Bones and All

This is the first film Luca Guadagnino both set and made in the United States, shot in Ohio at Chillicothe and Cincinnati. The source is Camille DeAngelis’s 2015 novel. Producer Theresa Park optioned it in 2016 and sent it to one screenwriter only, David Kajganich, on the strength of his work on The Terror; the script took five years. Guadagnino, busy elsewhere, turned it down the first time. Timothée Chalamet took the part and a producer credit after a meeting in Rome, and the two went looking for Italian financing at the end of 2020 to keep the film outside the studios. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross wrote the score. Guadagnino asked them for a melancholic elegy, an unending longing, said the music had to be a character in the film, and wanted acoustic guitars for the Americana on screen. Venice gave it two prizes, not one: the Silver Lion for best direction to Guadagnino and the Marcello Mastroianni Award to Taylor Russell. The Las Vegas Film Critics gave Kajganich their adapted screenplay prize. The Independent Spirit Awards nominated the film, Russell and Mark Rylance. It finished on 15.2 million dollars. A good fit if you want the road movie and the horror standing in the same shot. Not for viewers avoiding scenes of cannibalism; the film shows them directly.