Love Lies Bleeding Ending, Defined

Abstract

• Love Lies Bleeding is a daring indie breakout with a seductive and thrilling storyline that retains viewers engaged.
• The surprising ending, with Jackie’s monstrous development, cleverly foreshadows Jackie’s character arc and themes of self-acceptance.
• The polarizing conclusion is a brilliantly symbolic illustration of affection, self-acceptance, and the harmful path of the characters.

Love Lies Bleeding is rapidly proving itself some of the audacious indie breakouts of 2024, and for good motive. It is the form of pulpy, thrilling, and seductive delight that moviegoers solely get a number of instances a 12 months in the event that they’re fortunate. Director Rose Glass broke out again in 2021 with the haunting Saint Maud, wherein she demonstrated a eager eye for disturbing imagery that was unimaginable to look away from, and now, she’s topped herself together with her sophomore outing.

The most important level of debate amongst viewers proper now could be the ending, wherein a comparatively grounded story takes a tough left flip into weird, symbolic territory. For some, the conclusion is an ideal encapsulation of the movie’s beforehand established themes; for others, it is too drastic a departure from what appeared initially like a considerably believable plot. We’re looking on the climactic turns that Love Lies Bleeding takes, what all of it means, and the way intently in line it’s with the remainder of the movie.

What Occurs to Lou and Jackie?

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The central stress in Love Lies Bleeding lies within the relationship between fitness center supervisor Lou (Kristen Stewart, in considered one of her greatest roles) and aspiring bodybuilder Jackie (Katy O’Brian), and the lethal path their romance takes them down. Bother begins when Lou discovers that her brother-in-law JJ (Dave Franco) bodily abused her sister Beth (Jena Malone) to the purpose of hospitalization, and he or she angrily vents to Jackie that she needs revenge. Jackie, risky because of elevated steroid use, breaks into JJ’s home and brutally beats him to loss of life till his jaw is severed.

Lou dumps JJ’s physique in a canyon and units it on fireplace, taking the chance to border her father Lou Sr. (Ed Harris), a gangster who typically makes use of the canyon to eliminate his rival’s our bodies. Issues solely worsen when Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov), a neighborhood lady with a crush on Lou, notices her driving JJ’s automotive, and he or she makes use of this to blackmail her right into a relationship. In the meantime, Lou Sr. threatens Jackie into killing Daisy to remove a witness, which she does.

Lou Sr., now not having any use for Jackie, plans to get her jailed on a murder cost. Nonetheless, when Lou learns about this, she breaks into her father’s manor, killing his guards alongside the best way, and saves her girlfriend. Then, in some of the surprising twists of the previous couple of years, Jackie grows to a gargantuan dimension because of her steroid use and is in the end the one to defeat Lou Sr. She and Lou then escape from the scene and go away city with the cops in pursuit.

In one other shock, as Lou and Jackie (now again at her common bodily proportions) head off elsewhere, the ultimate scene reveals that Daisy has miraculously survived her gunshot wound, forcing Lou to strangle her behind the truck. The closing moments refuse to glamorize the killing, and the final moments of the movie depict Lou silently dumping Daisy’s physique in a close-by area.

What Does It All Imply?

Regardless of seemingly popping out of nowhere, Jackie’s development to monstrous proportions is definitely cleverly foreshadowed all through the primary two acts. Each time we see Jackie taking steroids, her use is proven to have a refined however notable bodily impact; early on, as she makes like to Lou, we see her muscle groups and veins beginning to bulge. And as we see with JJ’s brutal loss of life, the steroid use additionally places Jackie in a extra violent temper. As she stands over JJ’s physique, there’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it second the place Jackie appears to be inhumanly tall. All of this cleverly units the stage for her Cronenbergian transformation within the finale.

However to suggest what this implies thematically, we now have to have a look at Jackie’s central character arc. She constructed herself up as a bodybuilder within the first place to show these in her life who doubted her flawed, and her remaining transformation, manifested by way of a necessity to avoid wasting Lou from getting killed by her father, demonstrates a wierd type of self-acceptance. As director Rose Glass defined, “I like the thought of Jackie being somebody who feels invisible however aspired to create herself into this godlike determine, so we took it actually.”

It additionally represents an illustration of how Lou sees Jackie, as a form of bodily good goddess that she will’t assist however lust for. Since we are able to surmise that the large Jackie’s manifestation is proven from Lou’s standpoint, it additionally hints at Lou’s considerably myopic perspective, which proves essential for the ultimate scene. From the primary time we meet her, Lou is decided to distance herself from her felony father, satisfied that she is not able to being the form of monster he’s, and her romance with Jackie initially appears proof of this.

However whereas this ending looks like an illustration that “love conquers all,” it is truly a deconstruction of this concept. Lou could be extra like her father than she needs to confess, as she and Jackie have killed a number of individuals to flee her father’s attain. The movie’s remaining moments, displaying Lou silently strangling Daisy, remind us of how lethal her journey has actually been, and the way she and Jackie may very well be good for one another, as they’re equally prepared to kill for the one they love.

A Polarizing However Sensible Conclusion

As polarizing because it’s already confirmed itself, the ending of Love Lies Bleeding is sensible. For the reason that movie from the start already had a barely surrealistic bent, it feels much less like a cheat than a fantastically symbolic distillation of the story’s themes of self-acceptance and love. However what’s extra sensible is how Glass, equally to what she did in the haunting ending to Saint Maud, permits us a subjective glimpse of what Lou’s lust for Jackie means to her, earlier than snapping us again to actuality and displaying us extra objectively the trail of destruction that their love has led to.