28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and the Return of the Weird Tentpole (By Ciaran Duff)

Nia DaCosta’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is nothing short of a triumph. I know, I’m as surprised as you are. When Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later came out last summer, I didn’t make the effort to see it, writing it off as zombie franchise fodder without knowing anything about it. When I watched it and its predecessors (Days and Weeks) for the first time earlier this month, however, I came to appreciate the series’ anthology structure, deep idiosyncrasy, and touching humanity. Boyle’s 28 Years acts as part one of a trilogy written by Days screenwriter Alex Garland. It explores the coming-of-age of a boy named Spike and the people that enter and leave his life 28 years after the Rage Virus breaks out in Britain, infecting and quarantining the nation from the rest of the world.

Nia DaCosta’s sequel is, in more ways than one, a first for the series. Where every preceding film has been anthological to the previous one, The Bone Temple picks up minutes after Years ends. It continues Spike’s journey for survival as he is inducted into a satanist cult of “Jimmys” led by Sir Jimmy Crystal (loosely inspired by British pop culture icon and infamous sexual predator Jimmy Saville), played hammily by Jack O’Connell. However, don’t fret if 110 minutes of that sounds exhausting. Ralph Fiennes returns as Years’ third-act surprise Dr. Kelson, bringing a sensitivity to the narrative as a former general practitioner-turned-keeper of the ostuary for the dead known as the Bone Temple.

Even as a direct sequel as opposed to the previous three anthological entries, The Bone Temple maintains the sensibility of contained narrative that defines much of the series. For the majority of its runtime, the film has two halves: the journey with Spike and the Jimmys, and the burgeoning bond between Kelson and Samson (an Infected that the doctor manages to tame with psychiatric treatment). The former of the two represents the inhumanity of humanity, while the latter represents humanity being found in that perceived to be inhuman. Isolating these narratives from each other brings a sense of scale to this middle installment of Boyle, Garland, and DaCosta’s Years trilogy, upping the intensity and intrigue in ways that are brought full circle in the third act’s coalescence of the two narratives.

DaCosta and Boyle, evidently, have very different approaches to filmmaking. Boyle is often frenetic and experimental in ways that are always interesting, but sometimes at the expense of quality (for instance, the decision to shoot Years on iPhone 15 Pros). Contrastingly, DaCosta peels away from experimentation in favor of a steady, restrained formalist hand, letting aesthetics take a backseat in favor of a focus on a cerebral narrative and compelling performances. Still, the most enthralling elements of Boyle’s style remain, with gorgeous, detail-oriented production design and vivid, exuberant colors. But DaCosta’s biggest strength is directing actors, with Bone Temple featuring remarkable, intimate performances from Alfie Williams, Erin Kellyman, Chi Lewis-Parry, and Ralph Fiennes. Like many second installments of a trilogy, it is a step away from spectacle and a step forward into characterization.

Alex Garland returns from Days and Years to pen The Bone Temple, and his excellent influence continues to be a perfect fit for the series. While Garland’s solo writer-director outings are divisive and widely perceived to be fairly weak (particularly Men and Civil War), his work as writer-for-hire under the constraints of the 28 films is where his atmospheric, contemplative style shines. Where Days was tied inexorably to the backdrop of the 9/11 attacks that transpired mid-production, the Years films intentionally mirror the emerging isolationism and fetishization of sovereignty out of a post-Brexit Britain. The first film creates this connection quite explicitly through the depiction of Spike’s isolated island community and his frustration with their complacency in the face of his mother’s inevitable death. Here in The Bone Temple, the more intangible effects of that (for instance, the mutation of trauma into abusive power structures seen in the Jimmy cult) take center stage. Yet beyond a layer of cynicism towards humanity lies a radical empathy from Dr. Kelson, as he manages to connect with characters like Samson and Crystal, who would be thought of as irredeemable in a lesser film.

While the narrative is incredibly rewarding, it may be undermined by the incessant, overtly cruel, and gory violence throughout, not to mention a remarkable (if often comedic) amount of full frontal nudity. Yet at every turn, contrary to Boyle’s aestheticisation of the violence in his 28 movies, DaCosta uses more formalistic, steady filmmaking techniques in her depiction. The violence here isn’t shied away from, but rather kept just out of focus or restrained enough to not immediately qualify it as exploitative. This results in the film subtly striking a middle ground: neither glorifying the graphic elements by indulging in them nor sensationalizing them by hiding them.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is a very weird studio tentpole, and one that isn’t afraid to dip its toes into uncomfortable areas of the human experience. The trust Bone Temple puts in its audience to go through moments of discomfort, grace, beauty, and wonder makes it one of the best arguments for the value of humankind put to screen in recent memory.