If I had been told, back when those movies were new, that I would one day think very highly of the acting abilities of two of the stars of the Twilight franchise, I would have thought anyone who said as much was nuts. But two things have happened in more recent years. First, I mellowed out a bit on Twilight. I don’t think they’re good movies or anything, but I likewise don’t think they are the worst thing ever, and I shouldn’t be too judgmental of people who do like them. As for the other thing, it turned out both Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are actually pretty good actors. They just didn’t have the right material to suit their talents in those movies. Both have since impressed me in other movies.
As for Taylor Lautner, well, there’s still time. In the meantime, I opted to check out Stewart’s latest, the lesbian crime thriller romance Love Lies Bleeding.
The year is 1989. Lou Jr. (Stewart) is a lesbian who works in what looks like a low-rent gym. One night, she sees aspiring bodybuilder Jackie (Katy O’Brian) working out, and the two hit it off. Jackie has been hitchhiking herself from her home in Oklahoma to compete in a bodybuilding competition in Las Vegas, but she just got a job as a waitress at a gun range run by Lou Jr’s father, Lou Sr. (Ed Harris with ridiculous hair). Lou Jr supposedly sticks around to keep an eye on her sister Beth (Jena Malone) who is in an abusive relationship with J.J. (Dave Franco, also with ridiculous hair). J.J. had, in exchange for sex, gotten Jackie that job just before she met Lou Jr. But Jackie doesn’t know what Lou Jr. knows about her father: he’s basically a local crime boss, and the FBI is looking into him.
However, while Lou Jr won’t do anything about J.J., others might. It doesn’t help that Lou Jr introduced Jackie to steroids, with all the expected side effects of those drugs. Meanwhile, Lou Jr. and Jackie are starting to fall in love, but between J.J. and the persistent wannabe lover for Lou, Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov), it may be very difficult for the pair to get what they want without some violence. Sure, they have dreams of moving out of town and finding happiness somewhere, but Lou’s past and Jackie’s future are both pretty big obstacles for the pair of lovers just trying to find a place for themselves in the world.
I wasn’t originally going to see this movie. I saw it on my AMC app and didn’t know what it was. The genre listed was “romance,” not generally my thing, and I figured I’d skip it. Then I learned a bit more about the movie and found out it was probably more of a crime thriller in the vein of Bound or something along those lines. For the most part, the movie is very much that. There are some nice bits of dark humor here and there, and what violence is on display is usually fairly minor. Stewart, O’Brian, and Harris are all in top form, and Dave Franco is about as slimy a human being as it is possible to be. I don’t think there are too many surprising twists, aside from Baryshnikov’s Daisy’s ability to always pop up at the worst possible time. This movie should more or less be my thing.
That said, what reviews I did come across all said the same thing: something happens near the end of the movie, and your ability to roll with that thing will probably determine if you ultimately enjoy the movie. What I heard was this incident is the sort of thing that can knock you right out of the movie. And let me tell you: this moment is completely out of left field, you will know it when you see it, and yes, in my case, it did knock me out of the movie. I can put up with a lot, but this moment killed my suspension of disbelief, and what started off as a fairly promising movie ended up being something else entirely.
Grade: C
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