In any other romantic tragedy, a couple's love might be disallowed by family rivalries, social status, or even the spacetime continuum. In Love Lies Bleeding, the second feature by writer-director Rose Glass, the couple is queer and their love is disallowed by the brutality of patriarchy.
Lou (Kristen Stewart) is introverted and sullen, cleaning clogged toilets and answering inane questions in a ramshackle gym full of grime and steroid dealing. Everything changes when Jackie (Katy O'Brian), a bodybuilder on her way to a competition in Las Vegas, comes through town with no money and no place to sleep. As the manager of the gym, Lou gives Jackie access to the space, and soon, to the steroids too. The chemistry between Lou and Jackie is immediate and genuinely alluring. But their shared desire to be elevated above the circumstances of their lives is volatile. Their love incites suspicion, jealousy, and ultimately, violence.
Glass and her Director of Photography Ben Fordesman pay homage to visually distinctive films but the pastiche is subtle enough that it never becomes a distraction. For example, a shot of Lou and Jackie in the gym after hours immediately brings to mind the "tatami shot" created by Yasujirō Ozu, and shots of driving on desolate roads at night immediately recall David Lynch. But rather than a Stranger Things-style series of references for the fun of an Easter egg hunt, Glass and Fordesman have created something truly unique. From textural tableaus composed under warm lighting to overhead shots of vehicles pushing through the frame like toys in a diorama of the American Southwest, the visual design of Love Lies Bleeding is hyper-tactile with a veneer of surreality.
Glass moves effortlessly from wide shots of desert twilight to scenes of physical intimacy framed in dreamlike closeups. She and co-writer Weronika Tofilska first present their narrative metaphors and then make the metaphors physical. Sometimes glistening, sometimes grisly, these unexpected surges of surrealism make poignant moments all the more memorable.
As the narrative unfurls, it exposes the ways in which being a woman so often means being wounded by the inherent violence of patriarchy. Counterbalancing the romantic and sexual connection between Lou and Jackie, many of the most startling plot points reveal a forensic view of the ways women might destroy themselves — and each other — in reaction to the self-serving men in their lives.
The fractured triangle of Lou, Jackie, and Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov) is an exploration of some of the many ways woman can be queer. Some are confident in who they are, yet distrusting and reclusive. Some take their queerness as an everyday detail of their lives and are more interested in simply following their passions. Some are desperate for affection and a sense of stability in a world that often refuses to accommodate them. This unflinching examination of women's lives also extends to Beth (Jena Malone), who suffers in her heteronormativity.
Glass says that neither she nor Tofilska are from the U.S. so the version of 1980s America depicted in the film is "very much concocted from our imaginations and the omnipresent influence of American films and TV." Knowingly unreal though it may be, their portrayal of America offers viewers an uncanny — yet still empathetic — new perspective on American culture.
For all its aching romance and gritty eroticism, Love Lies Bleeding is at its heart a story about power — who holds power, and how they wield it. Whether there is anything more powerful than love that persists even under the threat of brutality is a question still waiting to be answered when the end credits roll.
Love Lies Bleeding (2024)
Rated R
104 minutes
