Love Lies Bleeding

Last year’s jury president is back in Berlin, starring in one of the festival’s most anticipated titles: the A24 romance thriller Love Lies Bleeding. In it, Kristen Stewart plays Lou, manager of a New Mexico gym bursting with testosterone-driven weightlifters or treadmill runners leaning towards the masochistic side. Lou’s grubby routine is broken up by the arrival of a new face in town. As she falls hard and fast for bodybuilder Jackie (Katy O’Brian), she learns that the woman’s ‘Roid Rage is one to be reckoned with.

The queer community has been aching for a film to match the sapphic criminal energy of 90s cult classics Thelma & Louise and Bound. Love Lies Bleeding’s pulpy poster image of a scantily-clad muscular woman with a gun doesn’t promise anything the film isn’t ready to give. In her second feature, British director Rose Glass goes all in on the lurid and transgressive appeal of hardboiled fiction from a modern, female point of view.

The two leads helm the wild genre mix perfectly. Her almost feral rendition of a character best likened to the proverbial sly dog is easily one of Stewart’s best performances to date. O’Brian surprises with her keen sense of blending the humorous and the erotic elements of the script and in equal measure, Dave Franco and Ed Harris (sporting a hairdo reminiscent of the Cryptkeeper) cut quite a dash in their supporting roles.

The feature’s mis-en-scène plays with foreshadowing in self-citing motifs. A cliff bathed in ominous red light reoccurs at various stages, gradually given more context, then at a scene set in a hospital, a Coca-Cola vending machine projects the same glow, dimmer but equally as menacing.

Clint Mansell (Requiem for a Dream, Filth) once again accompanies the action with an excellent score, the opening track’s mix of vocal and electronic beats immediately hooking the viewer and not relinquishing its hold.

With its tempestuous and surreal blend of violence and devotion, Love Lies Bleeding is a clarion call that sexy cinema is back and here to stay!

Selina Sondermann

Love Lies Bleeding is released nationwide on 3^rd May 2024.

Read more reviews from our Berlin Film Festival 2024 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Berlin Film Festival website here.

Watch the trailer for Love Lies Bleeding here: