I'll Love You And Eat You, 'Bones And All'
#202: "Bones and All," "Devotion," "When Harry Met Sally," "The Wonder"
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Edition 202:
Hey movie lovers!
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This week we’re talking about cannibal love, a 1950s Top Gun homage, and a pair of Netflix streamers. In “Trailer Watch,” it’s the craziest trailer I’ve ever seen in my life, no exaggeration.
Bones and All
Several minutes into Luca Guadagnino’s new rom-dram, the first time a character takes a violent bite out of another human being, the person sitting next to me in the theater — a full-grown man — recoiled as if he’d been shot in the chest. He full-on turned sideways, kicked his front leg up and covered the rest of his chest with his front arm, shielding his eyes with his palm.
That was the intended effect. A viewer is never supposed to be comfortable with the fact that all of our main characters here are cannibals. In fact, our characters are themselves not comfortable with it, setting up the primary conflict of the story. Can we ever be loved when part of ourselves is so broken and unfixable?
Throughout movie history, cannibals or zombies or monsters have always been a convenient and visually interesting stand-in for more quotidian fatal flaws. Heck, the entire Disney animated genre is built on this singular idea. But this movie chose cannibalism, and I think it is one of the best movies of the year because it goes all-in on the grossness of that decision. It’s not excessive or tasteless (I guess the latter depends on your affinity for human flesh), but it is very gross.
Not sure what to make of the fact that two of my favorite 15 movies this year are about cannibalism (the other being Fresh, on Hulu), but ehem I want to analyze that about as much as Guadagnino wants to analyze making a cannibalism movie right after the star of his last project (Call Me By Your Name) turned out to be a real life cannibal (Armie Hammer).
The reason anyone cares about this movie in the first place is that Guadagnino reunited with the other CMBYN co-star, Timothée Chalamet, who has been long dubbed the next Great One, or at least the next Leonardo DiCaprio. When Chalamet decides to really dig into a serious part, what comes out is a deep soulfulness, sort of a high wire act between desperation and resignation (it doubles my faith that he’s going to make an incredible on-screen Bob Dylan). When we meet his skinny homeless teenager, roaming across the American midwest in his run down pickup truck, he’s down-on-his-luck but his appeal as a traveling companion, and eventually lover, is obvious.
Still, he’s merely a passenger in this story. The movie is built around Taylor Russell, an actress who hugely impressed me a few years ago in Waves. She’s even better here as the relative newcomer to the lonely, nomadic life that the “eaters,” as they call themselves, occupy in the movie. The other “eaters” include hall of fame character actors Mark Rylance and Michael Stuhlbarg, who are fantastic in limited screen time, but this movie is really all about our two lovers.
Russell’s Maren and Chalamet’s Lee fall in love because they accept each other warts and all — or Bones and All, if you prefer. Cannibalism probably wouldn’t be viewed favorably in any decade, but in the middle of Red America in the 1980s, it’s easy to see what other causes of alienation audiences might relate to in their own outsider-dom.
The plot unfolds sort of like a road trip movie, but really it’s a coming-of-age identity story mixed with some survival thriller, wrapped in a love story and cooked in the fires of horror. That might feel like a hat on a hat on a hat, but the elements blend together pretty seamlessly while constantly keeping audiences guessing about what could happen next. It’s just a really, really well-done movie, and if you can get past the obvious grossness, I think you’ll be moved by the powerful ending.
Something New
Devotion (Theaters): The producers of this movie must have been jumping for joy at the mammoth success of Top Gun: Maverick, and the potential to put one of its stars (Glen Powell) back in a cockpit just a few short months after for what could be generously described as “1950s Top Gun.” It’s based on the true story of two Korean War-era fighter pilots, and its plot really does feel constructed out of a bunch of old dudes sitting around swapping nostalgic war stories.
Let’s call this what it really is — a classic, old-school war propaganda movie. Go America!! That ethos didn’t slow either edition of Top Gun, of course, but this movie has a more solemn respect for the ultimate sacrifice that keeps fun at arm’s length. Had this movie come out in the 50s or 60s, its grave yet uncomplicated drama would’ve made for a huge hit. By now we’ve seen it a hundred times.
The revelation of the movie is Jonathan Majors, soon to be among the biggest movie stars on the planet as the primary villain across the next dozen Marvel movies. The thing is, in addition to his charisma he’s also a great actor — shown here with a reserved and subtle yet powerful performance as a black fighter pilot at a time when that was still a novel concept — and my first thought when I left the theater was a lament that his schedule would be full up for the next 10 years shooting scenes in front of a green screen wearing a cape. Ugh. Why does Marvel have to ruin everything.
Something Old
When Harry Met Sally (1989, Netflix): An uninspired recommendation here, to be sure, but I rewatched this universally beloved rom-com this week and came away with two new takeaways. First, it feels like a cheat code to stage all of your exposition scenes and basic conversations in the most beautiful and iconic New York City locations — Central Park as the leaves change color, The Strand book store, and of course Katz Deli (“I’ll have what she’s having!”). It’s the ultimate tourism ad for the city, which is displayed here as always as a huge dating cesspool that eventually humbles you to the point of, as one friend told me about his own dating life, “reaching a certain age and deciding to marry the person next to you.” For us guys, that person rarely ever turns out to be Meg Ryan or Carrie Fisher, but for the ladies, it perhaps more often is someone like Billy Crystal (don’t make me elaborate on that).
My second observation was just how fully Crystal’s 1980s-wardrobe has come back into fashion. The day after I watched this movie I saw at least five people around Los Angeles dressed in his washed jeans, canvas sneakers and assortment of coats or sweaters. I suppose that adds to the timelessness of this, arguably the greatest romantic comedy of all time.
Something to Stream
The Wonder (Netflix): You may remember me mentioning this movie a few weeks ago because of its bizarre choice to open and close the movie with behind-the-scenes footage and voice over telling the audiences that they are, in fact, watching a movie called “The Wonder.” Which I hated.
But amongst the glut of meh to slightly-above-meh movies that debuted on Netflix in November, this one stands out for one simple reason. Florence Pugh. She has entered the phase of her career where she can carry any movie to watchability, and maybe even success if only movie stardom mattered at all anymore to the bottom line.
This movie is a slow burn, set in 1860s Scotland where a small village believes a young girl might be a saint because she supposedly hasn’t eaten in months, and Pugh’s nurse is called in to observe her from a medical perspective. It becomes less of a crisis of faith than a battle of wills, and though it’s not an overly ambitious film it is compelling and worth streaming if you scroll past it and like the vibe.
Trailer Watch: Cocaine Bear
We’ve seen Fatman. We’ve seen Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. But now there’s a new king of the subgenre of totally insane trailers. And yes, in case you thought you were missing something, this is absolutely a movie about a giant bear that does cocaine and goes on a massive murderous rampage.
The premise is enough to get you watching the trailer, and you’re expecting a hilarious B-movie, and then all of a sudden you start seeing familiar faces pop up. Ray Liotta? Keri Russell? Wait, they got young Han Solo, Alden Ehrenreich in this? Plus O'Shea Jackson Jr., character actress Margo Martindale (“Bojack Horseman” joke), and “Modern Family” star Jesse Tyler Ferguson? To make things even crazier, the movie is being directed by movie star Elizabeth Banks.
Truly, truly, one of the can’t-miss movies of 2023.