'Love Lies Bleeding': Don't Drive Away, Dolls
The new lesbian noir from director Rose Glass is haunting.
I sincerely hope Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke never see Love Lies Bleeding… because if they do, I fear they may actually perish from the shame. Like Coen and Cooke’s recent Drive-Away Dolls, Love Lies Bleeding is an esoteric lesbian noir thriller; unlike Drive-Away Dolls, Love Lies Bleeding is actually, y’know, GOOD.
In fact, Love Lies Bleeding, though not as overtly humorous as the Coens brothers’ most celebrated work, often feels far closer to a film made by Ethan and Joel than Drive-Away Dolls ever does: it’s quirky, hyper-violent, very casually set against the backdrop of a larger political event unrelated to the actual narrative (in this case, the fall of the Berlin Wall), and punctuated by surrealistic imagery that literalizes the characters’ internal emotions without beating the audience over the head. I have yet to hear anyone involved in the film directly reference 1984’s Blood Simple, but I’d wager it was an influence here.
It’s hard to get into the plot, or even the characters, of Love Lies Bleeding without spoiling anything… although I’m also not sure there that the film can be spoiled. Expertly directed by Rose Glass from a screenplay she wrote with Weronika Tofilska, Love Lies Bleeding may remind you of the literature of Jim Thompson (arguably the greatest crime author who ever lived): it traffics in tropes that will be readily-familiar to noir fans, but the devil is in the almost unbearably-brutal details.
Suffice it to say, the film follows Lou (Kristen Stewart), a New Mexico resident and the estranged daughter of a local gangster, after whom she’s named (Ed Harris). Working a job she clearly hates at a gym, fending off advances of the desperate, naive Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov, the spitting image of her father), and routinely forced to shrug off casual homophobia, she only sticks around town for the sake of her sister, Beth (Jena Malone), whose physically abusive, philandering husband, JJ (Dave Franco), just so happens to work for Lou Sr. Lady Lou’s life takes a turn for the better, though, when she meets and falls in love with Jackie (Katy O'Brian), a female bodybuilder, at once deeply sensitive and perilously short-tempered, training for an upcoming competition in Las Vegas. This being a noir film, though, shit eventually goes sideways, leading to a series of deeply, DEEPLY disturbing and horrible events (anyone bothered by explicit violence should stay far away from this movie).
Despite receiving raves after its Sundance debut earlier this year, I honestly didn’t think I was gonna like Love Lies Bleeding. Glass’ first film, 2019’s Saint Maude, about a religious, masochistic caretaker, was also critically-acclaimed, but I found it to be one-noted torture porn, a character study with no actual studying. Love Lies Bleeding is often just as difficult to watch as Saint Maude, but far more insightful, suspenseful, and entertaining (at least when it’s not making you cover your eyes with your hands). The screenplay is as tight as a trefoil knot, tonally assured (there is some pitch-black humor in here, but it never feels out of place), and non-judgmental about its morally dubious characters, as all great noir is. The cinematography, by Ben Fordesman, is also striking, and the cast absolutely KILLS it. Stewart, who has been an underrated talent for years, is as good as she’s ever been; Franco so excels at playing a slimeball it’s a wonder he’s ever cast as anything else; and Harris is quietly, effortlessly unsettling (and not just because he’s been stuck with the most unflattering skullet in the history of cinema).
O'Brian is the breakout, though; I’d only ever seen her before in last year’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and needless to say, her role as a rebel alien wasn’t nearly so meaty as Jackie (no pun intended). The script calls for its actors to convey a lot about each character without drowning in exposition, and O’Brian’s performance tells you so much about Jackie that’s never explicitly said. She’s also fucking JACKED (I loved Tatiana Maslany in She-Hulk, but I can’t help but think Marvel could have saved themselves a lot of time and money by just hiring O’Brian and painting her green). I imagine her phone will be ringing off the hook once people see this flick.
I’m haunted by Love Lies Bleeding; it’s been a few days since I saw it, and I can’t stop turning it over in my mind. I suspect there’ll be lots to more to say about in the coming months as it goes into wide release and people have an opportunity to see it. For now, I’ll just say this: this may wind up being of the best movies of 2024. Miss out at your own peril.