Where Does Love Lie For You? A Review of "Love Lies Bleeding"
This gets hella personal at the end.
It starts in red and likely ends there too. This film was mindblowing, but one of the main things that will keep this picture as beginning-of-the-year Oscar bait was the casting of Katy O'Brian as a female bodybuilder named Jackie. While this would never have worked in any version of Hollywood up to this point, the rest of the world has come around to the idea of "muscle mommies." So in a world filled with BBLs, and constantly shifting "beauty standards," there is somehow a sense of honesty in seeing the world of bodybuilding done this well. The fact that it’s set in 1989 becomes a feather in the cap of this film.
As bodybuilders don't always live that long, there are not many people around who would remember what the world was like back before people had cell phones to process or avoid all the things that happened to them. It's been very funny to see so many movies harken back to that era despite being made 35 years later. We wanted the future but it seems we can’t stand it. If you want a film where characters don't know what other characters are up to, you can just set it before 1999 and let the era do most of the work.
What is “Love Lies Bleeding” Exactly
In 1989, you find Jackie the bodybuilder hitchhiking around looking to make it to Las Vegas in a few months for her first-ever Bodybuilding Show. While staying swole on the road, Jackie eventually ends up with a job as a waitress at the world’s most active gun range and shooters lounge thanks to meeting JJ (Dave Franco) on the road and having a lusty night with him. He takes her to meet his boss (Ed Harris) who makes the movie sing with every scene he's in.
The next day, Jackie meets Lou (Kirstin Stewart) who works at a local gym filled with clogged toilets, Karens, male bodybuilders with all the sayings they love like "PAIN IS WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY" and "ONLY LOSERS QUIT." Jackie and Lou fall in love and this is where the movie gets the romantic part of its "romantic thriller" tagline. These two women begin a love affair that lasts maybe 40 to 50 minutes of screentime. They are seeing each other, touching each other, and bringing you along through all of it. If you've ever wanted to see two women falling in love and showing you what their bedroom escapades are like, go see Love Lies Bleeding. However... know that the film is shocking in places. It's almost like it doesn't want you to look too hard at the screen with certain scenes, but Love Lies Bleeding is well-acted and well worth your time if you prefer a movie with no heroes.
...It Does Have Steroids Though
So I read a few things about the director, Rose Glass, and how she wanted to work on this film differently from her last one, Saint Maud. She directed and wrote that film on her own. This time she wanted to work with someone to make the writing less lonely and that person was Weronika Tofilska. In the interview, Rose made it clear she didn't go into this knowing a lot about bodybuilders and how their lifestyle works. That could mean that Tofilska likely did. It's tough to say, but somebody knew or wanted something with this film.
They could have done the research, and talked to people who did bodybuilding in the 80s when steroids had just become illegal, but as you watch this film in all its "roid rage" glory it's easy to get a particular idea about what's happening. Love Lies Bleeding is the most big-budget muscle lust romance story I have ever seen. I can feel all the creators making low-budget versions of this type of content since the 70s being angry about this movie. When Jackie says she likes to “feel her own strength” they likely have a series of inflamed sex organs in their pants.
My History With Muscular Women
I've been into women with muscle since my 12th birthday. I was walking into my dad's TV den. He was flipping channels and I was walking in just as he passed by a women's bodybuilding competition on ESPN2 and I had never seen this type of woman before. The innocent part of my life died right there as I looked over at their chiseled physiques, powerful arms, incredible abdomens, and the thickest legs I couldn’t have even dreamed of before that moment. I’m in this moment that felt like it could last forever before my parents let me know their feelings about bodybuilding.
My dad says, "Ewww! Who would want a woman like that?!"
My mother agreed, saying, "Anybody that likes a woman like that probably likes men."
And that was it. In the early 90s and in my family which beleived deeply in "Black Excellent" family, being gay, looking gay, or even thinking gay were crimes against God and humanity. It took us a while to get to where we all are now, and we had a long way to go before we got out of that mindset, Some members of my family aren't even there yet.
So once I heard those objections from my parents I closed the door and never told a soul. It didn't matter though. The bare feet of bodybuilding women had already made an impression on me. The muscle, the Dayanas, Yolandas, Lendas, and Tazzies had already made such an impression at bedtime and beyond for young Michael. In those days, we were fortunate enough to be an internet family. When I got my time on the computer rather than doing 90s kid stuff, I searched for anything about muscular women. As websites loaded slowly and I wasn't ever into porn (could I even afford it) I would use the family computer to find all these websites like Diana the Valkyrie or Brawna to find more female muscle-related pictures and stories. These sites had stuff written by amateurs, but certainly not all of it. Some had this almost professional feeling about them. The pictures certainly did. Those were the ones I liked to find and read all while looking over my shoulders every few minutes in case my parents got up and found me.
Likely the type of contest Jackie wanted to go to.
In Austin, I recently met with a friend from college named Erica whom I hadn't seen since maybe 2015 when she and her husband came to a show before I left for Cambodia. We hung out and recapped life for a while before she let me read the book she was working on which was fun and autobiographical. Then she told me she learned all these things from various coding classes that applied to the hundreds of books she'd read and the movies she'd watched. She could see patterns in how stories would play out. That is the feeling I got from Love Lies Bleeding. I could see the patterns.
It was like watching underdog authors of my youth (and also now if you know where to go) make a film about a lesbian meeting a female bodybuilder. She's so attracted she can't stand it and ends up in a conversation with her. Either one of them could have started it, but it was probably at an office or a gym. It doesn't take long for the more experienced partner to make a move on someone she so badly wants. The lesbian and female bodybuilder are open to this happening. As they start kissing and pleasing each other, the bodybuilder starts flexing and the lesbian is super into it. Suddenly, the bodybuilder starts growing either in her mind (like this movie) or in real life because she's so into what's happening. Eventually, they take each other to sexual places where neither of them ever thought they could go. It's complete bliss.
Then something violent happens.
I see the pattern. These types of stories always have some sort of adventurous side. There is always something else going on. This film was all about anabolic fantasies, muscle growth, steroids and lust, gun running, and the need to fall in love so hard you will do unspeakable violence to others to keep it. Sometimes it will make you do things like smash James Franco or become a father-killing Goddess. That is Love Lies Bleeding
All of that is what this movie was to me and I enjoyed it. I think you will too if you can handle the violence this thing is steeped with. Lots of punching, head smashing, gun running, and shooting of people who may or may not deserve it. You get to be the judge of who deserves to run off into the sunset in Love Lies Bleeding.