Gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) falls deeply in love with Jackie (Katy O’Brien), a bodybuilder passing through town on her way to a competition in Las Vegas. But their intense love will explode into violence when it crashes into Lou’s troubled family. 

Set in New Mexico in 1989 this is a grungy noir thriller filled with dangerous and damaged individuals. Lou is trapped by circumstance and does not have the strength to free herself of her shackles. Something that is underlined by her hopeless attempts to quit smoking. So when she sees Jackie she sees a protector who can save her. Jackie has her own demons though. A runaway from her disapproving family in Oklahoma she is hitchhiking and sleeping rough on her way to her first bodybuilding competition in Las Vegas. Constantly moving and doing what she has to do to find money and shelter. Lou offers her acceptance for who she is and in fact encourages it by offering her steroids from the gym’s supply that feed both of their desires. Someone who is strong enough to save Lou and win the competition Jackie is heading towards. 

Lou’s baggage may be too much of an impediment though. Her sister Beth (Jena Malone) is also desperately in love. But the object of her love is her husband JJ (Dave Franco) who regularly beats her within an inch of her life. Whilst her father Lou Sr. (Ed Harris) runs a gun club on the edge of town and seemingly has a vice like grip on law enforcement in the area. Lou hates him but cannot face the FBI agents who continually ask her for information on his activities. 

Co-writer/director Rose Glass burst onto the scene in 2020 with psychological horror film Saint Maud in which she expertly ratcheted the intensity of the film into an incendiary ending. With Love Lies Bleeding, her sophomore film she switches genres from horror to noir thriller but maintains that expert ability to build tension. Here that tension more often than not builds to scenes of explosive violence. She also plays with her main characters perceptions in both films with Jackie’s muscular figure literally ballooning up to impossible proportions in their minds eye. 

The entire cast are up to the challenge of making the more generic aspects of the plot live up to the vision of Rose Glass’ feature. Ed Harris is unbelievably creepy and scary as Lou Sr whilst Dave Franco matches him with sheer uncaring sliminess. Whilst all the plaudits should rightly go to Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brien for delivering a palpable love affair that is dangerously intense. Our understanding of these characters is never complete though with the script only hinting at some of the events of their lives that shaped them. 

The result is sweaty, sexual and violent. Whilst the ending maintains the constant level of uncertainty we have witnessed throughout and is befitting of its noir status. My overall perception of the title being that the film will offer us and deliver Love, Lies and Bleeding. 

If Rose Glass can continue to deliver films of this calibre she should be in the same discussions that the likes of Jordan Peele and Robert Eggers are in. 

Exceptional.