Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, 2024)

[Noodle Lizard]

Here's the next one from St. Maud writer/director Rose Glass, and it's in many ways sort of what you'd expect from a British indie director who gets international attention for their debut. It's American and has American actors in it and it's about Americans. It also feels like something that was written on spec after an exciting offer, perhaps quite quickly.

It's essentially a crime thriller with Kristen Stewart and Katy O'Brian (a bodybuilder who I think is known from other things I haven't seen) playing new lovers who quickly get caught up in a caper. There's really not much else to say about the plot, it's nothing you haven't seen before except this time it's occasionally infused with the sort of psychosexual body horror that made up the bulk of St. Maud. It works fine in a film which is entirely focused on a single character's delusions, but not so much in this where it feels secondary to the garden variety crime thriller. It also leads to a climax which I'd wager borrows heavily from

Spoiler alert

A Dark Song

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which was divisive in that film, but I'm not sure works - at all - here.

Like St. Maud, it concerns itself a lot with the spiritual glorification coupled with physical degradation of women. If it were a male filmmaker, I think it might be considered a bit creepy in the way Lars Von Trier is sometimes accused of being. Also like St. Maud, however, I don't feel as if there's too much else in there to balance or justify its more leering impulses. As I say, the actual story of the thing is very generic and lazy, doesn't feel as though it's had all that much thought put into it, so it would take something quite powerful from the more esoteric elements to elevate it. I don't think it quite manages that.

On the plus side, Kristen Stewart is quite good in it (if overacting a bit at times) and it was personally satisfying to see

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Dave Franco's face mashed up Irréversible style

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so it gets a couple of bags of popcorn for that alone.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Not seen this but people on Twitter are acting like it's the greatest film ever made. Quite liked Saint Maud though especially the closing shot which stuck with me for some time. Alright cheers.

[Memorex MP3]

Not seen this but people on Twitter are acting like it's the greatest film ever made. Quite liked Saint Maud though especially the closing shot which stuck with me for some time. Alright cheers.

I was looking forward to it but a 3.8 on Letterboxd seems very low considering there's basically always a .5 bump for anything remotely LGBT themed there outside of stuff with seriously contentious subject matter.

[paddy72]

Not seen this but people on Twitter are acting like it's the greatest film ever made. Quite liked Saint Maud though especially the closing shot which stuck with me for some time. Alright cheers.

That closing shot in Saint Maud, though.

Been waiting to see what Rose Glass would do next, so will definitely see this. Thanks for the review, @Noodle Lizard!

[Mister Six]

I saw this the other night and really, really enjoyed it for what it is, which is a stunningly shot trashy pulp crime B-movie. I can't argue with the idea that it's not got masses of depth, but I don't really consider that a failing in this genre of film. I was there to watch fucked up people get into scrapes, and on that level it certainly delivered.

The one complaint I have, and what knocked it down from a 5-star to a 4.5-star film for me, is that I think it's a little bit underwritten on the dialogue front. Kristen Stewart and Katy O'Brien have believable chemistry, but the film really needed just a couple of scenes of them talking about nothing (but really talking about everything) to fully sell their relationships - montages are not enough.

Likewise, Ed Harris looks amazing and has great presence as the main antagonist, but he didn't really do much.

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It badly needed a scene of him executing someone, ideally with some sort of memorable speech, and even more so a really compelling confrontation with Kristen Stewart - ideally two, one earlier on and one right at the end. Those moments just kind of got dashed off, which made the whole thing feel a bit lightweight.

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I could also have done with a dialogue polish from someone - there's some incredibly imagery and moments, but not a single memorable line. And movies like this thrive on memorable lines. It could have been an all-timer, but this stuff kept it off that chart.

Everything else, though, I liked. The cast were great - O'Brien looks amazing, and I'm going to the gym after this exactly because of my memory of her, and Kristen Stewart was mostly excellent, although there's a slightly hokey fidgety nervous thing that she deployed in Crimes of the Future that doesn't convince here either (although it's used much more sparingly). The various twists and turns all worked for me, and the weightlifting element added a fun new spin to the genre.

And it was beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous-looking film. I even liked the very silly bit in the climax that I think @Noodle Lizard is obliquely referring to, even if it was probably just there to cover up a fundamentally mundane and underwhelming resolution to the threat.

I was looking forward to it but a 3.8 on Letterboxd seems very low considering there's basically always a .5 bump for anything remotely LGBT themed there outside of stuff with seriously contentious subject matter.

Judging by the responses from a several groups of Gen Zers in our screening, this might be contentious for them. It's a movie where every single character is a total fucking mess and pretty unpleasant to some degree - including the three queer characters, which I think was a surprise to a generation used to films and shows that hang halos on anyone who's part of a minority group (but especially if they're young and LGBTQ+). One lass, as she walked past me, said "Well I don't know how to feel about that..."

If you like messy, grimy pulpy crime films, I think you'll have a good time.

[Noodle Lizard]

Likewise, Ed Harris looks amazing and has great presence as the main antagonist, but he didn't really do much.

Spoiler alert

It badly needed a scene of him executing someone, ideally with some sort of memorable speech, and even more so a really compelling confrontation with Kristen Stewart - ideally two, one earlier on and one right at the end. Those moments just kind of got dashed off, which made the whole thing feel a bit lightweight.

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Completely agree with this, although I found his hair & make-up distracting - he's in his 70s, he shouldn't look like a younger actor made up to look old. Bad Grandpa was more convincing!

But yeah, it was a bit "tell don't show" with him. You hear that he's

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ambiguously "a psycho" and has the police in his pocket and has killed a bunch of informants, but you never learn what he's actually up to and he comes across as pretty weak and ineffectual throughout.

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I understand why they thought keeping all that ambiguous might have been cool, but that doesn't really work when the character himself isn't engaging enough for that to not matter. It's a shame, because Harris has proven multiple times that he can be an incredibly intimidating screen presence if given something to work with.

Regarding your point about the reception of LGBT characters in movies, it might be interesting to compare and contrast this with the other recently-released lesbian crime caper Drive-Away Dolls. I'm not going to bother anyone with that now, though.

[Mister Six]

You do learn what he's up to, in one of the montages-

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he's a gun runner.

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[Noodle Lizard]

You do learn what he's up to, in one of the montages-

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he's a gun runner.

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Oh. I vaguely remember seeing

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a shot of a load of guns

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but I didn't connect the two.

[Mister Six]

Spoiler alert

He's seen overseeing guys who're loading wrapped-up rifles into crates, or something along those lines.

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[elliszeroed]

The first half of this reminded me of the work of Barry Gifford. Which is always nice,

[Minami Minegishi]

The first half of this reminded me of the work of Barry Gifford. Which is always nice,

Going to watch this tomorrow as it is available.