A24 does one thing better than most distributors – supporting filmmakers with strong visions and continuing to support them. The Daniels, Ari Aster, and Robert Eggers are among the auteurs A24 has distributed multiple films from, and now they add Saint Maud writer-director Rose Glass to their stable. Glass’ second feature, Love Lies Bleeding, arrives with significant interest. A stylish, pulse-pounding trailer sells the Kristen Stewart-starring picture as a lesbian riff on Bonnie and Clyde. Although the first act may begin to fill that bill, Love Lies Bleeding werewolfs into something meaner, weirder, and guaranteed to put off people as much as it will entice the freaks. A couple of wild swings in the third act don’t stick the landing, but there’s far too much to love here to write the whole package off.
Rose Glass directs from an original script co-written by Weronika Tofilska centering on gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart). Her job is a dead-end, marked by unclogging toilets and unwanted advances from co-worker Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov). She wants to escape her run-down town but is kept there out of fear for the safety of her sister Beth (Jena Malone) under the abuse of her husband JJ (Dave Franco). Not to mention, she’s trying desperately to avoid the gaze of her gun range owner father (Ed Harris). Lou’s life gets a warm, glowing light in the form of drifter/bodybuilder Jackie (Katy O’Brian). They fall for each other instantly, beginning a whirlwind romance. That romance, however, is soon put to the test in a cacophony of family squabbles, bloodshed, and lots of steroids.
Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian have the kind of instant chemistry that sizzles off the screens. Through recent projects like Spencer and Crimes of the Future, Stewart continues to prove herself as one hell of a character actress. Her brooding, rough-and-tumble protagonist Lou splits the difference between earnest concern and embodying the archetype of a roguish anti-hero. Katy O’Brian, whose biggest credits to date are supporting roles in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and The Mandalorian, devours the screen whole. Despite her imposing (and admittedly impressive) physique, O’Brian as Jackie has a girlish verve; a lust for life that Lou and the audience can’t resist. Them together? Supersonic. And Rose Glass gets major credit for allowing the lesbian romance at the center of the movie to be as joyous as it is, something that Hollywood still struggles with.
The first act of Love Lies Bleeding gives you the movie A24 sold in the trailers. The gorgeous grime of the gym and run-down visage of 1989 New Mexico, as shot by cinematographer Ben Fordesman (Saint Maud, The End of the F***ing World), serve as the ideal pressure cooker to bring Lou and Jackie into finding rapture in each other. Love Lies Bleeding is unabashed in its raw sensuality. As their relationship grows, the situation with Lou’s criminal family worsens, aided by a creepy-as-hell Ed Harris (with a hilarious hairdo) and Dave Franco in primo dirtbag mode. While it’s easy to picture a “lovers on the run” flick, Rose Glass and Weronika Tofilska aren’t interested in following that road map. In a gruesome act of violence, the film not necessarily switches gears but turns into something gnarlier than expected.
Much like Glass’ exquisite debut Saint Maud, Love Lies Bleeding begins to resemble a spiral down the drain. On Kristen Stewart’s end, it’s almost reminiscent of ’70s cinema, wherein a character constantly tries to evade the consequences of their actions while coming into contact with a cavalcade of truly awful people. The movie soars during the queasy interactions between her and Daisy, played by a uniquely loathsome pathetic Anna Baryshnikov, where the latter essentially tries to blackmail her into a relationship. Meanwhile, Jackie’s end of things is best described as a total mind trip. Her character, distressed about an upcoming bodybuilding competition, takes copious amounts of steroids. O’Brian uses her body like a special effect, her darting eyes fighting the bulging muscles that seem like they’re going to give way to a full-on “Hulk Out”.
Wild psychedelic effects are used in the movie to underscore Jackie’s detachment from reality. To be perfectly honest, this strains credibility given the nature of steroids. A standout sequence set at the 1989 Las Vegas Bodybuilding Championship makes Jackie struggle with her grasp on reality in a primal way, yet it’s hard to let yourself fall into it when it seems more like an acid trip than performance enhancers. Nonetheless, it does add to the compounding anxiety that threatens to swallow the characters whole in its vortex. Love Lies Bleeding reaches engrossing levels in its connective thematic tissue, which is the interplay between love and violence. More often than not, they’re compounded together. Lou at one point tells Jackie “I fucking love you, you idiot”, that brash statement somehow ringing truer than a doting expression.
Most relationships in the film are based on violence. Yes, JJ beats Beth, but is that what keeps her with him? Lou’s father deals in violence as business, and that seems to be the glue. Lou and Jackie both have violent pasts that trauma-bond them, and the violence in their wake only deepens that. Love Lies Bleeding places no judgment whatsoever on that. It’s just how it is. There are countless movies about violence, though few connect it to such a usually positive emotion. That’s the kind of chance that filmmakers should be taking. Audiences should be left uneasy sometimes – that’s what makes a movie last in their mind.
In its final moments, Love Lies Bleeding takes a big swing that doesn’t really work in its favor. It almost switches the genre of the movie at the last minute, and presents a baffling image or two that you can already see upsetting a lot of moviegoers. There are many ways to look at it, some narratively satisfying, others not so much, and finally somewhere in the middle. Rose Glass does not compromise, and you can appreciate that at the very least. However, this narrative risk feels like the kind of shock moment that is there to stir up conversation rather than serve the movie.
Despite its third-act miss, you cannot deny that Love Lies Bleeding is anything less than a damn good second go-around for filmmaker Rose Glass. Kristen Stewart and especially Katy O’Brian light up the silver screen with characters you want to get wrapped up in. Glass and Tofilska’s whip-smart script digs deep into its themes. Most importantly of all, the movie just feels so alive. Love Lies Bleeding isn’t what A24’s trailers are advertising. Ultimately, that’s for the best though.
