Love Lies Bleeding
Katy O’Brian and Kristen Stewart, Credit: Sundance, A24
Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding is a gleefully deranged, exceptionally-crafted, pitch-dark pulp-drama. This genre-bender—a Tarantino-esque concoction of crime, noir, romance, body horror, western, black comedy, and above all, mood—marks Glass as a must-watch talent. (It also makes a serious case for the return of mullets.) Set in seedy Nowhere, New Mexico at the height of 80’s fetishism, Love Lies Bleeding is eye candy on steroids. With Kristen Stewart as our jaded but good-willed anti-hero, newcomer Katy O’Brian as her belle-turned-partner-in-crime, and Ed Harris as Stewart’s crime lord dad, we embark on an indelible, muscular thrill ride. Be forewarned: the journey includes hyper-violence, subversively comic errors, and characters with a capital “C.”
Chief among them is Lou (Kristen Stewart), whom we meet unclogging a toilet—the first of many messes. Sex, drugs, deception, abuse, murder, corruption, bodily fluid… If there’s a SNAFU to un-SNAF, it’s Lou’s problem. It doesn’t help when she falls for Jackie (Katy O’Brian), a body-builder femme fatale whose wild-card behavior leads the pair into mayhem. Another mess Lou can’t control is family. Her sister, Beth (Jena Malone) is in an abusive relationship with JJ (Dave Franco). Her father, Lou Sr. (Ed Harris), is a wispy-haired crime lord who collects insects and discards bodies.
This cast thrives on absurdity. Actors deliver lines with the utmost sincerity—and, particularly in Stewart’s case, surprise us with vulnerability ... until the film’s final third, when gonzo genre twists take priority. However: despite this lapse in emotional depth, despite the fact that the genres Glass has embraced prioritize flair over feelings, Love Lies Bleeding entertains with a capital “E.” Whether viewers care about missed opportunities will depend on personal taste.
Jackie is the most glaring example of character-written-as-plot device. Aesthetically, she’s iconic; narratively, the resolution to her arc is more question than answer. Kudos to O’Brian for doing so much with the role—and for delivering so many memorable moments. Like a Coen Brothers character who keeps following bad decisions with worse, she could’ve been played dumb for laughs. Instead, O’Brian turns her into a force of nature: confident, laser-sighted, boldly physical, kicking up dust and smoke wherever she lands.
Yet for all its over-the-top verve, Love Lies Bleeding sneaks clever meaning into its cracks. Do we interpret the film’s title—also the common name for an Amaranth plant—as a sentence with a verb, or a series of nouns that summarize the film’s contents? A Shakespearean undercurrent suggests both: how the fanaticism of relationships can twist heartfelt choices beyond repair. Previously, writer/director Glass explored all-consuming passion in her breakout debut, indie horror Saint Maud; here, she demonstrates a facile fluidity between genres ... plus visual imagination to burn.
Also in the mix: bits and pieces of Drive, Thelma and Louise, Blood Simple, Blue Velvet. In more ways than one, Love Lies Bleeding is committed to its own queerness. It’s a universal, highly marketable story that happens to focus on a lesbian romance without patting itself on the back for wokeness. Instead, it falls into categories traditionally dominated by machismo and, in many ways, one-ups them. Props to co-writers Glass and Weronika Tofiska, who must have shared real-time laughs in the writer’s room, morphing their believable love story into a believable nightmare—and filling it with the unexpected.
So— Even if you expect to be surprised, expect to be surprised. (Squeamish viewers, beware of deliberate shock value). Above all else, this film warrants attention for its jacked-up, creative boldness. How it couches mainstream thrills in an arthouse package. How it dares to explore desire and despair. Desire for freedom, for the power that lets us seize it; despair over lack of control, over the messes that accompany partially-realized desires. The same way prestige TV favors anti-heroes, this film favors anti-love stories. In other words, what you’ll see here isn’t healthy, but you’ll root for it anyway. And if by any chance you’re in a toxic relationship—see Love Lies Bleeding. You will be humbled.
Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival 2024.
Love Lies Bleeding played in the Midnight Section of the Program.
104 min.
Where to Watch: Released in theaters Friday, March 8th 2024 by A24.