Love Lies Bleeding blends various elements together into a surprising, sometimes effective, sometimes ineffective sapphic thriller. For me, the movie is at its best when dealing with the crime portion of the story where the bursts of violence ratchet up the tension, and Rose Glass' direction builds a sense of unease with these shots bathed in red and darkness set to an ominous soundtrack. It is in these sections that Kristen Stewart's acting is at its height as well, where her nervousness and frustration bleed through the screen. Katy O'Brian and Ed Harris do a good job as well, and their characters inhabit this drama well. However, the problem is that this movie also has a romantic element to it. And unfortunately, this part fell flat to me. I felt it was rushed, and the way it impacts and informs events throughout the movie to be unearned. Also, I just didn't feel like Stewart and O'Brian had as much chemistry together, even though they were excellent individually. Finally, this movie has a scattering of surrealism mixed in. Though I wasn't a fan of it overall because of how random it felt, I thought it was generally helping to build the atmosphere -- even if the thematic focus for these parts was not really synergizing with the rest of the movie. However, near the end, one of these sequences sort of took me completely out of the movie. For a movie that is mostly grounded, just having this random sequence at the end felt almost like a betrayal, and I also struggled to see its purpose. Because of this, the ending fell flat to me, and it allowed my more negative feelings to overtake some of the more positive aspects of the movie.

Love Lies Bleeding mixes the Coen brothers' fascination with the once-wild-now-tame West with a grotesquely tactile and gross lens on the human experience rivaling the great John Waters (an ironic twist of fate, as this is the type of cinematic masterpiece Ethan Coen's Drive-Away Dolls thinks it wants to be a snarky parody of). This film then takes that concept and runs with it, through the end zone and out the other side into the stadium's back parking lot. Every frame is shrink-wrapped in this uniquely feminine sexual itch, one that even a cis straight male viewer like me is strongly gravitated toward. The viewer is picked up and thrashed around by the sickening, swirling tone of the film, pulled through climax after thrilling climax. Once we reach the variably interpretable ending, we don't even care any more, because we're coming down from the high and realizing we survived. The end result reads like something out of Hunter Thompson's personal dream journal.
The cast of talented performers only elevates the already masterful material, with a career performance by Ed Harris, break-out roles for Anna Baryshnikov and Katy O'Brian, and let's not forget little Franco's sleazy imitation of Big Brother.
I can't wait to see more of Rose Glass's work. She is cinematic voice for a generation no longer playing the part the humble townsfolk, accosted by handsome men wandering out of the sandy, grainy filmstock. Now we are that stranger in that strange land, the West. The West is all around us, a breathing, living thing that takes us in. If you don't watch your step, the ground beneath your feet will open up and swallow you whole.

Very Rose Glass and very A24. A mixed bag from beginning to end for me. The characters are memorable and interesting but the romance never felt justified to me, all I saw is that it was built on sex. Too rushed and it's hard to keep up with the ups and downs of the relationship and everything happening around them. They barely had a decent conversation together before all hell breaks loose. Some frustrating character interactions and dumb decision making. Most of the movie's direction was frustrating to me. The crime storyline is generic. The final twist works as an idea, it had potencial, but I don't think it was executed very well. Felt very cheap.

Great performance from Kristen Stewart, probably my favorite performance from her after *Spencer*. Katy O'Brian gives a strong physical performance and Ed Harris was good comical relief. The gore took me by surprise, very brutal and shocking. Some interesting visuals and a good score. It does a good job at building the tension. I like the 'muscles as a metaphor for love' idea and how working on your body is the same as working on a relationship. The motivational panels on the walls in the gym was a nice touch.