‘Love Lies Bleeding’ Review: Kristen Stewart Is Pure Magnetism in Ultra-Violent Neo-Noir Romance – Hollywood Reporter

When a magnificently gnarled Ed Harris, sporting stringy Argus Filch hair and chomping on a horned beetle in a second of psychotic rage is way from the weirdest factor in a film, you’re in for a wild expertise. That’s what Brit director Rose Glass delivers in Love Lies Bleeding, a lesbian neo-noir drenched in brooding nightscapes, violent crime and extra hardcore KStew cool than has ever been packaged in such a potent focus. Severely, is there anybody who doesn’t wish to watch Kristen Stewart flicking again a greasy shag, driving an previous pickup and chain-smoking in grubby tank tops?

Glass immediately established herself as a singular expertise along with her 2021 debut, Saint Maud, an audacious shot of undiluted terror and spiraling madness that introduced an idiosyncratic new voice in horror. She follows with a swerve into romantic, sexual and bodily obsession that fearlessly retains upping the ante on simply how excessive it can go. That makes it completely on model for A24.

Whereas that is very a lot a daring authentic, it faucets into a practice of lurid pulp motion pictures that revel of their brutal excesses, from Pure Born Killers and True Romance by Drive proper on as much as final yr’s Infinity Pool. There’s a splash of physique horror and even a sprinkling of sci-fi fantasy that performs like a steroid-addled homage to Assault of the 50 Foot Girl. And its depiction of the monomaniacal pursuit of bodybuilding excellence is maybe much more unhinged than Journal Desires, the 2023 Sundance conversation-starter whose launch was derailed by star Jonathan Majors’ home violence case.

Should you’re in search of restraint, look elsewhere. Love Lies Bleeding is quite a bit of film. It makes the still-glorious queen of lesbian romantic crime thrillers, Certain, look virtually demure.

Written by Glass and fellow filmmaker Weronika Tofilska and set within the decade of too-muchness, the Nineteen Eighties, the movie casts Stewart as Lou, first seen as much as her elbows in a blocked bathroom on the health club the place she doubles as supervisor and solo upkeep crew. The arresting opening pictures courtesy of ace cinematographer Ben Fordesman (who additionally shot Saint Maud) take within the city unfold of a New Mexico city and the blanket of stars above earlier than closing in on the late-night health routines of a decidedly male clientele, all of this set to the propulsive sounds of Clint Mansell’s seductively punchy digital rating.

Lou’s life is about to be turned upside-down by Jackie (Katy O’Brian), a bodybuilder with a murky previous in Oklahoma. Blowing into city on her approach to an upcoming bodybuilder contest in Vegas, Jackie wants a job quick, so she offers skeevy JJ (Dave Franco in an epically terrible mullet) a sweaty quickie at the back of his automotive earlier than discovering a spot to sleep beneath a bridge. JJ hooks her up together with his boss on the native taking pictures vary, Lou Sr. (Harris), the place she begins waitressing for gun nuts.

Lou Sr. is Lou’s estranged father, a malevolent creep who collects unique bugs and — as advised in flashes of violent imagery — has a historical past of homicide, dumping our bodies in a rocky desert ravine. Simply to maintain issues within the household, JJ is Lou Sr.’s son-in-law, given to smacking round his spouse Beth (Jena Malone). Lou is fiercely protecting of her sister, maddened by Beth’s unwavering devotion to the husband who ultimately lands her in hospital with a face banged up past recognition.

In the meantime, Jackie has caught Lou’s eye on the health club. A shot of steroids within the butt serves as a prelude to their first kiss, adopted by the primary of many bouts of steamy intercourse. Lou supplies Jackie with a spot to remain, falling laborious earlier than she is aware of a lot about her. However violence crashes their romantic idyll. As Jackie will get hooked on ‘roids and more and more obsessed along with her popping veins and bulging muscle tissue — Fordesman’s closeup pictures of those in motion are like an extraterrestrial panorama — Lou finds herself greater than as soon as disposing of our bodies and cleansing up crime scenes.

To additional complicate the state of affairs, Lou Sr. is the goal of an FBI investigation which will show helpful to his daughter, whose personal darkish previous is progressively revealed. And Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov), a druggy occasional hookup besotted with Lou, stumbles onto some presumably incriminating information that she errors for romantic leverage.

This sort of hyperviolent massacre is mostly the area of males, so it’s a welcome swap to have ladies on the heart and a festering father-daughter tangle instead of the same old son — even when Glass has little interest in making any kind of feminist assertion. She punctuates the movie with startling set-pieces, none of which will be described with out spoilers. However Jackie’s eventual look on the Vegas competitors stage, when her large steroid consumption has made her spin uncontrolled, begins a crescendo of nasty gonzo moments whereas additionally touchdown her within the clutches of Lou Sr.

O’Brian definitely appears the half, and the intercourse scenes are scorching, however her performing chops are too inexperienced to make her an excellent match for the easy charisma of Stewart. She’s endlessly watchable, carrying the movie with commanding grunge fashion and offsetting Lou’s robust exterior with a molten coronary heart and mounting nervousness because the scenario will get stickier. Harris makes a monstrous villain, Franco is vile sleaze personified and a platinum-blonde Malone is distressing as a spouse unwilling to surrender her love for JJ regardless of life-threatening accidents.

Love Lies Bleeding is a hallucinatory journey down the darkest byways of Americana. It’s too blunt to be as unsettling as Saint Maud however it can depart nobody detached.

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