Love, through Glass, darkly.
A genre piece as sharp as its title, Love Lies Bleeding is a grimly stylish neo-noir that embraces the darker shades of love, ambition and familial power dynamics. Director Rose Glass (Saint Maud) crafts an atmospheric thriller with a serrated edge, though the film sometimes struggles to balance its thematic weight and narrative momentum.
Set in 1989, Love Lies Bleeding centres on Lou (Kristen Stewart), a reclusive gym manager whose monotonous life takes a turn upon meeting Jackie (Katy O’Brian), an ambitious bodybuilder passing through town en route to Las Vegas. Their immediate chemistry ignites a passionate affair, but as their relationship deepens, they become ensnared in the violent web of Lou’s criminal family, headed by local gangster Lou Langston Sr (Ed Harris).
Kristen Stewart delivers a darkly nuanced performance as Lou, capturing the character’s internal conflict and longing for connection while Katy O’Brian’s portrayal of Jackie is equally compelling, embodying both strength and vulnerability as she navigates the character’s spiralling steroid abuse. The two of them anchor this gloomy New Mexican thriller providing an intimate and bittersweet core while the supporting cast adds depth, danger and muted colour to proceedings, dominated by Ed Harris’ formidable patriarch. Lou Sr., a balding, be-mulleted crime lord, resembling nothing so much as what the Crypt Keeper might have looked like before he shuffled off the mortal coil, suffuses the film with a oily toxicity, bringing a corruptive touch to everything within his grasp.
Despite the sunny New Mexico setting, there’s a perennial shadiness to proceedings as cinematographer Ben Fordesman employs a muted colour palette that mirrors the murky moral ambiguity of the story, while Clint Mansell’s haunting score underpins the film’s tension and emotional beats.
Love Lies Bleeding proceeds at a languid pace, certain scenes lingering longer than feels necessary, and will try the patience of those looking for a pacier, kinetic crime thriller. There’s no grand plan here, no escape-it-all-heist, just a series of events spiralling out of control and the compromised decisions of those individuals caught up in them trying to keep themselves alive. While the narrative is rich with themes of love, ambition, and betrayal, there’s a linear simplicity to the plot that might feel predictable to some as Glass embraces the pulpy genre conventions.
Despite these shortcomings, Love Lies Bleeding remains a bold if muted exploration of the lengths individuals will go to for love and to excise their own personal demons. Rose Glass’s sophomore effort reaffirms her talent for blending psychological depth with visceral storytelling, giving this grim thriller some genuine emotional heft.
