March 14th - Love Lies Bleeding (2024)

5/5

A seemingly standard love and revenge plot is brought to the extreme in a beautiful representation of messy dyke drama in a bumfuck desert town.

Love Lies Bleeding is a film that thrives on its acting. Every character, no matter how minor or seemingly one note, feels lifelike in a way that got a very real reaction from me. Oftentimes, there's a veneer of "character" over any given person. Here, I felt like there just happened to be a camera filming the fucked up time these women were having, with excellent composition and score to boot.

I wasn't sure what to expect heading into this one at first. I had heard a lot of buzz around being a movie one should "watch alone" and that it was going to be very sexual. I didn't know how much salt to give these warnings, since my standard of "too much" got obliterated by the bathtub rimming and grave fucking in Saltburn (as well as the entirety of Crash (1996)). Ultimately, it was very vanilla grade lesbian sucking and fucking, oftentimes quite sweet, at least in my opinion. No different than anything you'd see in some other rated R film that involved romance. What actually surprised me more, was the violence. I knew it was going to be violent and bloody, but did not expect to see a man's jaw get blasted off his face by way of a coffee table. Definitely not for the faint of heart. I think it added to the feeling of "a camera documenting real life events" with just how much they didn't shy away from it.

Going back to characters, Lou and Jackie are perfect, in how they interact, how they've been shaped by their past, and how their struggles present in their daily lives. Lou hates the idea of being like her father, and yet I often found myself finding the similarities between them ("you have to do exactly as I say"). This does not condemn Lou, she ultimately acts out of love, not manipulation, and it adds a layer I personally resonate with, as a former lesbian who is still afraid of becoming his father. Jackie, having dealt with fatphobia her whole life, and struggling with her emotions also speaks to me in my own anger, as a fat queer person who also has emotional dysregulation issues. I can tell that this film was written with real queer experiences in mind, specifically the vast experiences of queer women. It is not about escaping homophobia, but the setting reeks with it, and you can feel the effect it's had on Lou and Jackie's whole lives.

The fantastical ending may have felt cheesy to some, but I think it speaks to how Lou feels and sees Jackie, and how Jackie feels about herself. Her entire arc has been about her strength, and how she has used violence for revenge. Finally, she gets to use her strength to protect, something she wanted since the beginning. Violence is inescapable in a world that wants you beaten down, but you can use it to help the ones you love.