Summary

Love Lies Bleeding features unbelievable twists and shocking scenes that keep the audience on the edge of their seats.
The film draws inspiration from classic road movies and crime thrillers, adding a layer of suspense for viewers.
Lou's dark past and the escalating violence between the characters create a sense of anxiety and foreboding throughout the narrative.

Love Lies Bleeding doesn't just feature an all-star cast and expert direction. It also boasts unbelievable twists and shocking scenes that leave the audience on the edge of their seats. The director, Rose Glass, initially made her name in horror films like Saint Maud, and she brought that expertise into Love Lies Bleeding. Kristen Stewart and Katy O'Brian star as Lou and Jackie, the film's protagonists and central couple who find themselves tangled in a web of violence and destruction. One of the movie's best parts is the heightened emotions and experiences of the characters, shown through surrealist visuals.

Watching the love story between Lou and Jackie unfold can lure the audience into a false sense of security.

When films like Love Lies Bleeding make the audience question what's real and what's not, it adds a layer of suspense for the viewer. While the ending might be one of the movie's most shocking sequences, there are plenty of other surprises along the way. Watching the love story between Lou and Jackie unfold can lure the audience into a false sense of security. However, there's an underlying sense of anxiety and foreboding throughout the entire narrative. By the time the action gets going, Lou and Jackie must commit to their path and trust each other.

Love Lies Bleeding is the spiritual successor to many great road movies and crime thrillers, drawing inspiration from early works like Bonnie and Clyde while clearly in conversation with contemporary surrealist movies like Mulholland Drive. The film is one of Stewart's most critically acclaimed projects, and future collaborations between Stewart and Glass are likely. Love Lies Bleeding follows the twisting story that unfolds when Lou meets Jackie, an amateur bodybuilder, and Jackie quickly discovers there's more to Lou and her family than meets the eye. However, Lou's dark past isn't the only thing they have to worry about.

Love Lies Bleeding is available to stream on Max.

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6 Lou Hides Daisy's Body From The FBI

Anna Baryshnikov is at her best as the slimy and conniving Daisy.

Though there's little question that Lou only has eyes for Jackie, the local girl Daisy, played by Baryshnikov, is infatuated with Lou from the start. Daisy is furious that Lou has fallen in love with Jackie, and when she has an opportunity to come between them, she pounces. Of course, this ultimately ends in disaster for Daisy, who doesn't make it out of the movie alive, but it also makes trouble for Lou. For most of the latter half of Love Lies Bleeding, Lou tries to clean up mess after mess and keep the FBI off her and Jackie's trail.

It's a darkly comic scene that makes the audience question Lou's past and future.

Having Daisy's dead body in her apartment certainly doesn't help her ability to fly under the radar. Additionally, Lou's dad, Lou Sr., played by Ed Harris, is hot on her trail and working to ensure that Lou has to accept his help. This means that while Lou is cleaning up Daisy's body, police officers come knocking on her door. Though one of them is on her father's payroll, the scene begins with Lou shoving Daisy's body behind the couch and distracting the officers from the body. It's a darkly comic scene that makes the audience question Lou's past and future.

5 Lou Used To Work For Her Dad

It's clear that Lou has a secret, but when her dark past is revealed, it's shocking.

Pieces of Lou's background are dropped throughout the beginning of Love Lies Bleeding, and though there's more to Lou than meets the eye, Jackie doesn't want to push things. Jackie is happy to have a place she can stay and a partner with a more stable life than she's ever experienced. However, when Jackie is pushed over the edge and kills for the first time, Lou has to brush off her old skills and knowledge and use them to help Jackie. It's then the audience learns that flashbacks to Lou Sr. with a gun are only part of the puzzle.

Lou used to work for her dad as a violent enforcer and was part of his criminal organization. In a few short moments, the viewer realizes that Lou has killed people before, and she was once happy to be involved in the violence and destruction as she was being groomed to take over for her father one day. This brings their strained relationship and Lou's knowledge of how to clean up a crime scene into sharp focus. Lou's struggle is shown to be her escape from her father and past, but the circumstances keep pulling her in.

4 Daisy Gets Shot

Jackie's second crime only puts her further under Lou Sr.'s thumb.

Lou Sr. knows that Lou dumped JJ's body where the FBI would find it, and now that he has Jackie, he has leverage over Lou.

