Lou (Kristen Stewart) works at a rundown gym, sometime in the eighties, and bodybuilder Jackie (Katy O’Brian) rolls into town to take her breath away. A conversation in the parking lot reveals Jackie is into women too, and the girls hook up that night, leading to Jackie moving in with Lou, and a budding romance, while Jackie trains for an upcoming Las Vegas contest. Jackie also gets a job working on Lou Sr.’s (Ed Harris) gun range, and when Lou’s brother-in-law, J.J. (Dave Franco), stirs up trouble, Lou Sr. and Lou may have different ways of approaching it, but things will get violent. As Paul Thomas Anderson would say, there will be bleeding… I think that’s what he’d say 🤔 Love Lies Bleeding is directed by Rose Glass.
It takes a little while longer than usual to figure out what this movie will be about. Okay, the first things to notice are the setting, the meet-cute that forms an unlikely romance, and then there’s steroids. But put pretty succinctly, the movie promises love, lies, bleeding – so the movie’s title is the damn description. I made a deal with myself early on that I would respectfully avoid using the term “hulkish” to describe Jackie, but come on, the movie leaves me no choice, since Jackie’s steroid depiction literally shows her muscles bulging at different states of anger and arousal. I was saddened when the movie chose to go where things aren’t so well for Jackie, because she’s a breath of fresh air, and very smiley, compared to the other characters that occupy this stuffy town. J.J. beats the hell out of Beth (Jena Malone), but then Jackie flips out on Lou, which frames her poorly in a moment of domestic abuse too 😞 But it was also good not to be watching a sequel or a prequel of some sort in 2024, where I could just watch this story play out naturally, without any preconceived groove or style to follow. Yeah, 2024 is wearing me down with so many retreads, but with Love Lies Bleeding, not only is it something original, but I also nearly always felt like I was in safe hands through the movie’s direction. I admire stuff like the use of red to indicate Lou and Lou Sr.’s violent past together, even down to the reflection of the soda machine at the hospital, when Lou Sr. and Lou first start talking about their dealings with the murder hole 👍 And I recently dug in on a depiction of sexual violence occurring in another movie I reviewed, and I’m glad I did, because the emotional resonance managed through the abuse Beth suffers here in this movie is unsurpassable, and righteously disgraceful. I felt so sad for Beth lying in that hospital bed, and raw empathy for the anguished rage displayed by Lou, because she knew better but was powerless to stop it. The way we see Beth and J.J.’s marriage dynamic leading up to it too, with J.J. cheating on his wife, and relying on her to serve up his food at the restaurant; to him then flipping out over his pants getting stained when it’s Beth that will probably definitely be doing the washing for him anyway 😠 Palpable fury, palpable fury at the depiction of this greaseball.
The more cartoonish elements of Love Lies Bleeding is where the movie lost me. Like Jackie’s hallucinations while on stage, or Lou Sr. eating a bug. Or Jackie growing to be a giant woman to save the day – I mean, what the hell?! I think this movie’s finale here, might’ve literally cost the movie an entire star in my final rating 😕 Before that, Love Lies Bleeding actually reminded me most of Emily the Criminal, through the grime and escalation, but it’s easy to say that like Emily the Criminal more because it’s cleaner, because it stays grounded. And I think I would’ve preferred this movie if we clearly found out that Jackie had killed other people before meeting Lou, which is why she was on the run, away from home. That actually still could be what happened actually, which is why Jackie’s mother wants nothing to do with her on the phone; but I’m pretty sure at the ending, on the tennis court, Lou and Jackie are only discussing the two murders Jackie has committed while in town together. But if Jackie has/had committed more murders before the two ever met up together, then that would make Lou and Jackie both prior murderers, due to Lou’s dealings with that hole again, and accomplices only in the last two murders necessary for them to skip town together. Of the love, lies, and bleeding, the love is the most unifying part of the story, for sure, and is commendable. This movie is really a miserable story, bereft of a moral compass at all, but Lou is the one who tries to hold it together, motivated by the power of love, the best she can.
The cast is good, and it creeps up on you. I have a soft spot for Kristen Stewart – it’s no secret – but for a woman much maligned for wooden acting, she sure does continue to headline a lot of movies, so she must be doing something right. Love Lies Bleeding made me realise that I think a subdued character performance from Stewart just maybe the best you’re going to get, but there’re still a few scenes here, where Stewart has to communicate her emotions out of that, which I think she manages expertly. She’s sneaky good, old Stewie. But then, in fairness, the final couple moments, where Lou is outraged at her father, do recall that “you-imprinted-on-my-daughter!” energy, from Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, so nobody’s perfect 😊 Also, when are movies going to give Jena Malone a breakout chance again?! She is essentially in a thankless role here, but so bold, as the timid suburban mother, required to go to some dark places. I’m getting sick of seeing Malone in often the sharpest and deepest bit-parts of a movie – The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Rebel Moon, Nocturnal Animals, and now this, are the examples that quickly spring to mind. I want to be talking about Malone in awards seasons soon, I really do. She deserves her turn! 😤 I also think Anna Baryshnikov is fantastic, equally intimidating and pathetic, as Daisy, all while presenting with drug-stained teeth. Katy O’Brian is cool too, and appropriately muscly, but since this is the first time I think I’ve ever seen her, this performance merely forms a baseline, although she feels natural. (Okay, I’ve seen O’Brian before in Ant-Man: Quantumania and Twisters, but you could’ve fooled me!)
The fact that Jackie hooks up with J.J. ahead of meeting Lou sort’ve gets overtaken by bigger problems at hand, but it was an interesting story element at the time, concerning a potential opportunistic nature of Jackie; yet I do believe her love is genuine as soon as Lou comes along. Love Lies Bleeding is the sort of movie that makes me want to go back and visit director Glass’s other feature work, and there’s only Saint Maud, a horror movie that also reviewed well from critics in 2019. And horror season’s coming up, so hello Saint Maud 🤗
3.0
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