Kristen Stewart Stars In Queer Thriller Love Lies Bleeding

Kristen Stewart’s latest film will see her star in queer romantic thriller, Love Lies Bleeding, taking on the role of “the protective lover of a female bodybuilder”.

Directed by Rose Glass from a screenplay she co-wrote with Weronika Tofilska, Love Lies Bleeding is a co-production between A24 and Film4 Productions and follows a reclusive gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) who falls for Jackie (Katy O’Brian), a bisexual bodybuilder in pursuit of her dream. 

The movie is set in the late 1980s and sees O’Brian’s character relocating from Oklahoma to a rural town in Nevada, where they become deeply enamoured with Stewart’s character. 

Dark Artistry 

Glass made her directorial debut with horror movie ‘Saint Maud’, a film about a devout nurse whose fixation on saving the soul of her terminally ill patient takes a perilous turn.

Saint Maud debuted at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival and was subsequently acquired by A24. Glass earned two nominations for Saint Maud – one for Outstanding British Film of the Year and another for Outstanding Debut by a British writer, director, and producer.

Glass also secured the Douglas Hickox Award for Best Debut Director at the British Independent Film Awards, along with accolades for British/Irish Film of the Year and Breakthrough British/Irish Filmmaker of the Year at the London Film Critics Circle Awards.

Sundance 2024 

Love Lies Bleeding was unveiled as a selection in the Sundance 2024 line-up.

Sundance’s website describes Love Lies Bleeding as a “bombastic, larger-than-life sophomore effort” from Glass. The festival’s website characterises the storyline as an “off-the-wall, rambunctious lesbian love story crashes into a family drama of the darkest ilk in this muscular thriller”. 

“As a small-town gym and a ravine just outside city limits become the playground for all flavours of mischief and mayhem, a heightened Americana sensibility and Glass’ deliciously distinctive, bold style create a world that is at once familiar and entirely fresh”

“Helmed by Sundance regular Kristen Stewart (Speak, Adventureland, Certain Women) and Katy M. O’Brian, Love Lies Bleeding is somehow as sweetly romantic about loyalty as it is doggedly hedonistic. With a vaulting imagination and its roots in deeply human places, this film packs a gut punch unlike any other”, it states. 

Love It/Hate It

During a test screening earlier this year, World of Reel received a report that the audience had “visceral” responses to the content.

One reviewer described their reaction to the film, writing, “Test screened in NYC tonight. Audience was having visceral reactions to the gore, blood and puking throughout. Has a strange ending that will make this a love it or hate it type movie. “Pain & Gain” for indie lesbians. Ed Harris is great and Katy O’Brian as well.“ 

Ed Harris and Dave Franco also join the cast of Love Lies Bleeding, which is described as “a romantic thriller set in the bodybuilding realm, exploring themes of romance, ego, desire, and the pursuit of the American Dream.”