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"Bones and All" takes a bite into the heart of cinematic convention, serving up a feast of love, horror, and the inexplicably bizarre in a way that only a hypothetical collaboration between George A. Romero and Harmony Korine could. This film doesn't just walk the line between horror and romance; it devours it, reveling in the raw and the unorthodox.

At its core, the film embodies the visceral metaphor of wanting to consume one's lover, transforming an intense expression of love into a literal, flesh-and-blood reality. It's a wild ride through the landscapes of America and the human heart, where cannibalism becomes a twisted mirror reflecting the depths of intimacy and connection.

Luca Guadagnino has concocted something truly outlandish here, blending the tenderness of young love with the gore of cannibalism in a manner that both shocks and captivates. The performances are hauntingly beautiful, infusing the film's bizarre narrative with a sense of grounded humanity amidst the madness.

"Bones and All" might puzzle some with its pace and unique blend of genres, but it's this very oddity, this daring to be different, that marks it as a potential cult classic. It's as if the film itself is in love with its characters, so much so that it wants to consume them, enveloping them in a narrative so strange yet so compelling, it can only be described as a love letter to the weird and wonderful in cinema.

In essence, the film is an unforgettable exploration of love's darkest desires and deepest needs, wrapped in a narrative as peculiar and provocative as a weekend bender with cinema's masters of the macabre and the marginal. "Bones and All" doesn't just cross boundaries-it feasts on them, leaving us utterly engrossed in its weird, wild world.

I really wanted to like this film and it's not a film I wouldn't want to watch again. I usually reserve my 5 stars ratings for films that are "good but that I don't want to watch again".

In Daliland we have some great acting by Kingsley and Barbara Sukowa, actually some great settings and scenes (the laughing fit when Dali meets Gala for the first time!), and the film is overall entertaining. I probably would watch it again.

Still, the film feels like a mediocre and slightly "cheesy" and somehow uninspired execution of a great story, and it's difficult to pinpoint this to a single factor. I'll try to give an overview:

• Most of the actors besides Kingsley and Stukowa are not really convincing

• All the music they've used in the film feels like it's supposed to be provisional fill-ins. Did they run out of money to buy better music or was it just bad taste? Most of the music is generic Rock, and Alice Cooper's "School's Out for Summer" feels completely out of place.

• The editing and pacing feels off. It feels like they came to a rough cut and then they ran out of interesting ideas. Especially the last scene feels underwhelming. What could have been a grande last scene feels like something you'd expect to see in a student's movie.

• I still don't get that second sex-scene, it feels completely out of place and unnecessary, as if they just put it in to make the film 3 minutes longer

• The camera-work is mostly uninspired (see: last scene)

This film is still enjoyable and watchable, but after watching it you'll automatically have the feeling: "well, they could have done that better".

The story is very well told, with a lot of unexpected twists. Excellent acting, especially by Edward Norton. He outplays them all, as well as his character outsmarts them all. Gere is sleazy as usual.

Apart from that I dislike the film for its questionable morals that are being transported in the subtext. Every film has a message. The message of this film is basically that "clinically insane persons" are "faking their insanity". The film implies that they should be toasted on the chair instead of being sent to a medical facility. The message is: pro- death-penalty.

The film also implies that women can be smart but they can not control their emotions which makes them weaker than their male counterparts (again: Norton and Gere, completely in control of their emotions).

Without the moral implications this film would be a 8/10, but as explained I can not stand the very conservative political image - especially the pro-death- penalty subtext - that's being transferred in the subtext, so I'll give it a 3/10.