Love Lies Bleeding (2024)

User Review

• 

  Barneyonmovies

  7 / 10

  WHAT I LIKED: There are plenty of macho movies out there full of sex, muscles and rage, but the genius of 'Love Lies Bleeding,' is that it lends that vigour to two frustrated queer women.
  
  Lou (Kristen Stewart) is working a dead-end job at a crumby gym, is estranged from her criminal maniac father, and has a sister who's a victim of domestic abuse. Jackie (Katy O'Brian) has fled her home and is hitch-hiking her way across America to a bodybuilding tournament, and gets a job at Lou Sr's shooting range so she doesn't have to sleep on the streets. The pair hook up at the gym and initially let out their obvious frustrations by having lots of sex and taking steroids together, but eventually Jackie decides to murder Lou's horrible brother-in-law, and they end up swimming in Lou Sr's criminal enterprise.
  
  In many ways that continual spiral out of control makes for a deeply infuriating watch, as you simply long for the pair to find peace either with each other or apart. But it's also cathartic to see them let out all of that rage, especially when everything is filmed so tactically by director Rose Glass. Each location - from the gym to Lou's apartment to the paved streets - is lit to look sticky and hot at all times, characters smoke so much you can almost smell it, the camera lingers intently on the stars' pulsing muscles and tanned bodies, and the violence is seriously bloody and raw. Heck, there's even some Cronenberg-style surrealism thrown in to externalise the pair's rage that bit further.
  
  All together that makes for a very atmospheric and cathartic character study indeed, and it's helped too by the great central performances from Stewart and O'Brian.
  
  WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: As mentioned, it can equally be rather frustrating at times...
  
  VERDICT: Rose Glass' macho-masterclass 'Love Lies Bleeding,' sees two queer women letting out their frustrations in a chaotic, atmospheric character study that's often as cathartic as it is infuriating.

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