Review: Two Tickets to the Gun Show
Rose Glass’ 'Love Lies Bleeding' is a pulpy, bloody mess of murder and horny dyke love!
The Yearning Rating: ✰✰✰✰✰
Romance: ✰✰✰✰
Sex: ✰✰✰✰✰
Storytelling: ✰✰✰✰
Performance: ✰✰✰✰½
Yearning: ✰✰✰✰✰
You know we’d bleed for you. Hit the like button for us, babe <3
Mom, you probably won’t like this movie. Also, some spoilers ahead!
Written by Meg Steinfeld-Heim
The Mary Nardini Gang are a group of queer anarchists who, among other things, authored the seminal text Be Gay, Do Crime; they are who we have to thank for lending that fun little phrase to the pop culture lexicon. Wherever the MNG is, I can guarantee—they will love this movie. Love Lies Bleeding is not just criminal and queer. It is the juiciest, wildest, jaw-droppingest movie I have seen in a long time.
Let’s set the scene because this movie is so fucking aesthetic and stylish, I can’t stand it. Late 80s, rural New Mexico. Immediately, you get the quintessential neo-noir vibes, thanks to a brooding opening shot of a run-down bodybuilding gym. An eerie, vibrating soundtrack ripples through the scene like a current. Kristen Stewart plays Lou, the gym manager, who falls for an absolutely ripped bodybuilder named Jackie (Katy O’Brian). Jackie, who’s been hitchhiking her way across the country in an attempt to make it to a big bodybuilding competition in Vegas, has no idea what she’s getting herself into. But she is sure as hell about to find out.
From the jump, Glass is not afraid to signal that this movie will be gross—we meet Lou wrist deep in a profoundly clogged gym toilet. Somehow still hot in this moment, Kristen Stewart channels 80s-muscle-tee-dykeness with a perfectly mussed mullet and unyielding apathy in her gaze. Stewart is never not hot in this!!
The two start a steamy, raucous affair. Lou’s previous fling with Daisy, a drug-loving, giggly airhead with unfortunately bad teeth, is all but forgotten. They begin falling for each other and, really—what’s a little performance enhancing drug use between paramours? Lou wants Jackie to be happy, and Jackie wants to win the bodybuilding competition, so in go the needles and out comes a Jackie more ripped and powerful, almost…magically so…than ever before. The sex scenes in Love Lies Bleeding are insane, completely fueled by the raw, sinewy shine of muscle and sweat. They feel real, electric, hot.
But trouble sets in when Lou figures out that Jackie got a job waitressing at her gunrunner dad’s shooting range. Lou Sr. (a totally transformed Ed Harris) cradles a fat white larva in his palm as he gives Jackie the job. “Your dad’s the bug guy?!” Jackie asks, to which Lou confirms: “Yeah. The bug guy”. I love that amidst being extremely violent and horny, Love Lies Bleeding still finds time to be so weird. Weirdness is undeniably a through-line. Lou Sr. sports a collarbone-length mullet, runs an illegal arms-dealing business and tends to a massive collection of rare, disgusting bugs. Lou does all she can to distance herself from her father and makes it clear to Jackie that he is not a good guy. (But to be clear, Lou also seems pretty toxic and Jackie’s dark, contemplative stares into the mirror are getting scary).
An act of violence sets into motion a chain of events that neither Jackie nor Lou can escape from. Shadowy red flashbacks and the way that Lou jumps into action to deal with this crisis signal that she might know more about her father’s life of crime than she is letting on. And O’Brian does an amazing job, beautifully portraying someone drifting in and out of the person you know them as while steroids fuel her body and mind into becoming something more. What does injecting medication that increases your testosterone production as a means to transform the female body say about queerness? Maybe that there's an empowering yet dangerous freedom in taking that transformation into your own unrestrained hands.
I really like the story that co-writer and director Rose Glass is telling with guns. Now, hold on, hear me out. Guns, whether they are muscle or metal, pulse through Love Lies Bleeding like a heartbeat. Seen or unseen, they are a part of every shot and influence every decision. Lou Sr.’s gun range is a manifestation of how he demonstrates his strength. It’s his livelihood. It affords him his gorgeously tacky nouveau-rich mansion, his weird bug hobby, and power. Lots and lots of power. Power enough even to skirt the FBI, who keep stopping by Lou’s place, asking if she’s seen him recently.
