To build a space for queer people like myself, every Saturday I’ll be posting interviews, opinion pieces (like this Love Lies Bleeding review), listicles, reviews, and more focused on the LGBT community from a Latina perspective. Welcome to Queerly Not Straight!
Enjoy and leave a comment below if you have a suggestion for what I should cover next. P.S. I, Lyra Hale, do not give any site permission to copy or repost my work in any form. If you are reading this on any site besides Fangirlish, it has been stolen.
In a way, I have seen dozens of movies like Love Lies Bleeding. There are always two strangers who meet and fall for each other. They’re both mysterious and haven’t jaded pasts. This love kind of turns into obsession and passion before everything explodes around them and bodies start dropping. The difference is that I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie like this with a sapphic romance. And I think it might have blown my mind a little bit while also making me really sad because it’s taken until 2024 for me to get a movie as twisted as Love Lies Bleeding. (Which, if you know other movies like this and I’ve been missing out, let me know. Educate me.) This movie is made all the better by the addition of Kristen Stewart, who has absolutely blossomed in the last couple of years into this liberated queer woman who is here to define who she is as an actress more than anything else, and on her own terms.
Stewart’s Lou, is quiet, simmering with anger, and itching to get out of this small town. And as the story unfolds you get to see that an ungrateful sister is pinning her down while a psychotic father keeps her in fear of what happens if she really sets herself free. That freedom comes in the form of Jackie. Like any good sapphic or lesbian relationship, she goes from 0 to 100 in the span of one night. I wasn’t surprised at all that they went from Lou injecting Jackie in the butt with steroids to Jackie living with Lou and then training together for the competition in Las Vegas overnight. But the way that Love Lies Bleeding did it felt like it understood the intensity that comes with forging connections with someone like-minded for the first time. And it works perfectly for this intense kind of obsessive love and passion that you see in thriller stories like this.
On the Jackie side of things, Katy O’Brian did an absolutely phenomenal job in finding this balance between strength and delicate femininity. And I was really surprised as the movie went on how Jackie managed to cycle through all of these intense emotions, from flying high and sure of herself to intense anger and desire, but being willing and open to having herself be grounded by Lou. It’s strength and understanding that you can’t do it all on your own wrapped up together. And I don’t know if she turned into a gigantic lady by the end of Love Lies Bleeding, but anything is possible in a sapphic movie. Plus this is an A24 movie. If there’s anyone that I know will do something weird and then get us to sit down to think about the existential reasons why this happened, it’s going to be this studio.
Stewart and O’Brien’s performances weren’t the only ones that really stood out in this movie. I absolutely loathe Dave Franco‘s JJ. He was that quiet real kind of monster. The kind that doesn’t look like he would do something but would absolutely beat on his wife because he’s a weakling in reality and finds his only strength in putting others down. Also, some might hate me for saying this, but I did not like Beth either. I love Jenna Malone. And I totally understand that she’s a victim of abuse. But dear Lord was I annoyed by her and her small town way of thinking. All I can hope for her is that she gives herself some grace in the same way she gave JJ when he was beating her. And therapy. She needs that. Not so surprisingly, I hated Lou Sr. But that was mainly because of his haircut. All together, these three delivered in a way that made them feel relevant to the storyline of Love Lies Bleeding and not like they could have easily been erased and the story would have gone on seamlessly.
The fact that Love Lies Bleeding made every moment count, is the true strength of the movie. The moments of intimacy between Lou and Jackie that left us fanning ourselves like some Victorian woman who saw another woman’s ankle and her heart went all aflutter, they had purpose. It was about letting their walls down and experiencing something that was all of their own in this small apartment, in that bed, and in that bathroom. Even Lou saying that she wanted to “stretch Jackie,” it was about taking care of someone and for that someone to let go of control and know that they’re safe with you. And for someone as strong and determined as Jackie, letting Lou take care of things was a path of a lot of inner turmoil but something that she was willing to explore with this woman. That means something.
At the end, the biggest fault of Love Lies Bleeding though is that I wanted more. I want to see more of Lou and Jackie’s adventures. I want to see Stuart continue to explore who she is as an actress and woman via queer projects. I want to see O’Brian break barriers by continuing to look like a beefy woman who could carry me in her arms like nothing within a Hollywood space that always goes for small and delicate for romantic leads. Give me a cute holiday rom-com with O’Brian in it where she’s chopping wood and the owner of a small bed and breakfast. I’m down. And I would like more sapphic sex scenes where they take the kind of care, love, and dedication they did in Love Lies Bleeding. Because this didn’t feel gratuitous. This felt like someone used their personal experience to normalize who we are. And isn’t that the end game of it all? To normalize LGBTQ+ people, even in crazy thrillers chock-full of questionable wigs, toxic love, and an ending where they actually make it out alive. That’s what I want more of and that’s what Love Lies Bleeding gave me.
Love Lies Bleeding is now available in theaters.
What did you think of Love Lies Bleeding? Let us know in the comments below!
Queerly Not Straight posts Saturdays with opinion pieces, listicals, reviews, and more focused on the LGBT community (and occasionally about the Latine community since I am Latine.)
