- Directed by Luca Guadagnino
- Written by David Kajganich, Camille DeAngelis
- Stars Timothee Chalamet, Taylor Russell, Mark Rylance
- Run Time: 2 Hours, 11 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Nu7Z9AxGNg
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
The cast is excellent, and the script is well written with interesting characters. The horror is steady, always at least in the background, coming out into the open often.
Synopsis
Sherry and Maren talk about the school yearbook. Sherry invites Maren over for a sleepover tonight, but Maren says her father would never allow it. Sneaking out is suggested. He locks her into the bedroom at bedtime, but she slips out the window.
For some reason, we see many shots of electrical power lines, so that may be significant. She follows the power lines to Sherry’s house. Jackie and Kim are already there; they’re also spending the night. They paint each others’ nails until Maren bites off one of the girls’ fingers. She runs home, and her father says, “You didn’t!”
She did. Her father says to pack their stuff; they have to leave before the cops get there. Credits roll.
Maren wakes up in the morning at their new place and finds that her father has abandoned her. He says he can’t help her anymore; she’s got to figure it out for herself as her mother did. He leaves her a tape that explains everything, but we don’t get to hear it. He does leave her birth certificate. She buys a ticket to Columbus and hits the road.
She plays more of the tape on the bus; when she was three, she killed the babysitter by tearing out her neck with her teeth. He says that she kept doing it, only she started getting clever about it.
She gets part way to Columbus but has to wait at the bus stop— until she finds a strange man stalking her. He says he came looking for her. He says he smelled her, and she can probably smell him. “When was the last time you fed?” He asks. He says they smell a certain way whether they ate or not. He says his name is Sully, and he invites her to follow him, and she actually does. His number one rule is “to never eat an eater.”
“I thought I was the only one,” she says. He says, “There are more than you’d think.” She goes upstairs, realizing this isn’t Sally’s house, and finds an old woman lying on the floor, but she’s not dead. Sully says that as Maren ages, she’s going to need to feed more and more. He says he followed his nose and found her that way. “I don’t kill people. At least, I try not to. That leaves this, and things like it.” Maren cries at hearing this, but she knows he’s right.
The next morning, Maren wakes up and finds Sully… having breakfast. In the old woman’s room. She doesn’t say a word, but joins him chowing down on her. After they eat, they talk a lot about their pasts. As Sully gets cleaned up, Maren runs to the bus stop. Sully watches sadly as the bus leaves.
She arrives in Columbus. She goes to the grocery store and watches a young guy get into a fight with an older drunk. When she goes outside, they’re both gone. She smells it. She watches the young guy walk off with the old guy’s hat. She introduces herself; he’s Lee. He checks out the dead man’s wallet, car keys, and finds his address. He’s like her, and she asks for his help. They go to the dead man’s house and play his records.
The next morning, they go out for normal people’s breakfast, and she tells Lee about Sully. He takes her home to Kentucky, where his sister Kayla lives. Kayla doesn’t want Lee to disappear the way their father did. Their condition appears to be hereditary. That evening, they break into a slaughterhouse for kicks and get kissy.
The two continue to travel and start getting closer and closer. They meet Jake and Brad, two more cannibals who offer them beer. They all sit around a campfire and talk about their exploits. Jake is a natural-born eater, but Brad is a convert. “He hasn’t had his full bones yet,” Jake explains. That’s when you eat an entire person, “bones and all.” Maren smells a rat and locks herself in the truck. A little later, Lee and Maren drive away silently in the night, narrowly avoiding something bad.
The pair goes to an amusement park, and Maren gets hungry. Lee seduces a carnival booth guy, and Maren catches them having sex before she joins them for dinner. They go to the dinner-guy’s house and find a woman and child inside. The guy they just ate was married with a family.
They arrive in Minnesota, where Maren finds Barbara Kerns, who Maren thinks is her grandmother. She tells Maren all about her mother, Janelle, who is dead now. Janelle was adopted; her real parents abandoned her. No, she finally admits, Janelle is not dead, she lives in a state hospital; she committed herself years back.
Maren and Lee drive to the Ferguson Falls Mental Hospital to meet Janelle. The nurse tells her that Janelle used to be dangerous, but not so much anymore. Maren finds that Janelle has no hands or forearms. Fifteen years ago, she wrote a letter “for my daughter.”
The letter from Janelle explains everything. “The world of love wants no monsters in it.” Jenelle jumps on Maren and tries to kill her with her teeth. Maren breaks down for Lee and they argue about their natures. “I’m not gonna be her,” she insists. She abandons Lee while he sleeps.
Halfway across the country, she runs into Sully again. He’s still creepy, and the fact that he followed her across the country doesn’t help. She rejects his help; she doesn’t trust him. He takes it badly, but goes away.
Months pass, and Maren contacts Kayla looking for Lee. She finds him and they get back together for more road tripping. Lee finally opens up about his backstory and first “meal.”
They decide to stay put and get jobs like normal people. That goes well for a month, and they’re both happy. Maren comes home one afternoon and smells something off immediately. Sully is in their bedroom. He’s literally drooling over his “unfinished business.” Sully talks and talks as Lee sneaks into the room behind him.
Lee and Maren overpower Sully and kill him, but Lee gets stabbed as well. They learn from the “hair rope” in Sally’s bag that Sully had recently killed Kayla. Lee’s dying, but instead of going to the hospital, he wants Maren to eat him. “If you love me, you’ll eat me!”
She does.
Commentary
Taylor Russell is really good here as Maren. Timothee Chalamet has the star power here, but his character isn’t particularly interesting. The others they meet along the way are all really good. I would have liked more backstory with Jake and Brad, but at least we got a lot of Sully.
I’ve heard this described as overly long, slow, not-horror, and even boring. I disagree. It is very long, but it never drags, and the horror undertones are there even in the dramatic parts.
I liked it more than I expected to. It’s a win!