Love Lies Bleeding: K Stew Finds Crazy Love

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MOVIE INFO:

 Director Rose Glass comes an electric new love story; reclusive gym manager Lou falls hard for Jackie, an ambitious bodybuilder headed through town to Vegas in pursuit of her dream. But their love ignites violence, pulling them deep into the web of Lou’s criminal family.

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REVIEW:

 I like it when Kristen Stewart’s acting motor runs a little fast.  Her unquiet presence in Love Lies Bleeding drew me in, gave the whole movie an itchy intensity.  

Love Lies Bleeding is a neo-noir in a violent and brutal key.  Stewarts plays Lou, a loner living a dead end life in New Mexico. This being a lesbian crime drama she meets her femme fatale other while working her gym job.  Jackie, a physically imposing character  played by female body builder Katy O’Brian, is the flame that torches the movie up sending their romance colliding with father and daughter rivalry that mates morality with criminality in a winner takes all showdown.  Ed Harris, with a sneer and one of the most terrible bald wigs iin cinema history, plays the bad father. 

Jackie is a bad ass always creating problems for herself by beating up on the muscle banging creeps that constantly hit on her.  When Lou’s sister- Beth (Jena Malone), who is married to an escalating abusive husband played by Dave Franco, ends up in the hospital, Jackie takes deadly vengeance on the bastard.  This brings them into collision with Lou’s father, for which the goon was one of his henchmen.

The director Rose Glass love her cinematic echoes.  Parts homage the  David Lynch of Blue Velvet, the violent and comic topspin are pure  Coen Brothers. Yes, it can seem pastiche but it’s always engaging.  Glass uses familiar themes and cliches- the tragic and doomed romance, the family trauma and drama- to filter them through the gay perspective, and puncturing the outdated ideas of woman in noir dramas.  The story and the leads are both sweet and dark, showing how the greatest danger and thrill is love in all shades.

Love Lies Bleeding gets a 3.5/5 or a B+. It’s streaming on Max

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CREDITS:

Directed by

Rose Glass

Written by

• Rose Glass
• Weronika Tofilska

Produced by

• Andrea Cornwell
• Oliver Kassman

Starring

• Kristen Stewart
• Katy O’Brian
• Jena Malone
• Anna Baryshnikov
• Dave Franco
• Ed Harris

Cinematography

Ben Fordesman

Edited by

Mark Towns

Music by

Clint Mansell

Production

companies

• A24[1][2][3]
• Film4
• Escape Plan
• Lobo Films

Distributed by

• A24 (United States)
• Lionsgate(United Kingdom)

Release dates

• January 20, 2024(Sundance)
• March 8, 2024(United States)
• May 3, 2024(United Kingdom)

Running time

104 minutes[4]

Countries

• United Kingdom
• United States

Language

English

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