Love Lies Bleeding

Love Lies Bleeding is a 2024 romantic thriller film directed by Rose Glass from a screenplay she co-wrote with Weronika Tofilska. It is a co-production between the United Kingdom and the United States. The film stars Kristen Stewart, Katy O'Brian, Jena Malone, Anna Baryshnikov, Dave Franco, and Ed Harris. Set in 1989, its plot follows the relationship between a reclusive gym manager, who is part of a crime family, and an ambitious bodybuilder.
Love Lies Bleeding premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2024, was released theatrically in the United States by A24 on March 8, 2024, and is scheduled to be released in the United Kingdom by Lionsgate on May 3, 2024. The film received generally positive reviews from critics.
== Plot ==
In 1989, gym manager Louise "Lou" Langston meets and falls in love with a young woman, Jaqueline "Jackie" Cleaver who is a bodybuilder working out at her gym. Jackie, unbeknownst to Lou, has just gotten a job at a shooting range owned by Lou's estranged father, Lou Sr., after having sex with Lou's brother-in-law J.J. Jackie herself is a vagrant, passing through town on her way to a bodybuildingcompetition in Las Vegas. Lou offers her steroids, which Jackie initially hesitates but ends up using. The two soon have sex and Jackie asks to stay at Lou's apartment.
The pair have dinner with J.J. and Beth, Lou's sister, who does not fully realize his abusive actions. Lou defends Beth and threatens J.J. In return, J.J. tells Lou that he had sex with Jackie, which angers her. While driving home, Lou forces Jackie out of the car, mentioning she wants J.J. dead, but hurriedly lets her back in when two FBI agents arrive. The next day, at a hospital, Lou visits Beth, who has been admitted after J.J. had battered her; Lou Sr. arrives and promises to care for Beth. Jackie, emotionally unstable from spontaneous substance abuse, breaks into J.J.'s home and brutally beats him to death. 
A distressed Lou arrives at the scene, admitting she did not actually want J.J. dead. The two drive his corpse and car into a ravine, where Lou formerly helped her father kill his business rivals and dispose of their bodies. On the way there, Lou's friend Daisy, who is infatuated with her, spots them and makes note of Jackie driving Lou's truck. Lou cleans up evidence of the murder while Jackie continues her steroid addiction, growing more agitated. Following an argument, Jackie wounds Lou, then leaves and hitchhikes to Las Vegas. During the competition, Jackie hallucinates vomiting a fully grown Lou due to steroid induced psychosis and contestants commenting on her weight. In reality, Jackie has vomited on the floor; in her psychosis, she assaults another contestant, which lands Jackie in jail. 
Meanwhile, armed with full knowledge of J.J.'s murder, Daisy blackmails Lou into a relationship with her. Lou Sr. bails out Jackie and coerces her to kill Daisy, the sole witness to the murder, with a suppressed pistol. Lou and Daisy are just arriving at her apartment when Jackie shoots Daisy from behind. In a state of panic, Jackie returns to Lou Sr., only to be knocked unconscious. He tells Lou that he has arranged for Jackie to go to prison for double homicide, but she threatens to expose his operation if Lou Sr. does so, causing him to hang up in a rage. 
As Lou is cleaning up Daisy's body, she is attacked by a figure whom she manages to fatally shoot, revealing the figure as a police officer on Lou Sr.'s payroll. Realizing her father aims to kill her, Lou bludgeons the officer with a gun and makes her way to his manor, where she encounters Beth who has learned about Lou's involvement with J.J.'s death. Beth denounces Lou, who accepts it before forcing Jackie's location from her. She frees Jackie and tells her to run, before being shot in the leg by Lou Sr. He reveals to Lou that her mother is not dead, but left due to their actions; Lou Sr. for his criminal business and Lou for helping him. Jackie arrives, having grown to gigantic size, and pins down Lou Sr. Lou shoves a gun into his mouth, but relents and leaves him for the police. 
Lou and Jackie drive off, stopping the next morning when Lou realizes that Daisy is still alive in the truck bed despite her near-fatal wound; she nonchalantly strangles Daisy to death and dumps her body in a nearby field while Jackie sleeps.
== Cast ==
== Production ==
Love Lies Bleeding is a co-production between A24 and Film4. It is the second film to be directed by English filmmaker Rose Glass. Kristen Stewart first mentioned her involvement in the film in March 2022, as she was a fan of Glass' previous work, Saint Maud; her casting was confirmed in April. Anna Baryshnikov, Katy O'Brian, Dave Franco, Ed Harris, and Jena Malone joined the cast in June. O'Brian said in an interview that she had to audition for the part, her first leading role, six times.
Principal photography began in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in June 2022. Production concluded by August 2022.
== Release ==
Love Lies Bleeding had its world premiere in the Midnight section at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2024, followed by its European premiere on February 18 at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival in the Berlinale Special Gala section. The UK premiere was held at the Glasgow Film Festival on February 28.
The film was released on five screens in New York City and Los Angeles by A24 on March 8, 2024, before expanding wide on March 15. Lionsgate UK acquired the British distribution rights to the film in November 2023 and will release it theatrically in the United Kingdom on May 3, 2024. 
== Reception ==
===Box office ===
In its opening weekend the film made $276,618 from five theaters, a per-venue average of $55,324. Expanding to 1,362 theaters the following weekend, the film made $2.5 million, finishing sixth at the box office.
===Critical response===
 Audiences polled by PostTrak gave the film a 78% overall positive score with an average 3.5 out of 5 stars.Manohla Dargis of the New York Times wrote that the film, likely influenced by the works of James M. Cain, Jim Thompson, David Lynch, and the Coen Brothers, "For the most part... manages to transcend its influences enough to remain engaging; sometimes it does something even more interesting with its reference points... Glass borrows liberally but not mindlessly." Saffron Maeve, for the Toronto Star, gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, writing that "'Love Lies Bleeding' becomes increasingly convoluted [...] But this narrative estrangement is grounded in intention".
== External links ==
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== References ==
Category:2024 films
Category:Films starring Kristen Stewart
Category:Films starring Katy O'Brian
Category:Films starring Ed Harris
Category:Films starring Jena Malone
Category:Films starring Anna Baryshnikov
Category:Films starring Dave Franco
Category:2024 independent films
Category:2024 LGBT-related films
Category:2020s American films
Category:2020s English-language films
Category:American crime thriller films
Category:American LGBT-related films
Category:American romantic thriller films
Category:British crime thriller films
Category:British LGBT-related films
Category:British romantic thriller films
Category:Bodybuilding films
Category:Lesbian-related films
Category:Film4 Productions films
Category:Films about domestic violence
Category:Films about drugs
Category:Films about murder
Category:Films about female bisexuality
Category:Films scored by Clint Mansell
Category:Films set in 1989
Category:Films about dysfunctional families
Category:Films set in New Mexico
Category:Films set in the Las Vegas Valley
Category:Films shot in New Mexico
Category:A24 (company) films
Category:Lionsgate films
Category:Films