queer double-bill: love lies bleeding and drive-away dolls

Love Lies Bleeding is probably the single coolest queer pulp-thriller since the Wachowskis released Bound back in 1996. Rose Glass’s sophomore feature doesn’t just exude style - it pulses with it, like blood coursing through a swollen bicep vein. Set in the Southwest during the neon swelter of 1989, the story follows Lou (Kristen Stewart), who spends her days overseeing a craphole gym with barely disguised indifference… until the impressively sculpted drifter Jackie (Katy O’Brian) fatefully arrives in town and strikes romantic sparks with her. An aspiring bodybuilder, she’s looking for a place to train in anticipation of a major Vegas competition… and takes a job waitressing at the gun range owned by Lou’s estranged father (a wildly reptilian Ed Harris, looking an awful lot like the geckos sunning themselves on the New Mexico rocks).​

The crime-thriller elements are a tad disappointing in their familiarity. Lou’s father is a local crime kingpin and her brother-in-law JJ (Dave Franco) is an oily twerp with a porn mustache and ponytailed mullet (the film all but roils with male odiousness). When things take a dark turn and quickly go from bad to worse, the story beats reside comfortably within the film’s neo-noir pocket. It hardly matters though, as Love Lies Bleeding is the cinematic equivalent of molten steel; its radiance is white-hot. K-Stew truthers have known for years that the erstwhile Twilight starlet is one of the most talented actresses of her generation, but O’Brian is the real revelation here. With her brontosaurus thighs, vascular physique, midriff-baring tank tops, and frizzled hairstyle, she’s like a comic book superhero crossed with an 80s aerobics instructor… but there’s also a sensuality to her performance - particularly around the eyes - that’s disarming. She pops on-screen in a way that feels utterly inimitable - I don't know where exactly she goes after this movie, but someone in Hollywood better figure something out fast (thankfully, she’s already landed a role in the next Mission: Impossible). As a director, Glass understands the undercurrents of bodybuilder culture, infusing it with a mutant strain of body horror DNA. Lou hooks Jackie up with steroids, and we watch as her muscles ripple and expand to Hulk-like dimensions. At its best, the end result is a sultry and violently fanged, synth-fueled head trip that’s dope as fuck. Near the end, Glass takes a massive creative swing into magical realism and frankly not everyone will be willing to ride with it, but in its own way, it makes perfect sense - sometimes love is so great, it’s almost too big for the world to contain.

Margaret Qualley has been flirting with major stardom for several years now (those who saw her in the Netflix limited series Maid might argue she’s already there). In Drive-Away Dolls, she chews on an oversized Texas twang slathered thick with Southern molasses. The choice is mildly grating and yet - paradoxically - it validates her loopy fearlessness as a performer. She plays Jamie, a lesbian whose life is one of those cheeky hurricanes of personal drama, who decides to tag along with her buttoned-up best friend Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) on a road trip to Tallahassee. The two of them sign up for a drive-away service (run by Bill Camp - instantly the best thing in the movie), but a comedic misunderstanding results in them driving off in the wrong vehicle… one that contains a certain briefcase containing certain items that a certain group of unsavory customers want back pronto. ​

Drive-Away Dolls has a certain puppy dog charm, but it evokes the strained quirkiness of far too many indie comedies from the 90s. If anything, it feels like a Coen Brothers movie that’s tonally out-of-joint… which makes sense, since it was - in fact - directed by a single Coen Brother. While Joel is off trafficking in Shakespearean moroseness, Ethan, it would seem, is intent on extracting the idiosyncratic marrow from their prior filmography and distilling it into its most concentrated form. Both well into their 60s now, and having made eighteen features together, an artistic reconciliation is - perhaps - not altogether necessary… but the evidence already feels incontrovertible that the duo balanced each other out creatively. Barely 80 minutes in length, the plot of Drive-Away Dolls feels entirely beside the point; its narrative noodling is a far cry from the finely calibrated, genre-splicing crime comedies the Coens once specialized in. It’s a good thing Qualley and Viswanathan have such a genuinely oddball rapport… they’re almost like a Vaudeville duo - Jamie, slouched and uninhibited, and Marian, repressed to the point of social paralysis (she reads Henry James to unwind). But the movie is much better off when it’s reveling in the natural tension of their mismatched buddy chemistry… as soon as it pushes them into romantic territory, the alchemy falters. The film is so slight, a modest breeze could blow it away. Eventually we do learn of the very specific cargo the girls are transporting and it’s a prankish payoff, but then again - maybe we were all better off *not* knowing what was in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction.