All vibes, no vibrators. A rejoinder to the current sense of prudery in the contemporary multiplex, Love Lies Bleeding's admirably audacious third act was simply too out there for me to go with. After initially setting up a bunch of neo-noir tropes (including a bizarre-looking Ed Harris who risks a copyright lawsuit from David Lynch), the screenplay coasts for a bit in the middle before falling down the Freudian ravine in the desert. Where was the banging soundtrack from the trailer? Above all, I was looking forward throughout this movie to a needle-smash of Smalltown Boy, but all I got was an alienating GTS fetish Doctor Manhattan.
The cool of the film’s construction stands in poor contrast to the thin formula of its narrative. In a strange way, Love Lives Bleeding might play better if it was more plain; as is, the film stokes anticipation for a true and daring vision that it fails to deliver.
— Richard Lawson (Vanity Fair)
Glass nods to a film that relies on similar material but achieves far more with it—the first-generation noir classic Bigger Than Life, from 1956, which has the distinction of being, in effect, a primordial ’roid-rage movie. Directed by Nicholas Ray [the] movie stars James Mason as a schoolteacher named Ed who is given a diagnosis of a vascular disease that would likely be fatal were it not for a new “miracle drug,” cortisone. But the medicine has side effects, and Ed experiences grandiose delusions that ultimately make him violent. Ray symbolizes this derangement with startling images, at one point using forced perspective to make Ed appear taller than a school building.
— Richard Brody (The New Yorker)
Synopsis: Reclusive gym manager Lou falls hard for Jackie, an ambitious bodybuilder headed through town to Las Vegas in pursuit of her dream. But their love ignites violence, pulling them deep into the web of Lou’s criminal family.