The film opens in 1980s Albuquerque, New Mexico with a woman, Lou (Kristen Stewart) unclogging a toilet with her bare hands. It’s grimey, the filter and colour scheme so potent it makes you want to take a shower. Lou is a smoker, a cat owner, and a gym manager — a strong-headed woman that’s just trying to make a living while steering away from her father, Lou Sr’s (Ed Harris), criminal life. The story gets going when Lou comes across Jackie (Katy M. O’Brian), a bodybuilder on the way to a competition in Las Vegas, working out at her gym.
Directed by Rose Glass, Love Lies Bleeding, despite its crime thriller labelling and the copious amounts of violence, is at its core a love story. Though much of Lou and Jackie’s relationship is predominantly sexual, at least at the beginning, we do see the touches of something deeper as the film progresses. Stewart and O’Brian’s chemistry is apparent, and their characters’ bond across the film feels well-earned.
Considering the sheer quantity of sex scenes in the film, it would be remiss to gloss over them. Though the camera’s fixation on sweat, skin, egg yolks and other (perhaps questionable) kinks may be uncomfortable for some viewers, it is refreshing to see sapphic love depicted on the screen so unapologetically. And though there have been valid concerns about Love Lies Bleeding playing on lesbian fetishisation for the (straight) male gaze, the sex scenes are integral to Lou and Jackie’s queerness. People tend to hold lesbians in the media to a certain standard; we can’t have sexual, violent or strange media because it’s ‘bad representation’ or because it’s purely for male enjoyment. But lesbian media is allowed to have raw sex scenes or love stories just like everyone else, without such criticisms constantly being at the centre.
While some horror aspects of Love Lies Bleeding feel dated, the unsettling amount of, only sometimes justified, violence, cruel punishment, touches of surrealism — which seem to be a given for most A24 productions these days — throughout the movie cleverly makes the audience question their own blood lust.
If anyone is looking to see some queer love represented on the silver-screen, then Love Lies Bleeding is just the right movie for you.
Love Lies Bleeding is paying in cinemas now.
