Love Lies Bleeding: Movie Review

Cast: Kristen Stewart, Katy M O'Brian, Ed Harris, Dave Franco, Jena Malone
Director: Rose Glass

Fever dream Love Lies Bleeding crosses an aesthetic that oscillates between 80s B-movie  and domestic drama as it tells the love story of Lou (Stewart)and bodybuilding hopeful Jackie, a drifter who happens to roll into town.

Set against a dead-end American backdrop, riddled with crime overseen by a lank-haired Ed Harris, the film's homage to hot, scuzzy life and lustful longing is etched everywhere from beginning to end.

Director Glass zooms in on the almost fetishised aspects of Jackie's musculature and Lou's leering eye as the two fall head over heels in lust for each other over a meet at a garage gym.

But as the affair unravels, both find themselves caught in an ever-tightening noose as consequences catch up to them.

While Love Lies Bleeding is not perfect thanks to occasionally underdeveloped side characters and a fuzziness on some details, what plays out is a giant swing of a movie that largely lands most of its hits with veritable aplomb.

The usually twitchy Stewart brings her nervous energy to Lou, who's caught between desperation at her domestic situation and a powderkeg of a relationship. Equally, The Mandalorian's O'Brien is eminently watchable as the on-edge Jackie, whose obsession and self-control issues could signal the end of everything.

Harris adds a suitably sleazy edge as the crime-lord father who's in more than he admits, dragging in an aesthetic of 80s-style rogues who are bad but are more an outlier presence than a narrative driver.

Ultimately Love Lies Bleeding is a perfectly impressive film that may not quite hit all of its lofty ambitions, but it certainly evokes the era and style of film it's trying to relive - and thanks to two impressive lead performances, it's a perfectly watchable movie that meshes genres with ease.