After Jackie's breakdown in Las Vegas, it's not Lou who comes to her rescue, but Lou Sr., her father. Though she's bailed out of jail and leaving Vegas, this is only the beginning of Jackie's troubles, as she now owes Lou Sr. more than she bargained for. Lou Sr. knows that Lou dumped JJ's body where the FBI would find it, and now that he has Jackie, he has leverage over Lou. His first maneuver after taking Jackie is to force her to murder Daisy, the witness to the original crime, so he can ultimately pin everything on Jackie.

Of course, when he reveals this plan to Lou, she's appalled and refuses to go along, but Jackie doesn't see any other choice after Lou Sr. traps her. Additionally, Jackie believes that Lou is with Daisy and has forgotten her, fueling her rage and despair at being left behind. Though the audience is aware that the murder is coming, it's still shocking, as it's shown primarily from Lou's perspective, who has no idea what's going on. It's a turning point in the movie, as both Lou and the viewer come to understand that after Daisy's murder, there's no going back.

3 Jackie Murders JJ

In many ways, this is the most pivotal scene of the entire movie.

When the audience is first introduced to JJ, they have no idea that he's Lou's brother-in-law and has been abusing Lou's sister, Beth (Jena Malone). Jackie sleeps with JJ to get a job at the gun range, and it's only later that their deeper connection is shown through Lou. When Lou finds out that something happened between JJ and Jackie, she's furious because Lou despises JJ for what he's been doing to Beth. Though Jackie has no idea who he is when they meet, she quickly comes to Lou's side and agrees that something must be done about Beth's situation.

This comes to a head when Beth is put in the hospital because of JJ's violence. Lou is devastated by this, and her anger and sadness are perfectly portrayed by Stewart, marking another reason that Love Lies Bleeding is one of Kristen Stewart's best movies. Up until this point, an undercurrent of Love Lies Bleeding is that Jackie has been slowly becoming addicted to steroids, and upon seeing Lou's despair and Beth's broken body, something inside Jackie snaps. She finds JJ at his house, and her anger pushes her over the edge, ending in JJ's death.

2 Jackie Throws Up On Stage

While trying to perform in her bodybuilding competition, Jackie hallucinates.

After this scene and the remainder of the movie, many audience were wondering Love Lies Bleeding. By the time Jackie makes it to Vegas, she's been pushed to her mental and emotional limits. Her biggest dream in life is to go to this bodybuilding competition in Las Vegas and compete for the chance to be recognized for her talents and even open a gym. This is what she and Lou are working for in the early part of the story, and it's what drives Jackie to start taking steroids, and Lou s this plan.

During her solo moment on stage, she starts strong but soon imagines that she's thrown up a life-sized version of Lou onto the stage.

However, in the wake of JJ's death and her drug-fueled nightmares, Vegas is the last place she should be. Despite this, she goes anyway, without Lou, and is plagued by guilt and hallucinations from the moment she arrives. Feeling insecure and anxious, Jackie relies on the drugs more than ever, and it begins to affect her performance. During her solo moment on stage, she starts strong but soon imagines that she's thrown up a life-sized version of Lou onto the stage. It's a grotesque scene, and things aren't made better by the realization that she's simply thrown up normally.

Kristen Stewart drives through the desert as Lou in Love Lies Bleeding

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1 Lou & Jackie Turning Into Giants

Perhaps the most confusing, but emotionally resonant moment of the film.

Though unreliable perspectives and emotional visuals are part of Love Lies Bleeding from the beginning, this is used to maximum effect in the film's final scenes. During the moment when it seems all hope is lost and Lou Sr. has won, Jackie becomes a giant and comes to recuse Lou from her father. From there, the two of them become giants together and run through the desert, away from their problems and the violence of Lou Sr. Though it's slightly jarring at the time, it's a strong stylistic choice and speaks to the freedom and ecstasy the pair are feeling.

This isn't how the film ends, as they return to their normal bodies and genuinely escape to finish the film. However, it's a memorable high for their relationship to go out on. Their run through the desert demonstrates the power and liberation that Jackie and Lou feel when they're together. It's also interesting because Lou doesn't end up killing Lou Sr. Instead, she only leaves him for the police to find. This speaks to the fact that she no longer needs violent revenge on her father because Jackie's love has helped her shake off this family curse.