Bones & All Ending Explained

Bones and All is a cannibalistic love story directed by Luca Guadagnino with a heart-wrenching ending. When Maren (Taylor Russell) is abandoned by her father, because of her monster-like urges, she sets out to find her mother, whom she has not seen since she was a baby. Along the way, Maren quickly discovers that she is not alone, and there are other “eaters” all around from whom she can learn. This includes a creepy man named Sully(Mark Rylance) and Lee (Timothée Chalamet), with whom she forms a bond.

As the director of Call Me by Your Name and 2018's Suspiria remake, Guadagnino is no stranger to unconventional romance and unsettling drama. Though a "cannibal love story" is in and of itself a strange and intriguing premise, Bones and All delivers on this somewhat novel idea by the story's end, taking the love story between Maren Lee to a place that blends the romance aspects of the story with its bloody horror aspects. However, the Bones and All also leaves a lot of questions worth exploring.

What Happens In Bones And All’s Ending?

Lee Makes A Final Request

Bone's and All's all-star cast creates a gripping, heart-wrenching, and terrifying movie all at the same time. Lee and Maren have finally created a happy life together and settled down, when a menacing and strange cannibal Maren met years ago named Sully returns. Jealous and angry that she left, Sully enters their apartment and threatens her. Lee arrives home and protects Maren, but he is stabbed in the lung in the process. In his dying breath, Lee begs Maren to eat him while she weeps and initially refuses.

Does Maren Eat Lee?

The Gruesome Moment Is Not Shown

The request that Lee makes to Maren is clearly a hard one for her to take, not wanting to accept that he is really going to die, but moved by him embracing who she is in his last moments. Maren initially rejects Lee’s offer for her to consume him, but after a passionate kiss, she changes her mind.

Though not shown as graphically as some other feedings in Bones and All, or other cannibal movies for that matter, it can be assumed that she does eat him. She begins licking up his blood before the film cuts to an empty apartment, implying that Maren ate Lee before cleaning it up and moving out.

How Does The Bones And All Movie Compare To The Book?

Maren Is A Very Different "Eater" In The Source Material

Bones and All is based on a 2015 novel of the same name by Camille DeAngelis. While the general plot of the book is the same as the movie, there are a few major differences. Firstly, in the novel, it is Maren’s mother who leaves, and she goes looking for her father, effectively the reverse of what happens in the movie. The people who Maren feels compelled to eat in the book are those who show her affection. In the movie, this is not explicitly said.

In the book, Maren eats people entirely, "bones and all,” but in the movie she just consumes pieces. While at a river in Missouri, Lee and Maren meet Jake, who is played by Michael Stuhlbarg. He is another eater who tells them for the first time that eaters reach their full form when they eat an entire person, “bones and all.” It is a kind of rite of passage, as it is depicted in the film. As is true of many book-to-movie adaptations, the film misses many of the details that can more easily be explained via written exposition.

Why Does Lee Want Maren to Eat Him?

Lee Shows A Final Act Of Love

Throughout Bones and All's cannibal love story, Maren and Lee form a very special bond. If it is true that Maren and the other eaters in the movie are most attracted to people who show them affection in terms of who they want to eat, Lee would be Maren’s ideal meal. While Lee’s request is quite odd, the two have grown close, living together, and are deeply in love. It is possible that Lee knew how much dining on him would satisfy her, and knowing he was already dying meant that she could.

Throughout Bones and All, Maren is very uncomfortable with killing innocent people for a meal. She would much rather find an immoral person to someone who is already dying. Whenever the pair had to eat, Lee usually did the dirty work. Lee, knowing that she was against violence also may have chosen to have Maren eat him, so she would not have to kill anyone, at least for this next meal.

What Does "Bones And All" Mean?

It Is The Full Commitment To Being An "Eater"

In the Bones and All scene that takes place by the river in Missouri, eating someone “bones and all” is described as essentially a rite of passage for an eater. This clearly carries symbolic weight, as it is the title of the book and movie. In the movie's unconventional love story, Maren and Lee not having eaten someone entirely before puts emphasis on their inexperience, and why they have to lean on each other to learn about how to navigate their urges.

While not confirmed, it can be speculated by the shot of an empty apartment after Lee’s death, that she may have entire him whole. With both of her mentors, Lee, Sully, and her father, now dead or gone, Maren has to go off on her own, and her eating someone entirely demonstrates that she has grown and is ready to handle life alone.

The Real Meaning Of Bones And All’s Ending

It's About The Deeper Connection Between Maren & Lee

Maren and Lee are madly in love with each other, and Lee’s final plea is an effort to be as close to her as possible. The two share a unique and beautiful bond throughout the movie, despite their occasional arguments and separations. The intimate scenes in the movie show off just how much the two love each other.

Reminiscent of the love story in Luca Guadagnino’s other Oscar-nominated film Call Me By Your Name, it seems as though the couple loves each other so deeply that they want to become one with each other. Through Lee’s final sacrifice, he allows them to do just that.

Though unconventional, Bones and All is a classic tale of teens trying to find themselves while longing to be normal. All the two lovers want is to be normal, and they are disgusted with their own compulsions. When Lee and Maren decide to get jobs and live in one place for a while, it is clear that all they want is to be normal and to be together.

“Let’s be people,” Maren says. “Let’s be them for a while.” The final moments of the film show Maren and Lee sitting together in a field hugging, in a real moment reminiscent of a normal couple, that Maren can hold onto as she embarks on the rest of her journey alone.

How The Bones And All Ending Was Received

The Ending Images Led To Speculation About Maren's Future

Reaction to the Bones and All ending was largely positive among audiences as they felt that it was a fitting end for the unconventional love story. However, as with many great movie endings, there have been several different reactions to what it means for Maren's story going forward with some offering more tragic explanations than others. Within the closing shots, one Redditor pointed to a subtle thing that might suggest Maren's heartbreaking next move:

[T]he scene cuts and the camera pans down and under the bed is a strand of what looks like rope. I’m assuming for a noose? Because you can see the blood stains on the hardwood floor still sort of and then the scene goes to Lee and Maren in the field which I interpreted as “Heaven”. I came to this conclusion because earlier and throughout the movie Sully and I think Lee says you can only get out of the curse in one of three ways: 1. Mental Institution. 2. Being eaten. 3. Killing yourself. It would make sense if Maren then kills herself in a sort of “Romeo Juliet” scenario because then we, the viewers, would have seen all of the ways to get out of the curse. This is just my take on it.

It is unclear how much this is what the filmmakers intended with the end, but this viewer is right in pointing out that the tragic end would befit the kind of love story Bones and All is telling. However, there are other fans who feel that the ending is more uplifting and that the final image speaks to Maren achieving the transcendental nature of eating "bones and all" which brings her to this moment of pure happiness with Lee (via Timely_Temperature54 on Reddit):

I believe it connects to ending when Lee tells her to eat him bones and all which is described earlier in the film as being some transcendent experience. I think the symbolism of them lying naked together represents some sort of final deep connection that is granted when Maren finally eats Lee at his request. The two connected over trauma and family hardships but also seemed to fundamentally disagree on a lot of things and this seemed to symbolize a true union and understanding between the both of them.