Love Lies Bleeding [Blu-ray]

Lou & Jackie Against the World

Cinematic crime couples have come in many forms, ranging from Bonnie & Clyde and Badlands to Thelma & Louise. But there has never been a pair quite like Lou and Jackie—Lou with her self-chopped hair, cut-off t-shirts, deep secrets, and bottled-up, introverted energy, and Jackie with her sparkly bikinis, curvy muscles,

and sweet-naivete-turned-terrifying-killer instinct. They might turn out to be an explosive match, but they are also swept up with being wildly in love.

The Visual World

Set in a Western landscape long mythologized for its harsh, sinister beauty, Rose Glass (director) comes at America with her own visual panache. Her 1980s New Mexico is spiky and sordid, with an atmosphere so heightened you can taste the putrescence and smell the perspiration. But even as the film is redolent with all the ways a small, mean town can choke off your dreams, it also explodes into surreal moments of shock, bliss, and the sublime.

The 80s Fashion

The landscape of Love Lies Bleeding further extends to the clothing and hairstyles, each becoming maps to the characters’ personas. Costume designer Olga Mill, known for her work on Ari Aster’s Hereditary and Paul Schrader’s First Reformed, started by keying into the seamier side of the ’80s. Mill notes, “People have an idea of the ’80s that tends to be really glossy, but Rose and I talked about doing something more real, while also honouring the fantastical elements of the script.”