Why So Blu?

Bones And All (Blu-ray Review)

Following up the widely praised Suspiria, Luca Guadagnino has reteamed with his Call Me By Your Name star for another unique cinematic love story in Bones And All. The film didn’t quite set the box office on fire and wasn’t the awards darling it may have hoped for. With those goals, this was indeed a big swing, but its admirable that it was made in the first place. Unfortunately, I’m sure that non-success went into the decision making to only put it on standard Blu-ray for its home video debut. Though, after seeing something even more successful like Barbarian go streaming/digital only, I’m thankful for this dated format edition to exist. The disc arrives on January 31st, has an Atmos track and 5 VERY brief featurettes. You can order yourself a copy of it using the paid Amazon Associates link that follows the review at the bottom of the page.

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Film

Bones and All is 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; a liberating road odyssey of two young people coming into their own, searching for identity and chasing beauty in a perilous world that cannot abide who they are.

Luca Guardagnino is on quite a bit of a streak for himself, with the widely praised Call Me By Your Name, the against all odds excellence of Suspiria and now one of the most unique love stories coming in the realm of horror. Guadagnino has an eye and a camera that speaks all for itself. His films are recognizable but quite different. Pretty longer takes, a wandering but non-documentary style graze through the frames to capture such genuine performances from his leads. As ugly and bloody as the subject matter in the film may be, his photography and blocking is absolutely gorgeous.

Surely Bones and All isn’t for everyone, but for film lovers in the more arthouse and avante garde realm, this one should play like aces. This cannibal love story makes and plays by its own rules, creating deep emotions, depth of character, excellent stakes and emotional heartache that is both seen and felt when watching the film. Every person entering the film feels fully formed by way of the actor or the script, which makes this feel like a story that actually happened in many moments.

Our cast here has an excellent understanding their characters and material and are allowed to breathe and really get into it with longer takes and free roaming exteriors to play in. Taylor Russell might be one of the more underseen or appreciated young talents here. Having seen the Escape Room movies, she shows she can carry both genre and drama and totally feel like a different person. Chalamet continues picking interesting projects and creators to work with, as he reteams with Guadagnino for this. Supporting turns even in some of the smallest degrees by Mark Rylance, Michael Stuhlbarg and Jessica Harper prove very memorable and fully formed.

Not that there was a big audience for this one at the box office, but Bones and All so far has been rather one of the best underseen movies of 2022. I sense a strong cult following builds for this love story that also doubles as a rock solid road trip movie. Everything is firing on all cylinders and delivers a unique adventure in movie watching. When becoming more widely available or easily accessible as part of a streaming subscription, I imagine it’ll gain some fandom and traction.

Video

Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Layers: BD-50

Clarity/Detail: Bones and All unfortunately did not receive a 4K Utra-HD Blu-ray release (What’s with Luca Guadagnino’s lovely movies only getting standard Blus all the time?). Nevertheless, the transfer here looks gorgeous with a wonderful color palette radiating nicely off the screen, with the overall image have a good cinematic/filmic appearance. Its a sharp, crisp looking movie that gives a really big feeling to it on your home screen.

Depth:  Depth of field is quite strong here and the scale of this film is big with this image really presenting the cinematography to a top notch degree. Movements are filmic, smooth and natural and no issues arise from any rapid motions causing a sort of blur or jitter on the screen.

Black Levels: Black levels are deep and very close to some natural levels here. There’s no issue with information being lost in the darkness, on a surface or in hair as those textures and patterns are easily discernible. There was one moment where a characters back that was right up against the frame caused a very slight crush for a second, but nothing else really did anything in aside from that.

Color Reproduction: Colors are a beautiful wheel here as they take normal country bumpkin browns and greens and present them as a thing of beauty. There’s nice, slightly washed but natural pops here in Chalamet’s hair color as well as some clothing, make-up, carnival or store decor and more. The fireworks, tail lights, fires and home lights through windows in the dark contrast with the darkness for a really nice glow.

Flesh Tones: Skin tones are natural and consistent from start to finish of the film. Facial textures and fine details comes through clear as day as you can make out all the freckles, wrinkles, make-up, skin blemishes/deficiencies, dried dirt/blood, lip texture, stubble and much more.

Noise/Artifacts: None

Audio

Format(s): English Dolby Atmos, English (US) Audio Description, English (UK) Descriptive Audio, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital

Subtitles: English SDH, French Dutch, Spanish

Dynamics: Bones and All comes with a rather beautiful sounding Dolby Atmos track. The vibe is very free and airy and lived in as you travel cross country. Its got great depth and layering here, with nice little slight sounds that really help paint a natural and realistic space your viewing and the characters to live in. There’s a great balance between vocals, effects and music here that blends and spotlights and really delivers and effective punch where necessary.

Height: From above there’s plenty to enjoy, a highlight scene being with our leads watching fireworks overhead. Other moments have creaks or footsteps and such from the upstairs of a house. Music and some naturistic ambiance fill it out as well.

Low Frequency Extension: The subwoofer booms in terms of the score and music featured in the film. Car doors slamming, engines rumbling and some slamming and punching during scuffles get a naturalistic bump.

Surround Sound Presentation: Every room, as quiet as the movie is in most scenes, is fully realized to 360 degrees of mapping out. Whether it be ambiance or off screen activity, this has you covered in a very realistic fashion to put you in the mix. Exteriors float around and create good space and distance.

Dialogue Reproduction: Vocals are clear and crisp.

Extras

Bones and All comes with a redeemable digital code.

A Look Inside (HD, 2:23) – Luca Guadagnino, Talyor Russell, Mark Rylance and Timothee Chalamet all sort just set up the movie briefly in this little snippet featurette.

Luca Guadagnino: The Vision of Bones and All (HD, 1:32) – Luca talks what attracted him to script and creating a world while the actors say what they like about working with him.

Meet Lee (HD, 2:06) – This small featurette is about Timothee Chalamet’s character “Lee”.

Meet Maren (HD, 1:32) – Same here but for Taylor Russell and her character “Maren”.

Outsiders in Love (HD, 1:52) – This one says its about the love story here, but there’s a lot of repetition from the previous bonus features as has been the case as you go through getting to this one.

Summary

Bones and All was one of the most unique lovely and disturbing films of all of 2022. Luca Guadagnino’s work deserves much more than a standard Blu-ray and some very barely scratching the surface extras, but its not like the film set the box office or awards season on fire. Nonetheless, the audio and video presentation and for the film alone the disc is worth having once it gets itself to a lower, discounted price while you sit and cross your fingers for a 4K release down the road.

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