Movie Review ~ Love Lies Bleeding

I like to start all my reviews with a little personal tidbit, which shows I’m not just a robotic machine that starts one movie the moment another ends. Sometimes, it can get a little deep, but most of it serves to show that I’m as apt as anyone to have guilty pleasure film titles and stump for my favorite actors when they are in projects I’m passionate about. I’ve been on the Kristen Stewart fan train for multiple stops at this point, from the early days when it wasn’t too crowded to the Twilight evenings when it was packed to the gills. As Stewart has grown bolder in her choice of roles, her followers are still legion, but it does not take much for them to hop off when the rails get rocky. For me, that’s when the ride reaches its most fun velocity.

Of all the films I was set to see at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, I was most nervous about Love Lies Bleeding. It wasn’t the grim subject matter or the early buzz about its visceral violence but anxiety at potentially not being there for the premiere and the opportunity to be in the same room as Stewart. Now, I can get as starstruck as the next Pedro Pascal fan, but Stewart has a unique hold over an audience. I’ve been at screenings with both present, and the response to Stewart is electric; it’s a vibe, a mood, an energy that anyone would want to be a part of.

Stewart’s newest movie (her second at Sundance after the thought-provoking Love Me) is another challenging tale of a romantic entanglement doomed to fail.
From A24, Love Lies Bleeding is a haunting tale of rage, redemption, and fierce strength, providing a showcase for Stewart and co-star Katy O’Brian to bring audiences along on an intoxicating journey. This chilling crime drama is the sophomore effort from Rose Glass, whose 2020 film Saint Maud (also an A24 release) was a revelation of moody fright, leaving the viewer with a shockingly fiery finale.

This entrancing erotic noir is not for the faint of heart but sturdy of soul, and if you’re willing to play along, it will be an enjoyable experience. Written by Glass and Weronika Tofilska, the film is set in an innocuous New Mexican town in 1989 where Lou (Stewart) works as a manager at a seedy garage gym, one of the satellite businesses for her estranged crime boss father, also named Lou. Played by Ed Harris (The Abyss) as a mulleted crow of a man, Lou Sr. has kept a watchful eye on his daughter, who used to play a critical role in keeping his business associates on the up and up.

Lou’s sister Beth (Jena Malone, The Ruins) is in a grossly abusive relationship with her lowdown husband JJ (Dave Franco, The Rental), but as long as JJ continues to be in Lou Sr.’s good graces, there’s not much anyone can do to stop the beatings. While it appears that no secrets are safe in the town, Lou’s under-the-table trysts with local girl Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov, Manchester by the Sea) have led to Daisy desiring for them to bring their relationship public. The arrival of bodybuilder Jackie (O’Brian, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania) throws a wrench into all these situations because the more muscle she builds, the more dangerous and unpredictable she becomes.

It’s hard to talk too much more about the goings-on in Love Lies Bleeding for fear of giving away the dizzying spree of deception that follows, but there’s a sly mystery whose roots get planted early on, and it’s alarmingly exciting to watch them grow. Nothing is quite what it seems in this small town, and even the title Love Lies Bleeding unfolds like a poetic triptych, inviting multiple interpretations. It could be a singular phrase summarizing the characters’ turbulent emotions, or it may very well be an invisible trio of chapters within the film, each flowing with menace into the other. Either way, it resonates as a haunting mantra long after the credits roll.

Once again, Stewart seizes the spotlight and sheds the skin of her former roles to present a different character that’s as much a departure as playing Lady Diana was in Spencer. Throwing herself into the role with the full force of her craft, she’s mesmerizing to watch and often takes a back seat to O’Brian, who is tasked with the more bizarre tonal shifts the movie makes us sit and squirm with. O’Brian is a force to be reckoned with, not just in her impressive form and skill in the bodybuilding scenes but how she backs that up with a riveting performance as someone who isn’t entirely sure what dark energy has been consuming whatever light she had left within.

The romantic chemistry that grows between Stewart and O’Brian is an unstable mix of tenderness and torment, creating a dynamic that mirrors the film’s unrepentant exploration of the sinister. Every character in the movie has an ominous air about them to some degree; it’s how far they’ll go to get what they want that’s always in question. That wicked question mark is helped along by Clint Mansell’s (She Will) eerie score and a sound design that submerges you in the dreamlike world Glass has created.

Glass is a director who thinks about the entire experience when considering what she’s putting on screen; it’s not enough to have a script that can play tricks with reality, but the visuals need to do more than hint at a transgressive terror leaking into the lives of these individuals. Ben Fordesman’s cinematography is both a kinky throwback to the shot-on-video low-budget endeavors of the ’80s and a recalibration of what a fever dream would look like if it were described by someone prone to embellishment. Fordesman also lensed the stunning Out of Darkness last month, and I feel like he’s someone to keep an eye on.

While not expressly body horror, from the moment the credits roll Love Lies Bleeding establishes itself as endlessly fascinated with the workings of the human form. How it stretches, how it bends, how it breaks, how it bleeds. (Olga Mill‘s costumes are painstakingly accurate in the amount of flesh they expose or purposely shield) The violence employed by Glass is often shocking, pointedly gratuitous, and wielded as a tool for storytelling rather than superficial sensationalism. Each act of brutality is a calculated step into the abyss, resulting in an unnerving and thought-provoking film, forcing viewers to confront the darkness within and around the characters.

Demonstrating once again that she is a filmmaker unafraid to explore the shadows of the human soul, Rose Glass hits a second bullseye with Love Lies Bleeding. By the time it reaches its take it or leave it finale, Glass and the cast have gotten the viewer to a place where it doesn’t matter what they ask you to believe, even if it’s a giant metaphor staring you down. Until then, the ride has been so brutal, sexy, scary, and exciting that one last brave swing acts as just the adrenaline rush an audience needs.