Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Bones and All.Bones and All reunites director Luca Guadagnino with Timothée Chalamet after their Academy Award-nominated first collaboration on 2017’s Call Me By Your Name. Chalamet is arguably the most ambitious young actor of his generation, and Call Me By Your Name was the film that made the world wake up to his enormous talent. However, Bones and All doesn’t just reunite Guadagnino and Chalamet; it also brings back Michael Stuhlbarg, who co-starred as Elio’s (Chalamet) father, Mr. Perlman, in Call Me By Your Name. In both films, Stuhlbarg proves that he has the ability to absolutely transfix the audience in a very short amount of time.

Michael Stuhlbarg is Luca Guadagnino's Secret Weapon

Call Me By Your Name celebrates expression, passion, and youthful idealism. While Mr. Perlman doesn’t show any sign that he’s aware of his son’s relationships in the first part of the story, he picks up on the changes that he’s experiencing towards the very end of the film. In one of the most moving monologues in recent film history, Mr. Perlman tells Elio to embrace his feelings, accept his heartbreak, and enjoy the emotions that he feels, because they are something he may never experience again. Mr. Perlmana also alludes to a similar relationship that he had in his own youth. It’s arguably the scene of the film, and Stuhlbarg delivers it with the considerable emotional depth that was required.

Despite the fact that he really only gets one moment in the spotlight, Stuhlbarg’s performance in Call Me By Your Name earned significant award season buzz for Best Supporting Actor and even picked up nominations at both the Critic’s Choice Awards and the London Film Critics Circle. It promised another exciting collaboration with Guadagnino, and it’s fitting that Stuhlbarg has another knockout monologue in Bones and All. He might just be Guadagnino’s secret weapon; Stuhlbarg shows in one gripping sequence that “people like us” will always struggle to find a community. However, it’s safe to say that his character Jake isn’t quite as endearing or charming as Mr. Perlman.

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Image Via Sony Pictures Classics

Jake Represents an Outsider Within a Community

Based on the novel of the same name by Camille DeAngelis, Bones and All follows a twisted, romantic coming-of-age story about cannibals - or "eaters" - in the 1980s. If you combine the romanticism that Guadagnino delivered in Call Me By Your Name with the body horror he depicted in the remake of Suspiria, that’s essentially what Bones and All is. After her father (Andre Holland) abandons her, Maren Yearly (Taylor Russell) falls in love with another young eater named Lee (Chalamet). They embark on a cross-country road trip but find it difficult to meet other eaters along the way. While both Maren and Lee claim to have control over their impulses, they know that the other members of their select community aren’t able to show the same restraint.

Can Maren and Lee Trust Anyone?

One of the things that Guadagnino emphasizes is that anyone who might pick up on Maren and Lees’ behavior promises imminent danger. It’s one of the most haunting and heartbreaking elements of the film; what if you had to live in fear of the only community that would accept you? When Stuhlbarg first appears as Jake, he indicates that he knows more about Lee than he’s suggesting. His initial offer of kindness and shelter forces Lee and Maren to ask themselves an important question: Should they take any act of compassion as a potential threat?

As he proved with Suspiria, Guadagnino has an affinity for classic horror. Jake appears on the side of a field in simple farmer’s clothes, in what seems like a striking parallel to George Romero’s 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead. It’s clear that the comparisons don’t stop there; Lee subtly realizes that Jake and his partner, Brad (David Gordon Green), are also eaters. The brilliant screenplay by David Kajganich does a great job at dancing around the conversation about these “flesh eaters,” and how they identify themselves. Stuhlbarg shows the difficulty that these cannibals have in revealing themselves to others; if they reveal their identity to the wrong person, it could be perceived as a threat.

RELATED: 'Call Me By Your Name's Strongest Scene Is About Fatherly Acceptance

Stuhlbarg is among the industry’s best character actors, and he nails a goofy southern accent that could have easily been a distraction. There’s a naturalism to the Americana in Bones and All that grounds it in the backwater of 1980s consumerism. And there’s something timeless to Stuhlbarg’s performance as if he represents an older generation of cannibals that have lived with years of discrimination and paranoia. His conversations with the younger lovers indicate that he’s lived through plenty of conflict in his lifetime.

Michael Stuhlbarg in Bones and All
Image Via MGM

Jake and Brad's Shocking Revelation

However, Stuhlbarg is able to change the tone of the film at a moment’s notice. In Call Me By Your Name, Guadagnino utilized him to transform heartbreak into wisdom. He has the opposite effect in Bones and All; Stuhlbarg turns a moment of communal recognition into paranoia over physical and ethical boundaries. As Lee, Maren, Jake, and Brad all sit back and bond as a fire burns, the younger couple begins to realize that their new friends aren’t exactly a normal couple, even by the standards of cannibals.

Lee hints with a sense of glee that his partner doesn’t have the same preferences that he does. He implies (and ultimately reveals) that Brad is not inherently a cannibal, and that he’s been forced to live with his partner’s lifestyle. Stuhlbarg is absolutely magnetic here as if Jake has been waiting to make this revelation to another young couple for quite some time. Maren reacts with disgust, and it forces her to confront the nagging issues that she’s had with Lee. She fears becoming the monster that her father thought she was, and she already had gotten upset with Lee after he ate a family man. If he’s willing to accept someone like Jake, what else will he recognize as normal?

Bones and All is one of the best films of the year, and while awards bodies tend to overlook films that are so transgressive, it’s impossible to ignore the incredible performances. Mark Rylance has already earned Best Supporting Actor buzz for his haunting performance as the villain Sully. However, Stuhlbarg’s work shouldn’t be forgotten; it takes a truly unique actor to command our attention in only a few brief moments.