A movie like Love Lies Bleeding is a reminder of one of those gritty crime dramas that permeated art house theaters in the 1990s when many filmmakers had discovered the popularity of the works of Jim Thompson and used the popularity of Quentin Tarantino to tell their own crime thrillers. The main characters aren’t really bad but they’re not really good people. You’d know enough not to make them mad. Otherwise, they could be as cordial as Fred Rogers.
Set in a New Mexico desert town possibly close to the border by a couple of hours, Lou (Kristen Stewart) is the gym manager of a dingy fitness gym her seedy father, Lou Sr. (Ed Harris) owns. He’s the local crime lord who never raises his voice but speaks in a tone that tells you he’s not afraid of putting a bullet in your head without hesitation. He has long hair hanging down to his shoulders from his bald top. Lou Sr. is obviously one of those guys who doesn’t care how he looks and dares someone to say something. He’s got the local cops on his payroll to help him do his dirty work.
He also owns a firing range that also has a restaurant/bar nearby where a drifter, Jackie Cleaver (Katy O’Brian), gets a job as a waitress after she offers herself up for sex for the creepy J.J. (Dave Franco), who has a rat tail mullet. He also has a short fuse when it comes to his wife, Beth (Jena Malone), who we first see with her arm in a sling. J.J. works under Lou Sr.. You don’t have to be a good writer to detect they’ll be an awkward meeting between J.J., Lou, Jackie and Beth sooner than later in this movie.
Lou becomes interested with Jackie who attracts the attention of some regulars who don’t know how to take “no” for an answer. When Jackie shows she’s not a damsel in distress, this seems to attract Lou, who also is not the small-town loser stuck in a dead-end job. She tells Jackie the only reason she’s around is to protect Beth, who deeply loves J.J. despite the abuse. Lou also knows her father won’t do anything to J.J. to attract more attention as Lou Sr. runs guns to Mexico and probably does a lot more illegal activities. There’s a ravine where he deposes of his big problems and it’s suspected he may have killed Lou’s mother. The FBI pay Lou a visit at work and leave their card.
Lou and Jackie have a wild night of sex and over breakfast, Lou lets her stay. A relationship forms and they seem to be happy. But Lou is also giving Jackie some dangerous and illegal steroids. Jackie is on her way to Las Vegas to compete in a bodybuilding competition. The movie is set in 1989 as it gives the movie a look like After Dark My Sweet and The Grifters which came out around this time.
Rose Glass, the director and co-writer with Weronika Tofilska, was born in 1990. And just like Tarantino, she seems to be fascinated with the look and style of movies from her youth the way he was in love with the grittiness of the 1960s and 1970s during the New Hollywood era. There’s also a hint of the Coen Brothers as a violent act leads to the rushed but meticulous cleaning and dumping of a body like in Blood Simple. Also, Glass seems to give a few hints of David Lynch during one scene as well as the ending which I’m still wondering if it’s the real deal of a hallucination. Like Lynch, Glass films the movie with some scenes that seem almost like dreams or hallucinations. If it’s real or not is left to us to decide.
While Stewart has taken a lot of hits over the last 15 years, mostly for her acting in the Twilight film series where most people said she acted like she was about to sneeze. It’s in independent movies and supporting roles in the last 10 years, where she has shown she does have some acting chops. But the biggest surprise is O’Brian as Jackie. I was surprised to realize she had a recurring role on The Mandalorian. But I can understand if no one remembered her from Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. We know little of Jackie’s past except from a phone call she makes. But O’Brian plays her as a woman who seems to live with what few items she can carry but also does what she has to get a job or several hundred miles down the road. She’s not proud of it but a scene between her and Lou Sr. where he lets her fire a semi-automatic indicates it’s not her first time. And she might have similar dark secrets like Lou Sr.
The movie reminds of Bound, which was directed by the Wachowskis in their directorial debut. The same-sex relationship between Lou and Jackie is the same as handled by the characters played by Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilley in that movie. Or the way, the relationship forms between Naomi Watts and Laura Harring in Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. Two characters meet and there’s a spark. The two characters just happen to be women. Now, it’s no big deal, but in 1989, Lou and Jackie are strangers in a strange land. Unlike Ethan Coen’s Drive-Away Dolls which used sex between two women as exploitation, here, Glass uses it the bond between two characters that will come more important later in the movie.
I liked it a lot better than Drive-Away Dolls but it doesn’t resonate with me as well as Bound but it has more answers than the questions Mulholland Drive leaves. Granted the ending may not work and maybe Glass should have done it a different way. Then again, we’re not supposed to be left with the impression even the protagonists are completely innocent and nice people.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 