Bodybuilding and Body Horror
Love Lies Bleeding (2024) is a queer romance thriller that's also a critical lens on 1980s bodybuilding and gym culture. The film checks all the boxes for me: a narrative involving fitness culture, excellent cinematic aesthetics, a synth-laden score, dark humor and body horror.
It’s just the second feature length film by director and screenwriter Rose Glass, however she’s already established herself among other prominent filmmakers like Julia Ducournau and David Cronenberg.
Glass wrote a great screenplay, and clearly has a knack for cerebral visual storytelling. As a director, she’s been lauded by her cast who each give tour de force performances. Kristen Stewart is dynamic in her role as a protagonist trying to hold things together and protect the ones she loves, while her own life and the lives of others drastically unravel. Katy O’Brian was a brilliant choice to play the role of a struggling, yet ambitious bodybuilder. And veteran actor Ed Harris –who despite four Academy Award nominations, I feel is severely underrated– plays an incredibly disturbing antagonist.
The film’s climactic arc is a result of Jackie’s (played by O’Brian) descent into steroid addiction, which makes her increasingly violent and emotionally volatile. Love Lies Bleeding takes a few liberties in exaggerating the fitness scene of the 1980s, but the symbolism and portrayal of gym culture through the mode of body horror is an apt commentary on the body-politics of fitness.
The odds are stacked against Jackie’s mission to be a champion bodybuilder. Furthermore, she faces scrutiny from her male counterparts in the gym. While preparing for the role, O’Brian, who actually has competed in bodybuilding events, discovered how hard it was to find archival material for women’s bodybuilding. For example, it was far more difficult for her to find the 1985 film Pumping Iron II: The Women, than it was to view the original documentary film Pumping Iron.
The 1980s were the tail-end of the Golden Era of bodybuilding. It was a period of time when Mr. Olympia competitors like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno and Ronnie Coleman became household names. The female equivalent, Ms. Olympia, began in 1980, fifteen years after Mr. Olympia was founded. Initially, women’s bodybuilding competitions contrasted the men’s circuit. Women were leaner and had a more mainstream model look. The prototypical figure of that era was Rachel McLish, whose physique and fitness fashion sense seemingly inspired the look of Jackie’s character.
Jackie is determined to make a name for herself in the fitness industry, but things go awry. We’re given the impression she had a dark past; and her ongoing steroid-fueled training sessions leave her in a state of manic euphoria, which can quickly turn violent. Her relationship with Lou (Kristen Stewart), a gym manager, steroid dealer and estranged daughter of a criminal kingpin (Ed Harris) ebbs and flows due to the fiery (and oft-bloody) chain of events that threaten to upend the couple’s lives.
While it’s certainly over-dramatized, the film’s humanizing exploration of self-image and interpersonal relationships is very effective. On the surface, these characters look and present themselves a certain way, and it’s easy to write them off as stereotypes. Lou’s working a demoralizing job as a gym manager and selling performance enhancing drugs to the gym’s clientele. She’s also consumed with supporting her struggling sister. Moreover, she’s living in a dead-end town, and seems destined for a life of alienation until she meets Jackie; who is temporarily homeless and carries an enormous amount of personal baggage. Although Jackie is muscle-bound and physically strong, Lou is almost exclusively carrying the heavy burden by fervently taking on the responsibility of mending things for herself and those she cares about.
The underlying theme of people being overcome with passion and pushing themselves to the brink in love, labor and life itself; makes Love Lies Bleeding a fast, furious and fabulous movie to watch.
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