Love Lies Bleeding (2024) Dir. Rose Glass

When Rose Glass wrote and directed her feature debut Saint Maud, she showed a real skill at building dread through small, realistic character moments. While the film escalated to a somewhat wonky finish, it’s sharp dialogue and an incredible central performance from Morfydd Clark established Glass as a director to watch.

And it was exciting when her next project wasn’t another horror, but something completely different. This queer, neo-noir made it clear from the off that it wasn’t going to shy away from the dingy and the grotesque, delving into the seedy underbelly of 1980s America, but it has a swagger befitting of its neon glow setting.

Lou (Kristen Stewart) manages a rundown gym, while half-heartedly batting of the advances of Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov) and keeping her distance from her gun trafficking dad, Lou Sr (Ed Harris). Things change when Jackie (Katy O’Brian) comes into the gym while hitchhiking to a bodybuilding competition. They share an instant connection, one that quickly becomes a passionate love affair and through an increasingly dark series of events, drags them into Lou Sr’s criminal activities.

The film is bolstered by excellent performances as well. Stewart and O’Brian have real chemistry as Lou and Jackie (comfortably slotting Love Lies Bleeding into the current trend of sexually liberated, horny cinema), and they are amply backed up by the supporting players of Dave Franco (on particularly sleazy form) and Jena Malone. Harris is clearly having fun as Lou Sr, though it occasionally verges on cartoon villainy, especially as he’s the least developed character in the film.

But where Saint Maud was a tight feature that developed gradually and realistically, Love Lies Bleeding is likely to lose people as it reaches the climax. Glass and co-writer Weronika Tofilska integrate some interesting themes into the film, linking trauma and rage to body transformations through the character of Jackie.

Throughout the first half of the film, this is portrayed through brief scenes of muscles bulging when Jackie is climaxing, or under extreme stress, but this is played up to a ridiculous extent towards the end of the film. I won’t spoil anything, but if A24 is developing a reputation for marmite moments in its films, then Love Lies Bleeding will only perpetuate this.

There’s a real lack of self-editing at parts here, which derails what is, for the most part, a bloody, exciting crime thriller. The finale leaves such a bad taste in your mouth that it undoes pretty much everything that has come before, despite the great acting and directing.

Glass is still an exciting creator, but this is a quintessential difficult second film.

★★½

2.5/5

Matthew Tilt

Twitter/X @Matthew_Tilt