Some of my favorite films feel like pulpy fever dreams. Think of Stanley Kubrick or Brian De Palma at their best or the early 20th century dime novels and you’ll get a sense of the otherworldly, heightened tone I gravitate towards. Consider my surprise then when Rose Glass, who made a little splash in 2019 with her debut horror feature, Saint Maude, follows it up with Love Lies Bleeding, a sexy, trashy, overripe thriller. One could draw comparisons with their themes of co-dependence and some similar visceral motifs, but Glass has taken a bigger swing here.
Set in late 1980s Nowheresville, New Mexico, Kristen Stewart plays Lou, the manager of a training gym who, when we first meet her, has her hand down a filthy toilet in an effort to clear out a clog. It’s a not so subtle shorthand to indicate that she’s living in a world of crap. Like any good film noir main character, she’s more than ready for a femme fatale to shake up her world. It’s not going to be Daisy (a scene-stealing Anna Baryshnikov), a messy local who crushes a bit too hard on a clearly not interested Lou. No, it’ll take Jackie (Katy O’Brian), a gorgeous, buff bodybuilder who drifts into town with the requisite mysterious past to catch Lou’s eye. When we first meet Jackie, she’s getting railed by the sleazy, poorly-mulleted JJ (Dave Franco) in the back seat of his car. Their relationship seems transactional and a short time later, Jackie shows up at Lou’s gym. When Lou’s eyes almost burst out of her sockets, it’s love and bulging biceps at first sight.
At this point, Glass and co-writer Weronika Tofilska, in the grand tradition of the genre, add one complication after another. You see, JJ happens to be Lou’s brother-in-law and horribly abuses her sister Beth (Jena Malone). JJ also just happens to work for Lou’s scary and estranged father Lou Sr. (an even more severely mulleted Ed Harris) at the local gun range. If all of this sounds ominous, it should. In a film this lurid, you just know those guns will get used for more than target practice. Make no mistake, this story has sex, violence and a high body count. Think an early 90s B-movie classic like Red Rock West with the seductive juice of Bound and you’ll be dead on about this stakes-raising good time at the movies.
Something like this doesn’t work without having terrific performances and Love Lies Bleeding has an impressive array. Stewart gives a mesmerizing turn as a fearless, sexually voracious aggressor who can’t help put herself in the path of pain over and over again. It reminded me of her depiction of Joan Jett in 2010’s The Runaways, simultaneously feral and vulnerable. Her delayed reaction during a phone call scene actually made me laugh and applaud. She has electrifying chemistry with O’Brian, whose hair-trigger temperament gets them into one terrible situation after another. Lou should be able to read the tea leaves, but she just can’t help herself when it comes to Jackie. Harris plays a scary monster but gives him a type of twisted logic that adds a layer of complexity to a role so often deemed beyond reproach. Malone and Franco also have their moments to shine, but I took the most glee from the little details in Baryshnikov’s turn (and yes, her father is Mikhail). Just watching her use her fingers on a diner table to express excitement had me grinning.
As things spiral out of control, Glass enters surreal territory. She uses many bone-crunching close-ups of Jackie’s muscles expanding from steroid use to suggest she’s turning into the Incredible Hulk, and late in the film, she really goes off the rails with the level of such transformation. There’s also one incredible shot of Lou and Jackie running towards camera as an ethereal, colorful haze twirls in the background. These moments may turn some viewers off, but I’ll counter that it makes the film unforgettable. I did wonder, however, why they used that title without including Elton John’s classic 70s song of the same name. Maybe it’s too on the nose, but I felt it would have fit in with the big, colorful 80s aesthetic.
With such recent films as Nyad, May December, and Bottoms, we’re in the Bechdel Test-passing era of cinema where female characters don’t merely exist to prop up the male leads. Love Lies Bleeding, which falls handily within those guidelines, feels like it’s built on two axioms, that love is indeed blind, and that relationships built on trauma bonding and deep sexual attraction just might be the way to go. Either way, I’ll follow Rose Glass, blindly (!), anywhere.
By Glenn Gaylord, Senior Film Critic
Love Lies Bleeding is now playing in theaters nationwide.
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