Everyone is talking about “Love Lies Bleeding” — some about having seen it, others about those who saw it. Whichever describes you, you’ve heard about the hype for this gory and muscle-bound erotic thriller. “Love Lies Bleeding” is Rose Glass’s (“Saint Maud”) sophomore film starring Kristen Stewart (“Crimes of the Future”) as Lou, a trainer, cleaner and general handyman at a small gym in a small New Mexico city, along with Katy M. O’Brian (“The Mandalorian”) as Jackie, a new-in-town bodybuilder with her eyes set on a Las Vegas competition.
Their chemistry is immediate, and you’d hope it would be for how much it’s referenced; in a sexually charged meet cute, Lou drools over Jackie’s immaculate form (on the weight bench, of course) to crooning German electropop. Without a place to stay, their steamy one-night stand becomes a living arrangement for Jackie by the morning after. Chez Lou, life seems simple; Lou makes breakfast, the sex is fantastic (and often) and they get along. But trouble appears in paradise before long. Lou’s avoidance of her tumultuous relationship with her father (Ed Harris, “The Truman Show”) combined with apparent roid rage from “preparing” for her upcoming show creates tension, which isn’t held for long without bloody release.
That’s a great segue into the sound design of the film; despite the arid southwestern setting, the runtime is populated by squelching and thudding just barely too wet, too loud, too slow and too present to be entirely diegetic, yet Glass takes care never to let them break one’s immersion. The squelching isn’t only related to bodily fluids and gore but also to the stretching and flexing of muscles. There’s an almost sensuality and surreality given to these scenes that would otherwise lack this charge. The film takes every opportunity to remind the viewer that these people, who aren’t naked, could be naked.
“Love Lies Bleeding” doesn’t shrug away from genre. The ringing endorsement I can give this film is that it’s exactly what it’s supposed to be — for 104 minutes, I had fun. Pat Califia, Throbbing Gristle interpolated fun. It’s well-paced. Sex is back in theaters. It’s hard to ask for more. Aside from some slightly stiff interactions relating to two small, quick arguments, the performances are fantastic; this review would be lacking if it didn’t specifically commend O’Brian’s performance when Jackie shoots a gun for the first time nor mention the scene-stealing performances by Ed Harris as Lou Sr. Yet there is a lack of tightness which, while not throwing the movie off, is noticeable. Paranormal elements that don’t materialize seem to be suggested in the sound design and camera surrounding a fissure which plays a part in the film, the odd and reclusive behavior of Lou and her father Lou Sr. seems to hint at more than what the movie ultimately provides, and so on — there is a slight feeling that one is catching on to vestiges of a more supernatural or even extraterrestrial draft that was scrapped, and it’s something you’d like to see. The inclusions could well be intentional and intended to disorient or create atmosphere rather than plot, but the curious mind wonders.
Thematically, there is a noticeable departure from Queer trauma so present in new Queer cinema and following depictions of queer identity on screen. Glass said, “I wasn’t interested in doing the tasteful lesbian-period drama where it’s all fleeting glances and hand grazes,” referencing perhaps the relatively chaste “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” More often, the issues present for our protagonists stem from the situations they find themselves in rather than their identities, and nobody could accuse “Love Lies Bleeding” of being a “hand grazer.” The film looks at family dynamics as an origin of violence; we see it in Jackie’s constant migration and in both Lou and Lou Sr. holding themselves as cleaners of messes, literalized in the film’s first scene, and there is a vulnerability granted to our protagonists that, as is often complained, is denied from “strong female characters.”
The ultimate value of the movie is perhaps in this: balancing being a well-executed and fun genre film (an erotic thriller both erotic and, yes, thrilling) with creating layered, believable characters who express human frustrations and insecurities, affable and sympathetic through it all, and in such a way that it doesn’t feel like a balance at all — thoughtful, but not demanding something from its audience or pretending it’s above itself, like so many so-called “elevated” genre films do. “Love Lies Bleeding” is, at its core, about “A sweet, little Frankenstein” and her Victor.
Daily Arts Contributor Nat Johnson can be reached at nataljo@umich.edu.