[ad_1]
Love Lies Bleeding could really be about something — more than sex, that is, which the film is more than happy to be about. You are unlikely to see in a hurry a film where gender stereotypes are so exuberantly turned on their heads. There is Lou, short for Louise (Stewart), running a gym with sweating, slogging bodies in a nowhere town, in the late 1980s, in the distant way that only Stewart can. We meet her with her gloved hand down a clogged toilet, and watch her pull it out just as the cistern gurgles up and settles down.
Into this world of grime (hinted liberally) and crime (hinted minimally) enters Jackie (O’Brian) or Jack. She is an aspiring bodybuilder, and there she is revelling in all her muscular glory. All those abs and sinews notwithstanding, Jackie attracts men and women equally as honey.
Lou looks, and can’t look away. They fall for each other, hard — and if censors would have allowed more for our screens, harder. However, having brought these improbable stellar creatures together, director and co-writer Glass decides she wants more, more, and then some.
There is Lou’s shady father Lou Sr (Harris, overcoming his ludicrous wig), who clearly has a lot going on behind that gun range he runs. A lot is a lot here, befitting a crime lord of this sort of town where police openly drop in to do one’s bidding. There is Lou’s sister Beth (Malone), married to a lout of her own, JJ (Franco), who beats and abuses his wife when not cheating on her. Beth won’t press charges though, and in Lou’s words, that’s what keeping her from leaving this town and their father’s creepy long shadow.
Why Lou Sr doesn’t take care of the little JJ problem with a bit of arm twisting is left unexplored. Why Jackie has the dream she has of winning the bodybuilding competition in Vegas, above everything else, is also left unexplained. How much is Lou complicit in her father’s doings (it is perhaps no coincidence that she is known by her father’s name rather than hers) has ultimately no bearing. Steroids are passed around casually to pump muscle, and their after effect is suggested, with Glass choosing to not go there either.
All this apparently doesn’t count in that larger universe of “love”, in capital letters, with the film falling back routinely on a sky full of stars as the backdrop. To Love Lies Bleeding’s credit, Lou and Jack’s love does cut deep. If only the film didn’t misconstrue the bleeding for bloodletting.
And then there is Daisy (a superb Baryshnikov), an apparently ditsy flinty girly girl, who likes Lou, and when things come down to it, shows blood can be drawn as easily with a proposition as a punch.
Love Lies Bleeding movie cast: Kristen Stewart, Katy O’Brian, Ed Harris, Dave Franco, Anna Baryshnikov
Love Lies Bleeding movie director: Rose Glass
Love Lies Bleeding movie rating: 2.5 stars
[ad_2]
Source link
