‘Love Lies Bleeding’: Muscles, mullets and murder

Revenge, romance, and horror collide in ‘Love Lies Bleeding,’ starring Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian.

By Dana Barbuto/Boston Movie News

In “Love Lies Bleeding,” director Rose Glass’s sophomore effort, following her acclaimed horror picture “Saint Maud,” Lou (Kristen Stewart) is a reclusive gym manager in a tiny New Mexico border town. Her life takes a sharp turn when she falls in lust at first sight with Jackie (Katy O’Brian), a bisexual bodybuilder with a bad perm and bulging biceps. However, their budding romance is quickly overshadowed by Lou’s tumultuous family dynamics, leading to a cascade of murder and mayhem.

The film kicks off with a visceral introduction to Crater Gym, a gritty locale pulsating with the sounds of ’80 synth music and clanking weights. The room is full of rust and concrete, and signs on the walls bear messages like “Pain is weakness leaving the body.” You can practically smell the sweat and feel the steroid needle prick your skin. Eventually, the camera lands on Stewart elbow-deep in cleaning a toilet clogged full of crap, a foreshadowing of the bigger mess she’ll soon be stepping in.

Katy O’Brian and Kristen Stewart in "Love Lies Bleeding" (A24) — *Katy O’Brian and Kristen Stewart in “Love Lies Bleeding” (A24)*

Written by Glass and Weronika Tofilska, the movie initially unfolds as a lesbian noir that morphs into a dark farce, only to change into a revenge thriller before bowing out as an absurdist comedy all wrapped in a poignant love story. That’s A LOT. The tonal shifts are jarring, and I had this problem of laughing at all the wrong moments. The movie isn’t for everyone, nor is it as erotic or gruesome as it thinks it is. The shocks don’t feel all that shocking. The most stomach-churning moment was the visual of the dirty toilet Lou (short for Louise) cleans in the opening scene. Yuck. The hairstyles are pretty garish, too, serving as a stark reminder of the bad hair we had in 1989. We were all walking sight gags. Ed Harris suffers the most. His bald-on-top, party-on-the-sides ‘do is a definite don’t in any decade.

The plot revolves around Oklahoma-bred Jackie, a drifter who lands in town en route to a Las Vegas bodybuilding show, her lifelong dream. She quickly shacks up with Lou and gets entangled in her dysfunctional family affairs. Dad (Harris) owns a gun range and runs weapons over the Mexican border. He also has a thing for bugs. Lou’s sister Beth (Jena Malone) suffers abuse at the hands of her husband JJ (Dave Franco, so good at playing a scumbag). At the same time, the mystery surrounding their mother’s disappearance 12 years ago adds another layer of intrigue. In a small but pivotal role, Anna Baryshnikov (daughter of Mikhail) plays the only other character of note, Daisy, the dimwitted pup with a meth problem and a big crush on Lou.

Stewart, an Oscar nominee for playing the late Princess Diana in “Spencer,” is our guide through the chaos, both murderous and otherwise, navigating the madness with all the twitchy anxiety and dark comedic flair of a Coen Brothers character. Per usual, she remains as captivating as ever, even coiffed with a greasy mullet and the kind of baggy acid-washed jeans I’d like to forget I ever owned. O’Brian (“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania”) brings her real-life martial arts expertise to the screen, and her obvious command of physicality helps her transform into Jackie. Providing the muscle is easy; the vulnerability O’Brian infuses into her character is another gift altogether. I look forward to seeing what she does next. Ditto for Glass, a young female directing talent unafraid to take bold risks in her storytelling.