Love Lies Bleeding, the confident second feature from British director Rose Glass (Saint Maud) is a gloriously pulpy tale of lust, deceit, and violence set in the dusty American West. Recalling queer cinema classics like Bound and bursting at the seams with influences from David Lynch to Paul Verhoeven – Glass reportedly had the cast watch Showgirls for inspiration – this lesbian bodybuilding thriller skillfully takes the audience on a thoroughly enjoyable ride to some unexpected places.
Opening outside a dilapidated gym in small-town New Mexico in 1989, the viewer feels immediately that they are in good hands. Glass’ filmmaking is as muscular as the mooks who populate this grungy small-town gym, and buoyed by an urgent score from Clint Mansell (Requiem for a Dream). From the jump, the film is gorgeously, meticulously composed with a painterly sensibility by cinematographer Ben Fordesman (The End of the F***cking World), with impeccably detailed work from Production Designer Katie Hickman (Fire Island) contributing to a beautifully immersive experience for the audience.
Beyond the sweaty tangle of bodies, manager Lou (a decidedly unglamorous Kristen Stewart) leads a sad and miserable existence. Cleaning toilets and snapping at customers by day, her nightlife is punctuated with the touchstones of a lonely life: an aloof kitty cat, a microwaved meal … the most excitement she seems to get is in fending off the advances of a local junkie Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov) in favour of masturbating unenthusiastically on the couch. Lou’s life is tinged with more menace than most, however. As the FBI casually drops in to ask about her estranged father, Lou Sr. (Ed Harris in a performance of creepy perfection), we see there is more to this woman than meets the eye.
Lou has woefully little to look forward to as she toils away in the back rooms of this backwater gym. Until Jackie (Katy O’Brian) blows into town, that is. Jackie, an Oklahoma farm girl turned bodybuilder, is headed for a bodybuilding competition in Vegas. If she wins, she can set herself up as a trainer in Los Angeles and live out her very own California Dream. Sparks fly between the two women, and in one decidedly odd seduction, Lou draws Jackie in with a little box of steroid vials. One quick jab to the backside and they’re instantly inseparable, shacking up together at Lou’s while Jackie pumps herself up for Vegas. The chemistry between the two women is electric, and the two form the kind of intense lust-fueled connection that we know can only lead to terrible places in a neo-noir adventure like this one.
Over dinner with her sister Bethany (Jena Malone) and Bethany’s abusive husband JJ (Dave Franco), it is revealed that Jackie slept with JJ the first night she arrived in town, securing her a job at the desert gun range owned by arms dealer Lou Sr. One night JJ takes things too far, and puts his long-suffering wife into a coma, setting off a tragic series of events for our desert lovebirds. To say much more would spoil the experience, but as each character is painted into a corner one by one, the whole things plays out with the inevitability of a Greek tragedy, and thrown into stark relief with strokes of magic realism.
Once again proving herself to be one of the most interesting performers working today, Kristen Stewart consistently chooses projects of depth and originality, with both established auteurs like Olivier Assayas (Personal Shopper) and David Cronenberg (Crimes of the Future) and original up-and-coming talents like Andrew and Sam Zuchero (Love Me). Delivering a complex and layered performance as the jaded Lou, Stewart finds her match in relative newcomer Katy O’Brian (The Mandalorian). Delivering what promises to be a breakout performance, O’Brian counters Stewart’s weariness with a warmth and frenetic, reckless energy that is at once seductive and unpredictable. Glass has said that Jackie was the most challenging part to cast in the film, finally discovering O’Brian with only a few weeks to spare. I would way it was more than worth the wait, and I for one can’t wait to see what this trifecta of talented women cook up next.
Loves Lies Bleeding is in theatres now.
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