It's 1989 and Lou is working a gym manager. She belongs a crime family with Lou Sr being the patriarch. She loves her sister Beth who has abusive husband JJ, whom Lou loathes. Beth remains blindly faithful to her abuser while Lou hates that JJ isn't paying for his crime. Meanwhile, a bodybuilder Jackie joins the gym and both Lou - Jackie fall for each other. Their steamy love story quickly is challenged with Beth's attack, followed up with a murder. What this path of crime has in store for the lovers, forms rest of the story.

Love Lies Bleeding definitely started off very well with introduction to Lou and her life, with the gym taking most of her time and she has quit drugs as well as smoking. As we get a glimpse at her family, enters the mysterious Jackie. What drugs and sex does to the duo, the narrative slows down in the second act and I did fear it was getting all too predictable. Thankfully the final act started to save itself with Lou and Jackie's relationship getting shaky. These weren't the couple to get an happy ending and once that is established, Rose Glass and Weronika Tofilska throw their trump card at the viewers. That one scene simply did the trick, breaking the normalcy and that is exactly what the film needed.

In the southwest in the late 1980s, a young female bodybuilder finds a new home in a small town. She comes across a young female employee at a gym whom she quickly connects with, but who turns out to be at odds with her family, a hive of degenerates. Their romance ends up being intertwined in a web of crime.

Kristen Stewart is quite good in this as the black sheep of the family and a determined rebel. Katy O'Brian turns out to be the unexpected life blood of this film. Her performance is so multidimensional that the film just wouldn't be as good without her. She conveys curiosity, fear, rage and ultimately ecstasy in the arms of her newfound muse. Her discovery of steroids adds a nice bonus, but it's possible this plot thread merely unleashed a fierce beast that was always there and never had a escape valve. Dave Franco is well-deployed in a brief but seething role as a scummy hooligan. Ed Harris is effectively cold-hearted as the local kingpin who seemingly owns everything in the town and has local law enforcement in his back pocket to cover up his dirty tracks.

Although profoundly gripping and impossible to tune out, this is definitely not for squeamish viewers. The violence here is quite ferocious. The tension is at times a turbo-charged level. It's been a while since a film filled me with some of that old school dread as it drew toward its climax. The soundtrack often lean on soothing New Wave beats, as if to provide some relief from the devilish storyline. At times disturbing, other times intensely atmospheric, this film offers an escape from mainstream fare. Through it all, the ending feels hard-earned and cathartic. Highly recommended to those like edgy filmmaking.

In this fun queer romp with elements of fantasy and road movie classics that I won't insult you by naming we get under the skin of a typically world weary Kristen Stewart (a grimy dead end gym employee called Lou) and Katy O'Brian as Jackie, a passing through drifter that's proud owner of a hugely ripped body. She's en-route to a muscles competition in Las Vegas. And she's really rather beautiful.

The two fall in love whilst carnage plays out in their lives. Wife beating, drug dealing, revenge killings, and so on mean that the movie is peered with sub-Tarantino violence, some black humour, some meta moments and the possibility of Jackie turning green.

It's not A24's greatest film and it's not Kristen Stewarts, but that doesn't mean it's not good. It is.

It's beautifully shot with quite a dark grading and it's hot and sweaty throughout reflecting the grime of where they live in middle America (it's actually filmed in New Mexico).

A24 (along with Film 4 here in the UK) make challenging, arty, but approachable films, this is another of them. It might not hit the heights of Mia Goth's movies but it's fine fare.

The whole queer aspect of the movie could be its raison detre but I liked how it was just there, not flag flying, not political. It added great value to the movie.

The scene where Kristen Stewart is regurgitated/birthed by mouth is particularly amusing and noteworthy.

Kristen Stewart has to be applauded, not just for this but for most of her work which has moved her a million miles from Twilight (Kerching , job done) She is a very fine actor and should be building a war chest of Oscars. Not for this one. But I thought her Diana was extraordinary.