Kristen Stewart makes for a memorable Neo-noir antihero within the mean-spirited, violent Love Lies Bleeding, which is sweet, pulpy enjoyable.
PLOT: A fitness center supervisor, Lou (Kristen Stewart), falls head-over-heels in love with a feminine bodybuilder, Jackie (Katy O’Brian). However, their bliss is short-lived, as the 2 find yourself getting twisted up with Lou’s prison father (Ed Harris).
REVIEW: Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding is a darkish, stylized, ultra-mean-spirited neo-noir. It skates on the sting of maybe being a bit of too self-aware for its good within the surreal finale, nevertheless it’s nonetheless a really entertaining and twisty thriller.
Kristen Stewart is completely forged because the laconic noir anti-hero who hooks up every now and then with a woman (Anna Baryshnikov), she will’t stand however in any other case leads a lonely life along with her cat. Being set in 1989, the continuously smoking Lou is making an attempt to stop with books on tape which have little to no impact, just for her life to be blown up when she units her eyes on Katy O’Brian’s impressively muscled bodybuilder.
Gender-swapping, the standard noir protagonist, is an intriguing selection, with Stewart enjoying it in a rough-and-tumble trend. She’s principally wonderful, outdoors of a second or two when she leans too closely into the anti-hero tropes, permitting the movie to frame on parody. This features a second the place Lou smokes a cigarette whereas making an attempt to seduce Jackie after a struggle that felt a bit like she was making an attempt to satirize the sorts of alpha-male roles Mickey Rourke performed again within the period that is set in, making it border on changing into a spoof fairly than a homage. It feels out of contact with the remainder of the movie, which is fairly classically styled, outdoors of a controversial, surreal climax open to interpretation.
Katy O’Brian, who’s a rising star with roles in The Mandalorian and the upcoming Twisters, is spectacular because the femme fatale bodybuilder. Each characters are liable to be abusive to one another at instances, making this a darker love story than you would possibly assume. Glass isn’t considering making a fairy story, with Stewart exhibiting off a merciless streak a number of instances within the film that I think about lots of different actresses wouldn’t dare play. She’s at all times been courageous along with her selection of roles, and that is undoubtedly one in all her roughest.
Stewart and O’Brian are well-supported by the good Ed Harris, who reveals up sporting a Kim Mitchell-tyle skullet as Lou’s gun-dealing papa, with many our bodies buried he doesn’t need folks digging into. Whereas psychotic, one factor the film doesn’t do is make him homophobic, with him brazenly approving of Lou’s sexuality, even when in each different method he’s a nightmare. Dave Franco performs towards sort as Lou’s wife-beating brother-in-law, though the depiction of Jena Malone as his oft-hit spouse is fairly one-note.
Glass has undoubtedly made a phenomenal movie in Love Lies Bleeding, choosing a pulpy aesthetic that fits the movie. The rating by Clint Mansel is terrific, as are the eighties new wave needle drops. It’s an attention-grabbing second movie for Glass, a mash-up of basic neo-noir within the vein of John Dahl’s Crimson Rock West and the Coen Bros’ Blood Easy, with a synth wave undertone and horror movie-style graphic violence. It’s not good, and it gained’t be for everybody. Nevertheless it’s a wild, entertaining experience.
7
