Kristen Stewart has just starred in the boldest, most bizarre film of her career in the new sweaty, sexy and muscle-popping Love Lies Bleeding.
It’s a film hard to categorise or sum up easily, given its offbeat combination of pitch-black humour and a noir-inspired 1980s sheen mixed with a lesbian romance and gory crime scenes galore.
Truly, in many ways – be it courtesy of the film’s frantic fingering during a sex scene or the haunting, gruesome vision of a fresh dead body with its jaw hanging off – Love Lies Bleeding is ready to shock.
But it’s also, despite the spurts of blood, body horror and a visceral, Incredible Hulk-like transformation of bodybuilder Jackie (Katy O’Brian), filled with heart and adventure.
The second film from British writer-director Rose Glass (Saint Maud), Love Lies Bleeding has managed to attract an impressive supporting cast with Ed Harris, Dave Franco and Jena Malone.
It’s also wowed critics after premiering at Sundance Film Festival, generating a slew of four and five-star reviews, with The Irish Times dubbing it ‘the best grubby, bloody lesbian thriller of the season’, while The Telegraph called it ‘jaw-dropping’ and The Guardian declared it goes beyond being simply ‘a new grindhouse classic’.
Sitting on an impressive 94% on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, fans who’ve so far watched the A24 and Film4-backed movie are equally as taken with it.
‘One of the very few times I’ve immediately given a 10/10 after seeing it,’ shared Keith Goulette on X, while Neil Alcock posted: ‘Holy s**t lads, Love Lies Bleeding is COLOSSAL. Deliriously scuzzy noir from the Cronenberg/Refn school of revenge thrillers.
‘Stewart and O’Brian smash it but Rose Glass is on f**king fire here. Didn’t want it to end.’
Other viewers have labelled it ‘phenomenal’, ‘fantastic’ and ‘pretty freaking awesome’.
‘I get why everyone has been raving about it,’ added Andrew Corns.
From the opening minutes, where Stewart as gym manager Lou has her hand stuck down a filthy clogged toilet, manually emptying it, you know you’re in for quite the experience with Love Lies Bleeding.
Lou is a reclusive and agitated nicotine addict, hanging around her deadbeat New Mexico town solely to keep an eye on her sister Beth (Malone), who is in an abusive relationship with her husband JJ (Franco).
We get a perfect idea of JJ’s character – as well as the film’s singular comedic tone – as he’s seen having frantic, grubby sex in his truck with drifter and aspiring bodybuilder Jackie, rattail quivering, before he declares it ‘magical’ and dumps her in the carpark.
Lou is later immediately attracted to Jackie, with the two embarking on a passionate relationship shortly afterwards, although a dent is put in things by Jackie scoring a job working for Lou’s estranged, villainous father, Lou Sr. (Harris).
Harris is mesmerising as the craggy criminal, who owns a gun range and has a too-keen interest in insects.
Despite the most deliberately awful hairstyle in recent cinematic memory (truly, my cinema laughed when he first appeared onscreen), the Apollo 13 and Truman Show Oscar nominee sheds not a sliver of his menace.
Without giving too much away, Love Lies Bleeding soon descends into a violent domino-effect of deaths, punctuated with the stress of having to dispose of the mounting bodies.
Jackie’s enthusiastic embracing of steroids leads to some pretty staggering instances of ‘roid rage, as well as some trippy hallucinations – including one pretty feral ‘birthing’ scene, so to speak. It truly has to be seen to be believed.
In every element of its story, Love Lies Bleeding commits – be that the horny sex between Stewart and O’Brian (so enthusiastic Stewart repeatedly bangs her head at one point on a picture hanging on the wall) that powers their infatuation with one another, the grotesque nature of its violence or the dark comedy that reflects its characters so accurately.
One such moment is wife-beater JJ’s sudden modesty when his spouse goes to try and clean a spill off him, exclaiming: ‘You can’t just rub my d**k in the middle of a restaurant!’
It’s also another example of the exquisite delivery and timing Glass’s cast provides, sharpening her daring vision to its optimum level.
Every performance is knock-out, but especially those of twitchy Stewart and breakout star O’Brian and her gleaming muscles.
Director Glass revealed that Stewart was her and co-writer Weronika Tofilska’s ‘fantasy’ actress for Lou when they were writing the script, whereas O’Brian’s casting was rather more last-minute.
‘Me, Kristen and Katy read through the script once together, just before the shoot, because we literally cast Katy, like, two weeks before we started shooting – it was quite stressful and then miraculous with how it worked out so well,’ Glass told the audience including Metro.co.uk at a live recording for The Directors’ Take podcast at the Rio Cinema.
O’Brian’s form is truly glorious in the film, with the martial artist and former bodybuilder – most recently seen in The Mandalorian and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – seemingly perfectly cast in a role that celebrates the strength of the female body.
But Stewart is the ideal yin to her yang in their toxic yet sweet romance, with natural chemistry that Glass confirmed was there from O’Brian’s first read with Stewart.
‘She’s an amazing actor and I wasn’t a big ‘oh, I love Twilight’ kind of [fan],’ said Glass of her leading actress.
‘I know she divides people a little bit and I think that’s what I like about her and why I thought she was great for this role. She’s kind of playing an a***hole but also just a really likable, charming one.
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‘She’s a very kind of physical twitchy actor – in a really good way.’
And with each aspect of Love Lies Bleeding so singular and invigorating separately, the sum of its parts delivers one of 2024’s most original films.
Cinemagoers looking for something fresh will not be disappointed.
Book your ticket to see Wicked now!
Loves Lies Bleeding is out in cinemas now.
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