Let me make this clear from the start: when stepping into “Love Lies Bleeding,” the less you know, the better.
Rose Glass’s sophomore feature film is an absolutely blistering cinematic experience. It is both a work of sincerity, exploring the internal lives and loves of its complex characters with inquisitive authenticity, and a work of pure unadulterated lunacy. Whatever you think “Love Lies Bleeding” is, I can guarantee it isn’t. And while I will try my very best throughout this review not to outright divulge some of its most deliriously joy-inducing secrets, I will say that it is a phantasmagorical movie-watching experience that leads you into darkness and isn’t intent on holding your hand through it once you’re there. “Love Lies Bleeding” will certainly not be for everyone, but if you can find your own way through that darkness and out the other side in one piece, then Rose Glass’s film is even more cathartically rewarding.
In short, “Love Lies Bleeding” fucks.
TOP FIVE OF “LOVE LIES BLEEDING“
5. It’s Really Fucking Funny
Let’s delve into another aspect upfront: “Love Lies Bleeding” delivers an abundance of dark humor that’s both audacious and brilliant. Rose Glass and her co-writer, Weronika Tofilska, masterfully navigate a daring tonal balance, seamlessly blending heavy subject matter with razor-sharp wit, often within the same scene. This adept handling adds depth and authenticity to the film’s exploration of relationships and emotions on a grand scale. While you may not have encountered the exact confrontations depicted here, their essence likely resonates with familiar experiences.
The film adeptly navigates genre-specific tropes and spectacle, driven by emotionality that’s all too relatable. While comparisons to Ridley Scott’s “Thelma & Louise” may feel overdone, the humor in “Love Lies Bleeding” evokes the demented brilliance of the Coen Brothers at their finest.
4. The Unexpected Influences
Regarding influences, “Love Lies Bleeding” throws some unexpected curveballs, particularly in its third act. Delving too deeply into this aspect risks spoiling the surprises, but the film establishes its tone and broader genre aspirations early on, offering attentive viewers clues to its direction.
While some audiences might find the final act unsettling, “Love Lies Bleeding” remains true to its initial promise. The blend of pulpy insanity with deep character and thematic exploration creates a captivating and unconventional masterpiece.
3. The Score
The musical score for “Love Lies Bleeding,” as written and performed by Clint Mansell, is fantastic. Both embrace the narrative’s setting in terms of the era by embracing vintage ’80s synth soundscapes and incorporating elements of science-fiction-fueled musicality of the ’50s. This score rules.
Mansell’s music pairs so well with Glass and cinematographer Ben Fordesman’s visual palette and color choices, each accentuating the other. Specifically, the periwinkle blue shades of the night sky here look exactly like what Mansell’s score sounds like, each channeling such harmonious aesthetics that they achieve an unshakable sense of synchrony.
Also, at this juncture, I have no way of knowing whether Mark Towns’ edit came first and Mansell scored to it or if Mansell’s score came first and Towns cut to it, but either way, the marriage there is ingenious. Whoever is ultimately responsible for allowing the musical motifs to dictate so much of the film’s pacing and rhythm deserves a gold star.
2. The Leading Duo of Performances
“Love Lies Bleeding” is filled to the brim with fantastic performances. Ed Harris, Jena Malone, Anna Baryshnikov, and Dave Franco deliver great work. However, the show’s true stars are Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian.
O’Brian proves herself to be a bona fide breakout star here. From her transformative physique to her charismatic and engaging screen presence to her ability to truly sell the character’s most deliriously untethered beats later in the film, O’Brian is exemplary.
And I’m not sure Kristen Stewart has ever been better than she is here. An insanely talented and often under-appreciated actress, in “Love Lies Bleeding,” Stewart finds a work so patently tailor-made for her that it’s astounding. Stewart gives a profoundly harrowing performance (there’s a scene around the midpoint where Stewart is reacting to a bad situation in a hospital, and there’s such pervasive hopelessness pouring out of Stewart’s every pore that it made me physically anxious) and absurdly dryly funny (never before has a single “Huh?” elicited such laughter).
To top it all off, Stewart and O’Brian have miraculous chemistry together. Their authentic vulnerability in their romantic interactions does wonders to bolster the entire film.
1. Rose Glass’ Direction
Rose Glass directs the ever-living shit out of “Love Lies Bleeding.” Interweaving various themes, motifs, and arcs across the film’s runtime into every minute element of its visual work, the result is an often startlingly concise and cohesive cinematic experience.
The opening shot is a marvel from the very start but only becomes more indelibly brilliant the more the film reveals itself. The way in which Glass and Fordesman stage and shoot the muscular textures of the human body on these long, soft-focus lenses and ultimately isolate the artifice of the muscles into something almost inhuman is visually stupendous (it feels righteously indebted to “Pumping Iron” in this way) and thematically rich. The way in which Glass visually hints at and sets the stage for the big third act is both articulate and hysterical. The final shot is perfection.
It’s all great stuff and doubles down on the immense promise Glass showed in her debut feature, “Saint Maud.”
RGM RATING
(B+)
Overall, “Love Lies Bleeding” is a B-movie that more than earns its B and then some. It is a relentlessly entertaining night out at the movies that is as sure to stimulate your intellect as it is your heart rate. It’s a love story that is ultimately about divorcing oneself from one’s own preconceived notions of identity and the world-at-large’s ideas of who and what one can be.
“Love Lies Bleeding” manages to succinctly and cathartically tackle this intimate theme, which is made all the more impressive by its culminating moment, which comes in the form of some of the pulpiest genre filmmaking seen in a cinema since 1957.
