Dykes To Watch Out For

The arch, faux-grindhouse erotic thriller Love Lies Bleeding, never less than totally self-satisfied for being so totally self-aware, is a whiz-bang rendering of a scuzzy lezploitation B-movie. Sexy and stylish and fun, for sure—but definitely more delightful than dangerous. It feels like a thesis film by a straight-A student exploring gutter cinema, in this case, director Rose Glass, who came to the public’s attention with the 2019 psychological horror film Saint Maud. But how can so much in-your-face attitude feel so harmless?

It’s no surprise that the movie takes place in the late ’80s—back then, a flick like this would have had prodded the Moral Majority into an apoplectic rage spiral. As it is, this Kristen Stewart gay neo-noir just feels like another niche offering for a rainbow-spectrum pop culture. Even its mega-wattage star’s overt homosexuality is old news, since she’s been aggressively peacocking her orientation since officially coming out on SNL in 2017. Watch as Bella from Twilight licks chocolate off her lover’s breasts and sucks her toes. F-bomb-dropping K-Stew fucking likes fucking girls? Yeah, yeah, we fucking get it.

LOVE LIES BLEEDING ★★★ (3/5 stars)
Directed by: Rose Glass
Written by: Rose Glass, Weronika Tofilska
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Katy O’Brian, Jena Malone, Anna Baryshnikov, Dave Franco, Ed Harris
Running time: 104 mins

Brace yourself: the women are trapped in their own circumstances and the men controlling them are complete assholes. Up yours, patriarchy! Lou (Stewart) manages a no-frills pump-iron gym in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Low-key and low-wattage, Lou spends her days unclogging toilets, peddling illegal steroid supplements on the sly, and suffering “Grade-A dyke” slurs from the macho men around her. Thirsty barnacle Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov), needy AF and always DTF, virtually drools over the indifferent Lou, personifying all the limited options ahead for our haggard heroine.

Then in walks jacked-up Jackie (Katy O’Brian), a woman bodybuilder with a wicked smile and charisma to spare. Jackie, dead broke, is new in town, and lets sleazy JJ (Dave Franco) hump her in the back of his car so he can score her a job waitressing at a local gun range where he works. Apparently, gun ranges in Albuquerque have waitresses. Why not.

After hours at the gym, Lou flirts with Jackie, and—befitting that tired cliché about lesbians—lets her move in on the first date. They voraciously chomp clams and finger-bang while Jackie preps for a bodybuilder competition in Las Vegas, giving Lou hope for a better tomorrow. Happy ending, right? Wrong.

Turns out Lou’s dad is Lou Sr. (Ed Harris, playing dress-up with impressive Allman Brothers hair surrounding his bald crown), the steely-eyed proprietor of that local gun range. Not only is he a gun nut, he’s also a bug nut, cooing to his oddball collections of hard-shell insects and wiener-sized larvae while barking orders at JJ—who also happens to be his son-in-law. JJ is married to Lou’s sister Beth (Jena Malone), a dutiful wife and mother whom JJ berates and beats at will. Oh, also, Lou Sr. is a gunrunner who kills with impunity and throws the bodies down an isolated ravine. Even more complicated: Lou has been an unwilling accomplice for her dad over the years, and the FBI is trying to get her to spill the beans.

So all Lou has to do is keep feeding an increasingly ’roid-raged Jackie with more injections, protect her sister from a toxic relationship, deal with her estranged father, ignore the persistent FBI calls, and keep that meddlesome Daisy at bay. And when the estrogen-soaked shit hits the fan, stress levels continue to rise as the bodies start to fall.

Despite all the gritty gunplay, fatal fisticuffs, and eerie red-bathed cinematography, very little feels genuinely surprising—except for Katy O’Brian throwing up Kristen Stewart like she’s a full-grown fetus, Ed Harris gobbling down a horned beetle, and our sapphic duo getting a WTF Brobdingnagian victory lap. I definitely did not see those coming. Those surreal flairs give this perky-but-pat film the jolts it desperately needs, almost conceding that the material inherently lacks real subversive teeth.

If Love Lies Bleeding had appeared in the raw early days of the New Queer Cinema, alongside nasty classics like Poison and The Living End, then Rose Glass’s polished provocation might have resonated. Coming out now, in 2024, it seems almost quaint in comparison, boasting gender politics that feel about as edgy as a donut. But representation is important! So good job, LGBTQ+ community: you now have brash, big-hearted, banal crime romps, too.