Love Lies Bleeding review

LOVE LIES BLEEDING: 

ROSE GLASS DELIVERS A DAMN IMPRESSIVE SOPHOMORE DIRECTORIAL EFFORT! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** ½ out of 4

A24

Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian in Love Lies Bleeding

 

            What happens when a gym manager and a bodybuilder form a relationship and the gym manager’s father is part of a crime family? Probably something like Love Lies Bleeding, the second directorial effort from Rose Glass (Saint Maud). 

            I’ve not seen Glass’ previous film, Saint Maud but after seeing this I might have to check it out because holy cow! I was already intrigued when I saw the trailer but this surpassed my expectations and delivered a thoroughly entertaining and unapologetically ambitious experience that most mainstream feature films would steer away from. 

            The film is set in 1989 and follows reclusive gym manager, Lou (Kristen Stewart-The Twilight Saga, On the Road, Spencer) who falls for an ambitious bodybuilder named Jackie (Katy O’Brian-Z Nation, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania) who’s heading through town to Las Vegas so she can pursue her dream of competing in a bodybuilding competition. But their love soon ignites violence, pulling them deep into the web of Lou’s criminal family headed by her father, Lou Sr. (Ed Harris-Apollo 13, A History of Violence, Top Gun: Maverick). 

            The film also stars Jena Malone (Donnie Darko, Into the Wild, Rebel Moon) as Lou’s sister Beth, Anna Baryshnikov (Wiener-Dog, Manchester by the Sea, Dickinson) as Daisy, and Dave Franco (21 Jump Street, Neighbors 1 and 2, The Disaster Artist) as Beth’s husband J.J.. 

            Overall, Love Lies Bleeding isn’t a movie for everyone (The ending in particular will be divisive amongst moviegoers), but those looking for something outside of what Hollywood keeps pumping out will be greeted by a blood-soaked, darkly comical, and at times surreal romance tale unlike any other. What really makes this film work are the performances by Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian, both do outstanding jobs in their roles. 

            Sure, I joked about Kristen Stewart’s dry and wooden performance from the Twilight films, but when she’s good she is really good with this being no exception. Stewart is brilliant as this cynical, reclusive gym manager and effectively delivers some genuinely funny and often snarky lines of dialogue, has believable romantic chemistry with O’Brian, and even a few badass moments. 

            Katy O’Brian is the biggest standout of the film; I haven’t seen much of her work but she absolutely knocks it out of the park as Jackie the bodybuilder. She isn’t just your typical “Strong Woman” archetype because despite her tough exterior and personality, she is an extremely flawed and thoroughly fascinating character over the course of the film where she goes to extreme lengths to achieve her goals whether it’s injecting herself with a bunch of steroids or resorting to murder when an obstacle gets in her way, she is 100% convincing in every scene she’s in…she also puts every film version of The Incredible Hulk to shame (If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know what I’m talking about). 

            Ed Harris also gives a great performance as Lou’s father and crime boss and it’s probably the most terrifying Ed Harris performance I’ve seen in a while. Every scene he’s in has this threatening and intimidating presence and to make things even crazier, he has hair! AAAHHH! (Anyway, excellent antagonist performance from Harris as usual). 

            The film also gets pretty grisly and violent though I wouldn’t call it a constant gore-fest, but the moments that it does have are pretty grotesque and shocking. Specifically, when it shows a dead body of someone who was murdered, it actually got an audible reaction out of me when it was shown in the theater. 

            Despite being mostly grounded in reality; the movie also isn’t afraid to go to surreal and absurd territories at times. This is where that likely polarizing ending comes in which I won’t give away here, but it certainly got a lot of reactions out of the audience I was with and will certainly be talked about afterwards. 

            The weird ending doesn’t ruin the movie as I was still entertained when it happened, but it is something to take note of while watching it. It’s another example of A24 subverting audiences’ expectations when they buy a ticket to their films and I have nothing but the highest level of respect for them whenever they do that. 

            I very much enjoyed Love Lies Bleeding and is currently just below Dune: Part Two (Which is so far my #1 pick at the time of this review) in my best films of the year list. It’s an effective blend of ultra-violence, romance, dark humor, and moments of surrealism led by the outstanding performances by Stewart and O’Brian and stellar direction from Rose Glass, you won’t want to miss this crazy trip.