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A24 is quite well known for making films that do not follow the traditional path, and their latest, Rose Glass’ Love Lies Bleeding, is no different. What starts off as a passionate and pure romance between Lou (Kristen Stewart) and Jackie (Katy M. O’Brian) soon turns to roads that are bloody and full of terror. Set in the southwest of the 1980s, Love Lies Bleeding is violent, toxic, and romantic, blurring the line between reality and fantasy.
What Happens in Love Lies Bleeding?
Love Lies Bleeding is about Lou and Jackie and how all hell breaks loose when the two fall in love. Initially, their romance seems innocent enough, and their chemistry is sizzling on the screen right from the moment they set eyes on each other. However, things start getting complicated when Jackie learns that the shooting range where she works is owned by Lou’s father, Lou Sr. (Ed Harris), a gangster with whom Lou does not get along. Matters further worsen when Lou comes to know that Jackie, upon her first arrival in the city, had slept with JJ (Dave Franco), Lou’s abusive brother-in-law who beats her sister Beth (Jena Malone) black and blue in the hope of a job. They do move past these issues, but when Jackie sees Lou breaking down in the hospital looking at her unconscious sister, beaten violently by JJ, she decides to take matters into her own hands, and everything goes south from that point.
What does Jackie do to JJ?
As Jackie sees Lou crying violently in the hospital, something happens to her, quite literally. We see her muscles building up, her veins becoming more prominent, and her body undergoing a rage-filled transformation. Now, it can be the testosterones she has been taking or love running through her veins (the film keeps things open to interpretation), making her forget everything, even her body-building competition in Vegas, which has been her lifelong dream. In an insane rage, she visits JJ’s house and smashes his skull, killing him brutally.
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