‘Bones And All’: Read The Screenplay For Luca Guadagnino’s Cannibal Romance Starring Timothée Chalamet & Taylor Russell

Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will factor in this year’s movie awards races. 

Bones and All is the acclaimed cannibal romance reteaming Luca Guadagnino and Timothée Chalamet following their work together on the Sundance breakout Call Me by Your Name. 

The MGM film written by Guadagnino’s regular collaborator David Kajganich —who’d previously penned his features Bigger Splash and Suspiria — is based on the 2015 novel of the same name by Camille DeAngelis. It tells the story of Maren (Taylor Russell), a young woman in 1980s Virginia who leans into her cannibalistic urges after striking up a relationship with the nomadic “eater,” Lee (Chalamet).  

Guadagnino told Deadline in a recent edition of the Crew Call podcast that when he first read Kajganich’s script, he didn’t view it as a work of “horror” — instead gravitating towards its focus on flesh-eaters as a means of talking about love. 

“It’s part of our way of expressing our deep passion for something,” the filmmaker said. “‘I love you to death. I will eat you because I love you so much,’ or the metaphor of the wafer in the Catholic Church.” 

World premiering at the Venice Film Festival, where Guadagnino won the Silver Lion for Best Director and Russell claimed the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress, Bones and All was released in theaters via United Artists Releasing on November 18. The film, nominated for two Gotham Awards and three Independent Spirit Awards, also stars Michael Stuhlbarg, André Holland, Chloë Sevigny, David Gordon Green, Jessica Harper, Jake Horowitz and Mark Rylance. 

Pic was produced by Guadagnino, Theresa Park, Marco Morabito, Kajganich, Francesco Melzi d’Eril, Lorenzo Mieli, Gabriele Moratti, Peter Spears, and Chalamet. Its exec producers are Giovanni Corrado, Raffaella Viscardi, Moreno Zani, Marco Colombo and Jonathan Montepare.

Click below to read the script.