One word comes to mind while watching Rose Glass’ new gritty thriller, Love Lies Bleeding: greasy. Set in a local community of gym rats and gun nuts, we see the ever-fascinating contradiction of people obsessed with working out – something that should be healthy and keeping you in shape – while simultaneously addicted to cigarettes, steroids, or both. Everyone in this movie looks as if they need a bath or a trip to the dentist. Glass builds a gnarly universe for viewers who will either be sucked into the experience or too grossed out toward the end.
In 1989 smalltown Nevada, Jackie (Katy O’Brian) is an aspiring bodybuilder who stops in town on the way to Las Vegas from Oklahoma. It’s love at first sight when she and local gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) meet and instantly move in together. What starts out as romantic quickly turns dark when Jackie discovers her boss at the gun range is Lou’s psychotic father, Lou Sr. (Ed Harris), and that Lou’s scumbag brother-in-law, J.J. (Dave Franco), hooked up with Jackie the day she arrived.
Anna Baryshnikov plays a cringe-inducing local with a desperate crush on Lou, and Jena Malone appears as Lou’s older sister. Directed and co-written by England-based Glass, Love Lies Bleedingat first feels like a sportier update of the Wachowskis’ cult classic Bound (1996) before going a bit off the rails in the second half. Some editing and fantasy sequences seem like they would belong in an Alex Garland flick.
This is a movie that unfortunately peaks in the beginning for me, and it made me wish the direction and story’s progression were more grounded and less abstract. I also felt Baryshnikov’s character was mostly unnecessary and distracting from the leads. If Glass wants her audience to feel uneasy, then she mainly succeeds with the glaringly graphic violence and close-ups of Jackie shooting up steroids. O’Brian – with her martial arts background – gives a strong performance in her first lead role, and Stewart is clearly comfortable in her typical tomboyish role, while Harris reminds us how effortlessly he can pull off sinister.
Though Love Lies Bleeding didn’t fully work for me, it might be worth checking out for fans of the cast or of Glass’ sleeper hit Saint Maud (2019). And in case you’re wondering, Elton John’s classic 1973 track, “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding,” doesn’t make an appearance on the soundtrack.