Love Lies Bleeding, the sophomore feature from director Rose Glass, is going into a wide theatrical release this weekend with stars Kristen Stewart, Katy O’Brian, and Ed Harris headlining the film. Glass, the filmmaker behind Saint Maud (2019), should enjoy a sudden burst of fame in the wake of the film’s release. Not only will the film be accessible because of a cast that appeals to multiple generations of moviegoers, but the A24 production umbrella has been casting a safety net for younger (albeit less curious) audiences to spend an evening with one of their movies. Like many A24 films marketed with plenty of pop, synth, violence, and neon, Love Lies Bleeding rightfully matches the tone of its marketing campaign unlike the many others. In some regards, it appears no different than what we might come to expect from the production company, but the difference here is Rose Glass’ confident direction to deliver the first great film of the year.
In Love Lies Bleeding, Glass heads to New Mexico, where Lou (Stewart) manages a shoddy gym – aptly named Crater Gym. Stewart, in another mighty performance from one of this generation’s greatest actresses, works through Lou’s observations of the people and spaces around her. Like all greats, she can reveal the most interior conflicts through a glance, smirk, or blink to give us the details we desire to learn from the fascinating appearance of characters. In the case of Lou, her raggedy sleeveless work tee, messy hair, overworn sports bra, and faint circles beneath her eyes allow Stewart to use her “hands-in-pockets” personality to express the fragility of Lou’s mind. From the start, there appears to be something within Lou that is on the cusp of revealing itself, and her wardrobe addresses that she may be hanging on by partial threads.
Putting her up against the sudden appearance of Katy O’Brian’s star-studded performance as Jackie is the inspired casting more films should strive for. Here, O’Brian is a stud. Rocking a perm, Jackie is an aspiring world-champion bodybuilder. Compared to the loose image of Stewart, Jackie’s muscles are huge, packed in by tight sports bras, shorts, and a beaming smile that renovates Lou’s interiority. They suddenly cross paths as their stories converge like an illuminating comet that has crash-landed on a lonely star. The physical space they share and the individual attitudes they express elevate their relationship with a natural rhythm thanks to their immediate chemistry. Much of this is attributed to Glass’ camera operating at a level that romanticizes the alienating aspects of people that often separate them before they are ever drawn close to someone else.
Olga Mill’s costuming is pivotal as it bears the effigy of some extraterrestrial beings born of the cosmos that have stumbled across an outfit that hardly fits them. Lou’s clothes are baggy and Jackie’s tight, but they are dressed as opposed to the conflicts they are individually working through. The visual contradiction shaped by their distinct personalities is how Glass uses the relationship between what we see and what we understand to stimulate the narrative with bated breath. There is a genuine playfulness in the conception of the story, and Glass finds the time to level the drama out with dark humor. Thanks in part to every performance, including a scummy Dave Franco, Glass can equalize the romance, drama, and humor with a cosmically intertwined thread of happenstance to legitimize every emotion it is working through. Each beat feels predestined without feeling too calculated, and the fact that the audience can gather where the story may be headed is a part of the fun because we are allowed to join them through their respective journeys.
Love Lies Bleeding sounds so simple, but it isn’t simple-minded, as Glass creatively finds new ways for the film to reveal the characters and the characters to reveal themselves to each other. At the heart of the film, their core traits are crystallized by the transmutations of Lou and Jackie, but the push and pull of their respective limitations bruises them before it ever gets to alleviating the pressure. Before the first scene, it feels like each character has lived well before the film inserts us into their lives. There is a history trailing behind them and an uncertain future waiting ahead, which makes it easier to believe in the dramatic developments of their present moments. Captured by cinematographer Ben Fordesman, who previously worked with Glass on Saint Maud, Fordesman winds around New Mexico with punchy close-ups, gorgeously intense sexual conduct, and pulpy cosmic lighting akin to the vapors of Michael Mann’s nightlife. The low-level lights hum with an ache, and the searing headlamps of blinding neon are a dazzling contrast cast from the stars above. It is a visceral, breathtaking world you almost enjoy being suffocated by.
Although not to be mistaken for the wildflower, Love Lies Bleeding is just as invasive as the crimson red drapery of the plant due to Glass’ curiosity of the sudden appearance of beings. She is certain about the conjectures she has formed regarding the alienating aspects of the unknown despite the grasp toward knowing more about another before ever really getting to know yourself. This contradiction is characterized constantly by sequential beats that are unafraid of being telegraphed, but the sense of knowing elevates the thrills of being a part of this journey with an unsuspecting cast of characters. Glass’s camera is titillating – enthralled by the very idea that the size of people, especially women, capable of achieving higher forms of pleasurable realization is unlike what we are used to seeing at the movies. The confidence Glass has in stretching Lou and Jackie’s story out to pad the tender muscles of intergalactic companionship as they fall into the crevices of a fatal desert landscape is stimulating. Glass can explore this to the best of her ability thanks to the reliability of Kristen Stewart, and a landmark performance from Katy O’Brian, which makes for one of the sharpest triads of talent operating near the height of their powers since Justine Triet, Sandra Hüller, and Messi the dog in last year’s Anatomy of a Fall.
Don’t let the pulpy, sub-100 million-dollar budget fool you into thinking this will be hyper-manufactured as a cult classic. Love Lies Bleeding is too creative, thematically juiced, and entertaining to be anything other than positive it is a great film that captures the audience’s desire to follow characters that transcend the typical images associated with the medium. Any filmmaker that can properly articulate the intricacies of weathered organisms half-empty with apathy, or half-full with desires, deserves to be recognized as a worthwhile talent. It may only be the second feature in Rose Glass’ filmography, but she is establishing a foundation for cinematic gestures waiting, wanting, to unleash their full, beautiful, hulking potential for audiences that yearn to gasp in awe.
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