Bones and All(2022)

Plot Summary

• In 1980s Virginia, teenager Maren Yearly bites through a girl's finger-partially severing it-at a sleepover. She and her single father, Frank, swiftly relocate to Maryland. Shortly after Maren's eighteenth birthday, Frank abandons her, leaving behind cash, her birth certificate, and a tape. On the tape, Frank recounts the story of Maren's first cannibalistic episode, when she killed her babysitter at three years old. Similar incidents continued to occur over the years and while Frank helped her evade consequence, he anguished over Maren's lack of remorse. He concludes with the hope that she will overcome her urges.Maren heads to Minnesota, where her mother, Janelle, of whom she has no memories, was born. She takes a bus to Columbus, Ohio, where she encounters Sully, an eccentric man and fellow "eater" who found her by scent. She follows Sully to a house wherein an elderly woman is near death. Maren awakens in the morning to find Sully devouring the woman's corpse and joins him. Maren flees soon after.While shoplifting supplies in Indiana, Maren meets Lee, a fellow eater, after he feeds on a man who harassed a customer inside the store. Stealing his victim's truck, Lee offers to bring Maren along. As they embark on a cross-country road trip, Maren and Lee fall in love. During a brief stay in Lee's hometown in Kentucky, Maren notices his unwillingness to discuss his father's absence and the reason why Lee avoids being spotted around town. His younger sister, Kayla, who is unaware of his true nature, chastises him for his constant departures.Maren and Lee encounter what appears to be a pair of fellow eaters, Jake and Brad. Maren is revolted at the fact that Brad does not share their cravings, instead voluntarily choosing to engage in cannibalism. Jake also talks about the intensity of consuming a body "bones and all". Lee and Maren drive away when the men are asleep.After Maren expresses hunger during a stop at a local carnival, Lee cruises a male booth worker and kills him. Once she and Lee have feasted on the body, Maren expresses guilt upon discovering that the man was married and had a family.Using a phone book directory, Maren finds the home of her grandmother, Barbara, who had no prior knowledge of her existence. Barbara confesses that she and her husband adopted Janelle at birth and that Janelle has since voluntarily admitted herself into a psychiatric hospital in Fergus Falls.Maren meets Janelle, who has self-cannibalized her own hands. Maren reads a letter that Janelle wrote to her, which concludes with Janelle's belief that Maren would be better off dead. Janelle attacks Maren, but is restrained by a nurse. Maren leaves while Lee is asleep and is eventually approached by Sully, who was stalking her. She rebukes him, causing him to angrily depart. Once Lee realizes Maren is gone, he decides to return home.After some time, Maren returns to Kentucky. While there, she runs into Kayla who tells her that, on the night of her and Lee's alcoholic, abusive father's disappearance, he beat both of his children and vanished while Kayla ran to get the police. Initially considered the prime suspect, Lee was cleared of involvement when it was proven that the blood on him was his own. After Maren is reunited with Lee, they rekindle their relationship and travel westward. Lee reveals to Maren that his father was also an eater, biting his son during their scuffle, and that Lee ultimately fed on him. Maren declares her love for Lee, and the two decide to attempt a normal life together.Months later, the couple lives happily in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Maren works at a university bookstore. She returns home one day to find Sully has broken into their apartment, and he taunts her with a knife. After Lee returns, the couple succeeds in killing Sully, but Lee is fatally wounded in the struggle. While searching Sully's satchel, Maren finds locks of Kayla's hair and realizes she fell victim to Sully. Lee expresses his wish for Maren to eat him as he dies, "bones and all", with which Maren eventually complies.

Storyline

• A story of first love between Maren, a young woman learning how to survive on the margins of society, and Lee, an intense and disenfranchised drifter, as they meet and join together for a thousand-mile odyssey which takes them through the back roads, hidden passages and trap doors of Ronald Reagan's America. But despite their best efforts, all roads lead back to their terrifying pasts and to a final stand that will determine whether their love can survive their otherness. — united artists releasing Virginia, 1988. Having no recollection of her mother, high school outcast Maren plucks up the courage to embark on a long, challenging journey to find her. Instead, as Maren struggles to understand, facing her well-hidden adolescent longings on the fringes of Ronald Reagan -era America, a chance encounter with enigmatic pariah and handsome soulmate Lee gives voice to the unspoken expectations of first love. Now, uneasy feelings and all-consuming impulses take over, and the raw, visceral need for companionship and connection in an indifferent society brings to light the wild side of humankind. More than anything, Maren wants to come to terms with her past to find her place in the world. But what's it like to give in to love, bones and all? — Nick Riganas