Sundance Review: Kristen Stewart's LOVE LIES BLEEDING is a Violent and Unhinged Film

Following her first feature film, the slow-burning and eerie Saint Maude, Rose Glass kicks it into high gear with Love Lies Bleeding, starring Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian. Stewart plays Lou, a bored gym manager in the middle of nowhere. When Jackie, a bodybuilder, blows into town and shows up at Lou’s gym, they immediately fall for each other. 

But Lou’s family and troubled past quickly get in the way of their new relationship and both Jackie and Lou soon find themselves in over their heads. This film feels so gritty and gross, showing a dark side of love and the limits people go to for the people they care about. Kristen Stewart’s acting is great, and I truly felt sympathy for Lou.

Love Lies Bleeding goes over the top in every way, at times to the point of comedy. There are some fantastical elements that had me rolling my eyes and questioning the intended tone of some scenes. But despite a few misses, this highly stylistic, extremely violent, and sometimes uncomfortably sexy movie is a tragic love story worth watching.

Here’s the description from Sundance:

Reclusive gym manager Lou falls hard for Jackie, an ambitious bodybuilder headed through town to Las Vegas in pursuit of her dream. But their love ignites violence, pulling them deep into the web of Lou’s criminal family.

Following her critically acclaimed first feature Saint Maud, Rose Glass makes her Sundance Film Festival debut with a bombastic, larger-than-life sophomore effort. An off-the-wall, rambunctious lesbian love story crashes into a family drama of the darkest ilk in this muscular thriller. As a small-town gym and a ravine just outside city limits become the playground for all flavors of mischief and mayhem, a heightened Americana sensibility and Glass’ deliciously distinctive, bold style create a world that is at once familiar and entirely fresh. Helmed by Sundance regular Kristen Stewart (Speak, Adventureland, Certain Women) and Katy O’Brian, Love Lies Bleeding is somehow as sweetly romantic about loyalty as it is doggedly hedonistic. With a vaulting imagination and its roots in deeply human places, this film packs a gut punch unlike any other.