Lou (Kristen Stewart) runs a run-down gym in a remote town in New Mexico. Her seedy routine changes when Jackie (Katy O'Brian), a bodybuilder who wants to get to Las Vegas to compete in a competition, arrives to train. A burning passion is born between the two. But the two women will have to deal with Beth (Jena Malone), Lou's sister, and her violent husband J. J. (Dave Franco) and above all with the father of the two girls; Lou Sr. (Ed Harris). 

Love lies bleeding, Rose Glass's second feature film, is a completely different film from the previous Saint Maude.<1 >

As much as the first one was immersed in an autumnal atmosphere, dominated by the grayness of a sad English coastal town, as much as this one is an ultrapop saraband.

Rose Glass boldly mixes different genres together in one film which drips with 80s atmospheres.

It comes naturally to ask ourselves, when faced with two works so different from each other, what the director's true style is.

The suspicion we have is that in the new film The production by A24 weighs, perhaps excessively.

The final result in fact seems to respond more to the indie aesthetic built film after film by the production company than to that of Rose Glass' previous work.

The most immediate reference are some titles, the most grotesque and excessive ones, by the Coen Brothers.

We find ourselves once again in a squalid American province with a story that, as it progresses , piles up corpse after corpse.

From his Rose Glass he nails a practically perfect cast.

Kristen Stewart's painful thinness contrasts with Katy O'Brian's statuesque physique in a tailor-made role on his muscles.

But all the supporting actors are also spot on, starting from the slimy hair of Ed Harris as always extraordinary.

Against this background Rose Glass builds a film that continually changes skin and in which churns out ideas in a continuous stream without worrying too much about the sense of proportion.

The memories/nightmares dominated by Lou's red color leave room for the explosions of violence of the various deaths; steroids abound, the details of the muscles that twitch and swell but also the consequences on Jackie's mind, increasingly unable to control himself, prey to violent outbursts of uncontrollable anger and moments of total absence.

The fluids corporeal figures dominate the film; the sweat from the gym, Beth's swollen face, the filthy toilet overflowing with disgusting sewage in which Lou is immersed at the beginning of the film and Jackie's vomit on stage.

A wild ride set in 1989, among neon lights and synthesizers, between the dark nights of the desert and the colorful inserts that dot a film designed specifically to shock and amaze the viewer.

Until the apotheosis of an absolutely delirious pre-final with an invention so grotesque that it leaves one speechless or enthusiastic as the case may be.

However, despite the perfect mastery of the pace, the cast, the mixture of genres and the abundance of gimmicks that would be the envy of most films, in the end <6 >Love lies bleeding does not differ much from similar titles (in addition to the Coens, the recent Everything everywhere all at once comes to mind) with the risk that in this colorful saraband that original imprint is lost Rose Glass had shown in her debut.

As they say in these cases...we'll see.