‘Love Lies Bleeding’ Review: Kristen Stewart Is Pure Magnetism in Ultra-Violent Neo-Noir Romance

It sounds pretty wild. Looking forward to it.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

That’s what Brit director Rose Glass delivers in Love Lies Bleeding, a lesbian neo-noir drenched in brooding nightscapes, violent crime and more hardcore KStew cool than has ever been packaged in such a potent concentrate.

Written by Glass and fellow filmmaker Weronika Tofilska and set in the decade of too-muchness, the 1980s, the film casts Stewart as Lou, first seen up to her elbows in a blocked toilet at the gym where she doubles as manager and solo maintenance crew.

The arresting opening images courtesy of ace cinematographer Ben Fordesman (who also shot Saint Maud) take in the urban spread of a New Mexico town and the blanket of stars above before closing in on the late-night fitness routines of a decidedly male clientele, all of this set to the propulsive sounds of Clint Mansell’s seductively punchy electronic score.

Blowing into town on her way to an upcoming bodybuilder contest in Vegas, Jackie needs a job fast, so she gives skeevy JJ (Dave Franco in an epically awful mullet) a sweaty quickie in the back of his car before finding a spot to sleep under a bridge.

As Jackie gets hooked on ‘roids and increasingly obsessed with her popping veins and bulging muscles — Fordesman’s closeup shots of these in action are like an extraterrestrial landscape — Lou finds herself more than once disposing of bodies and cleaning up crime scenes.

This kind of hyperviolent bloodbath is generally the domain of men, so it’s a welcome switch to have women at the center and a festering father-daughter tangle in place of the usual son — even if Glass has no interest in making any type of feminist statement.

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