‘Love Lies Bleeding’ movie review: Kristen Stewart shines in Rose Glass’ sophomore sapphic nightmare

Katy O’Brian, left, and Kristen Stewart in a scene from ‘Love Lies Bleeding’
| Photo Credit: Anna Kooris

Set against the sweltering backdrop of an isolated New Mexico desert town in the ‘80s, Love Lies Bleeding follows the intertwining lives of gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) and aspiring bodybuilding champion Jackie (Katy O’Brian), as they spiral down a blood-soaked path of sex, sinews and salvation.

Directed by Rose Glass and penned in collaboration with Weronika Tofilska, Love Lies Bleeding is a raunchy, unapologetic exploration of the queer experience, drenched in sweat and seething with terrifying desire. While paying homage to noir classics (Ridley Scott, John Carpenter and the Coens come to mind), the narrative defies easy categorisation, deliriously jumping from genre to genre like… well, Katy O’Brian on steroids. From the opening scenes, Glass devilishly plunges us into another one of her small town microcosms with echoes of Saint Maud (2019), brimming with an unseen violence and licking its lips in anticipation.

At the heart of the film is Stewart’s mesmerizing performance as Lou, the local lesbian gym manager with a few demons in the closet. Stewart effortlessly captures the character’s internal conflict, with her staggered delivery and brooding presence, delivering a tour-de-force performance that cements her status as one of the most versatile actors of her generation.

Starring across Stewart, O’Brian shines as Jackie, matching that riveting intensity as an ambitious bodybuilder whose quest for perfection leads her down a treacherous path of self-destruction. As Jackie’s relationship with Lou intensifies, O’Brian navigates the complexities of their infatuation while pushing her physicality to alarming levels under a rabid, steroid-induced trance.

Cinematographer Ben Fordesman strikes a visual balance with sweat-dripped close-ups of throbbing muscles, with a lurking play in the shadows that is characteristically Glass. This unsettling imagery is complemented by editor Mark Towns’ visceral urgency that enhances the gore-fest to new heights, while veteran composer Clint Mansell’s airy synths are methodically interspersed with moments of pure sonic terror that render the film a holistic sensory experience that is as intoxicating as it is unnerving.

Fans of Glass would be quick to spot thematic parallels with the filmmaker’s 2019 horror debut. Glass weaponises pain and pleasure as two sides of the same coin, blurring the lines between the two to disconcerting levels of satisfaction. While the eponymous Maud from Glass’s previous tryst with mutilation is entirely convinced that self-harm is the ultimate form of penance as she reaffirms, “Never waste your pain,” O’Brian’s Jackie taps into the all-too-familiar gym-rat rhetoric that extols the virtues of “no pain, no gain” until it chews her up and spits her out, each bicep curl a horrifying squelch of delusion.

Yet, perhaps the film’s greatest triumph is that it’s gay as hell.

Glass mines the queer cultural archives, weaving in references and themes that are unfiltered and provocative. From Stewart’s lingering gaze to steamy sex montages set to ‘80s queer icons, the film is a wild, uncut (or about as much as Indian screens would permit) love letter to queer rebellion that is bursting with the exhilaration of cheap retro porno.

The film draws to a satisfying climax — with a suggestive barrel stuffed down a creepy, cult-like Ed Harris’s throat and the two sapphic monsters Thelma & Louis-ing off into the sunset. Rose Glass’s sophomore outing under the A24 banner almost had us fooled. While deceptively dubbed a romance-thriller, Love Lies Bleeding rings sonorous with the British filmmaker’s distinct body-horror sensibilities that explicates her status as one of the most original horror icons in contemporary cinema today.

Love Lies Bleeding is currently running in theatres