By contrast, Jackie doesn’t like guns—she is reassured by her physical, tangible power. When asked about this at the shooting range, she replies, smiling and flexing, “I prefer to know my own strength”. Lou, whether by active choice or just by listening to her dykey heart, falls into this camp too. She manages the gym, shows off her biceps in her cutoff tanks and keeps her nose out of her dad’s business as much as she can. Eventually, both of these kinds of strength come head to head and we learn once and for all what wins out—be it lead bullets or guns of steel.
True to its bloody thriller core, so much crazy shit goes on in this movie. I could never describe it all here and I wouldn’t want to, because I want you to have the experience of going to the theaters and letting your jaw hang open like mine did for 80% of the film. But here’s something I keep coming back to: why shouldn’t a woman get to have a moment where blind fury and the desire for revenge overtakes her? In so many of the gritty 90s thrillers that Love Lies Bleeding pulls from, women are the victims of those rageful attacks. Queer women are given even less protection and endangered even more. Is violence good? No. But is reclaiming the power of violence so often used against you okay? Maybe, just maybe, if we translate that reclamation through some fun and kooky magical realism. I sensed a shift at the apex of Jackie’s…growth…that made me think she’d settled into some peace and self-acceptance.
The comedic elements in this movie are so revealing of the queer storytellers behind it. Even while driving the out-of-control car that is this story, filled with body horror and bullet holes and so, so much blood, there’s still room for silliness. Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov) remains the masterfully annoying comedic relief until the very end—she is so desperate and bug-eyed with love for her ‘LouLou’ that she can be manipulated into almost anything. I sort of get where she’s coming from—Lou is just that hot. It was interesting to see this in a theater, because certain moments of the film felt like little litmus tests for what the audience found funny amidst all the violence and tension; it seemed to sit slightly differently with each person. A larger-than-life dream sequence towards the end of the film completely tickled me; I will always go for a splash of absurdity.
By the way, it is super queer to be totally and completely blind to how toxic and bad you are for someone else. Being that blinded by horny, destructive love is practically a queer rite of passage. So much so that you might even say to someone, after witnessing unspeakable horrors they played a part in, “There is NOTHING wrong with you. You’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met.”
If nothing else, this film is here to remind you why you shouldn’t get back together with that toxic ex. In Love Lies Bleeding, mullets and violent streaks run in families and your drug of choice might just be your lover. Allow me to stress that this movie is not for the faint of heart (or stomach). But it is so good and you should see it.
Love Lies Bleeding began a limited release in NY and LA last week and is in theaters everywhere tomorrow!
Elephant in the Werkroom
Season 16, Episode 10:
It’s an early Rumix challenge hybrid, combined with the political challenge theme that accompanies every season during a presidential election year. We get the usual edit of Nymphia struggling to find inspiration while writing her lyrics.
Sorry to keep bringing this up, but I'm getting tired of the constant cattiness. Every shot that is not on a queen rehearsing is either: two other queens gossiping about her, or a confessional talking shit about her. Part of my annoyance is coming from the fact that I like when I see the queens forming genuine, supportive friendships with each other. But also this editing take is just very one note! I’m getting bored!!
That being said—I genuinely loved the “Power” number!! The girls all have such chemistry together and performed soooo beautifully—that makes me think that the shade-only edit is intentional (and not reflective of the casts’ actual relationships). It’s hard to choose my performance faves but I loved Nymphia’s moves, Dawn’s charisma and lyrics, and Morphine’s overall serve.
It was surprising to see Plane slip for the first time this week, and even more so that she gave the immunity potion to Nymphia Wind, who clearly outperformed her in the entire challenge. Hmm…
Sapphira and Morphine are both soooo deserving of top two. I loved the lip sync choice (Meghan Trainor’s “Made You Look”) and Sapphira takes a well-deserved win in a no-elimination week!
I watched half of this movie with my eyes obscured by my hands, and was deeply disturbed by some shots, but the more I think about it the more I LOVED it. Also how queer is it that all the animals (minus that one beetle) were cared for? The parrot? The cat? I don’t know if I could watch it again but I highly recommend it.
This review got my gay ass to the theater the day you posted! Incredible writing.