I’m always amazed by the cult of A24. They’re just a distribution company, yet there are some out there that think this studio is carefully curating the best cinema of the year. If not the best, certainly the most challenging. I don’t disagree with the latter, as A24 films always seem like we’d never see them released by anyone other than A24 or Neon. Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding is very much one of those films. I struggle to see where a film where the two leads are lesbians would fit in, especially in a way where the studio would give it the right kind of promotion and not relegate it to “select cities”.

Starring Kristen Stewart and Katie O’Brien, this crime thriller is an odd one. It manages to somehow squeeze in all these different nuances of genres, from horror to comedy. It sits right in the middle most of the time, as a crime thriller, which heavily reminded me of early Coen brothers. specifically, Blood Simple. The movies aren’t the same, but that was the first film to pop in my mind.

We’re introduced to a young woman (Stewart) who is running a gym, and has a shady father (Ed Harris) whose strained relationship suggests she’s unclogging her own toilets so that she can be self-reliant. One day, an aspiring bodybuilder (O’Brien) comes into her gym, and she becomes low key obsessed. Turns out, the feeling is mutual. A bond forms, passion heats up, and them these entanglements start unraveling the world around them.

I don’t want to really spoil how we get to “crime thriller”, but Rose Glass threads that needle rather well. There are some films that are profound or challenging, and I never want to see them again. There’s something about Love Lies Bleeding that really hits in the spot of not necessarily needing to see this again in my lifetime. Or, at least, a while. it does get super dark, and Glass is not afraid to play with the typical conventions of what you might assume comes next. It does feature strong performances. This is easily one of Kristen Stewart’s best roles, and I’m not generally a fan. I hated Spencer, and hated her Oscar nomination for that even more. I would have rather seen her pick up her first nomination for The Clouds Of Sils Maria. She’s really far from whatever she was doing in Twilight, and is fully hitting her stride.

Katie O’Brien is a bit of a discovery, and finding an actress who was ripped enough to carry this role must have been hard, but the fact that she’s also easily one of the breakouts of 2024 shouldn’t be ignored. She’ll get a lot of recognition in any awards groups that have a breakthrough performer role. I also enjoyed Ed Harris, though he could have slept walked through his role.

Rose Glass shows that she’s a promising director whose best is yet to come. This is a stepping stone, on her way to something truly great. The right movie, the right script, the right cast, and Glass could easily notch a director nomination. She has all the vibes of a confident filmmaker who knows what she wants to do with her film.

It’s just that I liked this, but didn’t love it. Maybe it was the genre subversion, and trying on so many hats. Vomiting up a person did seem like a stretch to me. It’s also just a really dark film, with characters who really could use a win, but definitely aren’t getting one anytime soon. I’d recommend it to the A24/Neon crowd that thinks those studios are starting a revolution, because this is so on brand, and from a Pride Month standpoint, I’ll vouch that this movie is quite out and very proud.

With all that, it is crafted in such a manner it won’t be for everyone, and the range of opinions might accidentally end up causing the exceptional individual craft by the actors and director to be lost, when it really shouldn’t. This is a pretty good film, just not a timeless classic.

And for Laura Post and the team at Deluxe, Rose Glass certainly gave them enough heavy material to figure out how to translate, from the aforementioned vomit, to a toilet cleaning sequence, to dead bodies, sex, sweat, and everything in between. I watched this on VOD, but this movie is set to premiere on MAX in July.

Final Grade: B-