Ahead of the film's world premiere at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival, A24 has shared the first official poster for Saint Maud director Rose Glass’s new romantic revenge thriller, Love Lies Bleeding, with the first trailer set to debut online at some point tomorrow.
The provocative one-sheet features Katy O’Brian, who played Jentorra in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and the duplicitous Elia Kane in The Mandalorian, as a gun-wielding Jackie, who is "an ambitious bodybuilder headed through town to Las Vegas in pursuit of her dream." There, she encounters Kristen Stewart's (Underwater, Charlie's Angels) character, Lou, who is described as a "reclusive gym manager."
The two embark on a relationship, but their “romance fuelled by ego, desire and the American Dream” soon leads to bloodshed.
Plot details are a little sketchy beyond this, but O'Brian did hint that the movie may be hiding a horror twist during a recent interview with Collider.
"In the original script, there were a lot of Saint Maud kind of moments. Like body horror, that kind of thing. We kind of had to consolidate it I guess a little bit more. I’m really excited to see what the final edit looks like, but I think it’s more focused on the love story and more focused on the thriller aspect. So it’s a love thriller, kind of Western. It’s shot like a Western. It’s so unique, so interesting, and only Rose’s brain could have come up with it. She’s got this unparalleled imagination.
[She] has, I think, a really, really unique sense of storytelling. [She] comes up with stories that just aren’t told, or if they are, are told in a really, really unique way. It was really great to work with her and getting to do a film like that where it’s not all about action, it’s not all about kicking butt, or whatever. It’s like a really heart wrenching story and I actually felt like I got to connect to a character more than I ever have before. One second you’re crying, you’re laughing. I think it’s just a really full fledged beautiful story and I’m super, super excited for people to see it."
O'Brian also spoke about getting the opportunity to work with Stewart.
"Kristen, when you get to work with someone who is — I mean, she’s been in the industry forever. She’s been in some of the biggest movies in the world. She’s been around forever and to see that, A, she’s still passionate about projects. I love that. I love to see people who’ve been in this business forever, it hasn’t crushed them completely, and they’re super passionate about what they’re doing. She’s taking other steps, producing projects, she’s branching out on other projects, working on writing stuff, things like that. So to see that is really great, and then to see that she’s super supportive, just a great person to be in the room with. She’s not — I don’t want to make this sound like a bad thing. She’s not intimidating. She makes herself very down to earth and easy to talk to. And especially for a movie like this where you have to be very intimate with somebody and it can be uncomfortable, awkward, weird, whatever, she’s very disarming and it makes it just a walk in the park."
Have a look at the poster at the link below, and check back tomorrow for the trailer.
“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.”