s actually Maren’s father (André Holland) who leaves, so Maren looks for her mother (Chloë Sevigny) instead.
Maren’s relationship to Sully is also changed by the movie. He is both a terrifying antagonistic mentor and a mentor in both film and book. But in DeAngelis’s novel, it’s revealed that he is actually Maren’s grandfather — something that was omitted entirely from the film.
Guadagnino’s final take on Bones, All Lee’s background is altered. The novel tells the story of how eating has negatively affected his family life, including his relationship with his sister and mom. He talks about his father’s eating habits in the film.
There are subtle plot changes between DeAngelis’ work and Guadagnino’s, but the most significant changes in this adaptation revolve around the way the story’s cannibalism works.
How does romance and cannibalism intersect in? What about Bones and All?
DeAngelis uses the cannibalism method to examine Maren’s reactions to intimacy and love. When someone — be they a summer camp crush or a cuddly babysitter — gets too close to her, she eats them. Guadagnino’s film shows that Maren’s eating behavior is not related to her being attracted, but rather a compulsive wolf hunger that all of the eaters share.
Kristy Puuchko, Mashable’s Kristy Pouchko, pointed out in She reviewed Bones, AllThe film’s cannibalism “serves to be a metaphor for queerness.” Maren and Lee are both sexually fluid. The Reagan-era setting brings to mind homophobia surrounding the AIDS crisis. It also shows Maren’s self-loathing of being an eater.
This is the shift in how cannibalism works in All Bones Also, Maren and Lee’s romance is affected. Maren and Lee are clearly connected in the novel. However, Maren and Lee do not have a physical relationship until the end of the book. At that point, Maren eats Lee. Maren and Lee are in a relationship that is more romantic than the novel, but Maren doesn’t feel compelled to eat Lee.
“I was more intrigued in the possibility that love might exist within the natures of these people.”
Luca Guadagnino
Guadagnino spoke out about the role of cannibalism within the film. Camille DeAngelis’s idea of Maren’s impossibility was based on the fact that she couldn’t love without suffering the consequences. “I was more interested in the possibility that these people can love, both as a filmmaker and as a film-maker.”
Guadagnino discovered a whole new world through Maren’s and Lee’s relationship. This was not just for a romantic on-screen affair, but to learn more about how two people can be together after the trauma they’ve suffered.
“Maren and Lee are so in love with each other, but…they are nearly brutalized by their lives that they can’t find that possibility.” [for love],” said Guadagnino. “That resonates very strongly with me. It happens to all of us.”
What does it mean to have “bones and all”?
Another significant change was made to the film adaptation Bones, All The logistics of cannibalism. DeAngelis’s novel shows that eaters eat all parts of their victims, including bones.
DeAngelis skips over the actual eating and instead focuses on the hunger before and the emotions after. Guadagnino, who is a visual medium, leans heavily into body horror, with grisly sequences in which eaters rip into flesh with their teeth and tear it off the bone. Cannibalism is messy, and the film’s eaters do not ingest all of their victims. Maren and Lee believe that total consumption of a body can’t be achieved.
A strange encounter with Jake (Michael Stuhlbarg), an ex-feral fellow eater, suggests new possibilities. Jake asks them whether they have ever eaten “bones and all” before, presenting the act as a sort of ritual with spiritual connotations for those who eat it. The screenwriter David Kajganich added this direct reference to the title to the story.
Kajganich believed that DeAngelis’s fairytale tone makes the scenes of total consumption more relatable to readers than they would be to an audience watching cannibalism on screen in a grounded drama. But he loved her idea of eating “bones all” and decided to change it.
Kajganich stated that “we sort of evolved it so that it means something more like when people speak about true love to teenagers.” It’s a very abstract concept. Although it is a promising idea, it seems unlikely that you will ever meet the right person or be loved and accepted by everyone. We felt that we could use the concept of “bones and all” in the same way Maren and Lee didn’t believe this idea could be real when they were told about it.
We have evolved. [the title]It is more like when people refer to true love to a teenager.
David Kajganich
He said, “It’s up the audience to decide at the end of the movie if… [Maren and Lee’s]Relationship has come this far. However, it seems like a lovely way to use title differently.”
It’s difficult to believe that the “bones and everything” scene was not in the original book. Jake (David Gordon Green), and Brad (David Gordon Green), are both new additions. Guadagnino noted that the film’s road trip vibe is enhanced by this crucial chance encounter. He said, “When you’re in a travelogue.” “You can have many false starts, where you meet people and believe that maybe the journey is changing because you met them. Maybe that meeting is the beginning of an episode, and then nothing happens.”
He continued: “And of course Michael Stuhlbarg is performing that moment, then you’re in heaven.”
What do the endings look like? All Bones differ?
These are all shifts in the way cannibalism works Bones, All This culminated in the most significant change of all: Lee’s death.
Yes, Lee dies in both. DeAngelis’s novel explains that it is because Maren eats Lee after he has made physical advances on her. Sully attacks Lee and puts Lee at risk of dying. Lee pleads with Maren to eat him bones and all in his final moments. This is effectively making Lee a part of herself. It’s the end of their tragic love story, and it is also the most significant adaptation Kajganich or Gudagnino made.
Kajganich said, “It was really difficult to write that scene and it was hard for me to watch it.” “One wants them to believe they are okay.”
Maren makes a new start and then eats too much of Lee’s body. Guadagnino and Kajganich take the story in a different direction, ending on a shot of Maren and Lee together in a field — perhaps a reference to Lee always being with Maren now that she’s eaten him in his entirety.
Kajganich had originally added a coda, in which we follow Maren’s new life, a year or so after Lee’s death. But, this sequence was eventually cut.
Kajganich stated that they decided to forgo it while filming. It was strong enough that Maren felt it by the end. She has become a person who can live an emotional and a savoury life. These two things don’t have to be enemies.
Kajganich finds some hope in the film’s ending, even though it is more tragic than the ending of the novel. Kajganich stated that the film’s end was a consolation for her. “I think we made it clear that Maren will be OK.” “She isn’t going to be destroyed in the final events of the movie.”
All Bones Now in Theaters
