Few modern stars radiate soft butch excellence quite like Kristen Stewart, and rarely has such a quality been put to greater use than in Love Lies Bleeding — a sweltering South-Western noir from British director Rose Glass.
Stewart plays Lou, a surly gym manager at the tail end of the 80s with an opaque past and a reputation as the town's "Grade-A dyke".
In one of the film's many lingering gazes, an out-of-town bodybuilder, Jackie (Katy M. O'Brian), catches her eye while training for an upcoming contest.
Following a blood-splattered meet-cute and a sensual introduction to steroids, Jackie moves in with Lou in U-Haul record time.
Having just drifted into town without a dime to her name, Jackie gets by as a waitress at the local gun range — a smuggling front run by the local underworld boss, Lou Sr. (Ed Harris).
Lou and her sister Beth (Jena Malone) steer clear of their dad's operation, but the fragile quiet of their New Mexico refuge is soon jeopardised by Beth's abusive sad-sack husband, JJ (Dave Franco).
A repressed loner turned infatuated lover, Lou is the perfect vessel for Stewart's manic libidinal energy and gamine charm.
An instant entry in the queer heart-throb canon.
O'Brian also astounds in her breakout role as Jackie, having paid her dues across bit parts in Disney blockbusters in the last decade.
As her protagonist's grind set becomes invigorated by new-found chemical enhancements, O'Brian impressively commits to her euphoric head spins and aggressive delusions without spiralling into schtick.
The less said about the plot, the better.
Love Lies Bleeding wears its inherited genre elements with pride, recalling anything from True Romance and Thelma & Louise to last month's Drive-Away Dolls. But the screenplay from Glass and co-writer Weronika Tofilska deftly rearranges its beats to slippery, sordid ends.
Like any great noir, the overlapping threads of murder, blackmail and betrayal satisfyingly coalesce around the bruising relationships at the film's core.
Love spills over into obsession, obsession calcifies into addiction, and addiction engenders abuse.
Ed Harris continues to demonstrate his aptitude for enigmatic, gravelly-voiced antagonists, this time sporting a mangy skullet. You've almost got to feel sorry for the crime kingpins of cinema and their dwindling dynasties, whose children can't help but trample over their best-laid plans.
Glass' debut film, Saint Maud, was a psychological thriller that was subsumed by the slow-burning horror trends of its day, but its tale of religious delusion still struck a nerve with its bursts of brutality.
Her follow-up act is no less agonising to watch, with jaw-shattering, flesh-mangling violence splattering across the jagged topography of this badlands revenge tale.
Similarly bracing (but uniquely enticing) are the film's sex scenes, which exude an unvarnished eroticism with inflections of kink. The camera candidly fixates on sweat, egg yolks, spit and other bodily runoff that cinema typically sweeps under the covers.
An earlier montage not-so-subtly splices together Lou and Jackie's shared rhythms of pumping, juicing, thrusting and flexing.
Glass occasionally approaches the film's excess with a surreal touch; not since the Alien franchise has someone crafted a more visceral, metaphorically loaded scene of bodily expulsion.
Other horror-inspired flourishes feel immediately dated. Lou is haunted by red, neon-drenched visions of her past that resemble a second-generation homage to Nicolas Winding Refn's filmography (Drive; Pusher).
It's a needless diversion from the film's gorgeously grimy patina, in which cinematographer Ben Fordesman finds a compelling middle-ground between period-specific grit and digital modern sheen.
Love Lies Bleeding arrives after years of gnawing hunger for complex female antiheroes — as evidenced by the coining of the "Good for Her" Cinematic Universe.
Not coincidentally, this embrace of women's wrongs has become near synonymous with A24's savvily branded, endlessly meme-able slate, to which this film belongs.
The knotty dynamic between Jackie and Lou may not be as easy to swallow. Glass cleverly plays on the audience's own blood lust, dishing out satisfyingly gnarly punishments to deserving victims — but what happens when that rage and power no longer has a righteous outlet?
Amid all the film's pulpy pleasures, the pain they inflict on each other — and on each other's behalf — is genuinely unsettling. It's impossible to find a clean path through a story like this, where the threat of violence hangs on the end of every interaction and transaction.
Murder is a nasty, messy business, but it's nothing compared to love.
Love Lies Bleeding is in cinemas now.
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2024-03-13 22:38:53Z
CBMia2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDI0LTAzLTE0L2xvdmUtbGllcy1ibGVlZGluZy1yZXZpZXcta3Jpc3Rlbi1zdGV3YXJ0LWxlc2JpYW4tdGhyaWxsZXIvMTAzNTc1OTc20gEoaHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAuYWJjLm5ldC5hdS9hcnRpY2xlLzEwMzU3NTk3Ng
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