Gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) falls for the transient Jackie (Katy O’Brian), who has stopped in town and is preparing for a bodybuilding competition in Las Vegas. After closing at the gym, Lou chats with Jackie outside. When one of the gym’s regular guys shows up trying to get a little too handsy, Jackie “handles” the situation with a swift punch. Naturally, Jackie and Lou then leave together and have a steamy sex session.
At the very least, the film successfully captures a realistic lesbian sex scene, a rarity on the big screen. The morning after, a dirty-haired Lou makes breakfast with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. Jackie asks to move in (after, yes, one night of sleeping together) and Lou is happy to oblige. The two fall for each other and Lou provides Jackie with steroids in preparation for her big competition. Before meeting Lou, Jackie had taken a job at the local shooting range, owned by none other than Lou’s estranged father, Lou Sr. (Ed Harris). The gun range serves as a front for Lou Sr.’s gun smuggling operation.
Worlds collide when Lou’s sister, Beth (Jena Malone), lands in the hospital at the hands of her abusive husband, J.J. (Dave Franco). At the hospital, Lou Sr. notices Jackie in the room and quietly laughs to himself. Lou, Lou Sr. and Jackie all share an unequivocal rage for J.J. and what he has done, but only Jackie takes this rage into her own hands. This sets the stage for a series of gory murders that Jackie will commit, with Lou often trailing behind to clean up her girlfriend’s mess.
On the surface, the film explores the lengths people will go for love. Realistically, though, the film is hardly one of love but one of toxicity and lust. Each character is a sorely unreliable narrator determined to fulfill their own desires. Jackie craves the stage, yearning to win the bodybuilding competition in Vegas. Lou wants Jackie, despite Jackie’s fits of steroid-induced-rage that put her in a bind. Lou Sr. wants guns and power, with an unsettling fixation for exotic insects. Consumed by obsession and propelled by performance-enhancing drugs, Jackie turns into a killing machine that Lou cannot help but still find desirable.
“Love Lies Bleeding’s” weird plot, unnerving violence and rich visual language make it a sure fit in the slew of A24 films. The gritty 80s New Mexico landscape is peak Americana, completed by Lou’s lesbian grunge look and Jackie’s sculpted body. Intriguing natural visuals are mixed in with flashes of gore only imaginable in nightmares. Each storyline is hardly seen through and viewers are left profoundly puzzled. Viewers learn just enough about Jackie and Lou’s history to make the film make sense, but there a are few vulnerable moments that reveal character. The film wraps viewers into the isolated world that its characters experience and yanks them around with quick cuts from one plot point to the next. Expect to leave the theater shocked, confused and curious to experience the chaos that is “Love Lies Bleeding” once again.
