Of all the films that have so far been released this year, few defy simple categorization more than Love Lies Bleeding. The film — Saint Maud director Rose Glass’ second feature effort — isn’t easy to describe. Set in the American Southwest in the late ’80s, the drama is simultaneously a grungy crime thriller, gruesome body horror exercise, psychedelic psychological thriller, and a lesbian romance. It and all of its many disparate parts are bound together by Glass’ hypnotic, assured direction and Kristen Stewart’s commanding lead performance, the latter of which weaponizes all of her well-known quirks as a performer to powerful, full effect.
What few could have predicted before Love Lies Bleeding was released in March was that the film would turn out to be one of the most unique riffs on a superhero movie that any filmmaker has ever conceived. The movie wasn’t sold as that in its marketing, but one need only witness Love Lies Bleeding‘s pressurized second half to see just how deftly it weaves certain comic book tropes and superhero iconography into its already genre-bending story. That will likely come as a bit of a shock, given how many people skipped the film several months ago.
As of this month, however, it’s available to stream on Max in the U.S., which means it’s now easier than it’s ever been for first-time viewers to experience Love Lies Bleeding‘s many surprises.
Hulking out
At the center of Love Lies Bleeding are Lou Langston (Kristen Stewart), the rebellious daughter of a local crime boss (Ed Harris), and Jackie Cleaver (a jacked Katy O’Brian), an ambitious bodybuilder who drifts into Lou’s town one night. When the two serendipitously meet at the gym Lou manages, they hit it off and strike up a romance that quickly turns their lives upside down after Jackie makes an impulsive decision to protect Lou’s abused sister, Beth (Jena Malone). From there, Love Lies Bleeding‘s plot just gets more and more violent and unwieldy.
Glass marks the film’s increasingly nightmarish turns with close-up shots of Jackie’s veins as her love for Lou combines with her inner rage and steroid-infused muscles to give her superhuman strength — yes, really. O’Brian, notably, sells Lou’s journey to achieving a kind of cosmic power with a physical performance that is as transformative as it is fearsome and raw. In her character, Glass finds a Bruce Banner-esque figure whose body can change on a dime to reflect her mental and emotional state. There are, indeed, moments when Love Lies Bleeding feels briefly like it’s the closest we may get anytime soon to a truly great Hulk movie. That said, it isn’t just The Incredible Hulk that the film has a thing or two in common with.
Love as a superpower
There’s also Hancock, the Will Smith-led 2008 blockbuster about two superpowered beings whose love robs them of their powers. The film, which is deeply flawed and falls frustratingly short of its own potential, ultimately argues that it’s love that makes us human. While that’s an admirable theme for a superhero movie of any kind to try to communicate in such a way, it’s topped by Love Lies Bleeding, which conversely argues that it’s actually love that makes us superhuman. In less discerning hands that might seem like a saccharine point for a film like Love Lies Bleeding to make, but Glass does it with enough of a darkly funny, surrealist bent that you buy and accept it.
Love Lies Bleeding doesn’t have the nearly same broad appeal as most of the Marvel or DC films that are made nowadays. It’s too grotesquely violent, darkly funny, and proudly erotic for that. There is a power to the film, though, that thrums beneath its exterior for much of its first hour before bursting to the surface with a startling intensity. It’s an entrancing movie that’s made all the more so by its many disparate influences.
Few movies could credibly claim to be influenced by both David Cronenberg and Marvel Studios, but Love Lies Bleeding owes a debt to both those sources, as well as a few others. It deserves a bigger audience than it’s received up to this point — one that’s willing to take even its wildest, most superheroic creative swings in stride.
Love Lies Bleeding is now available to stream on Max.
