Explaining the completely bizarre and violent ending of Love Lies Bleeding

The second film from director Rose Glass following the huge commercial and critical success of her excellent debut Saint Maud takes the filmmaker to the gritty pulp of 1980s Southwest USA, and to say Love Lies Bleeding is a complete departure from her debut is an understatement if ever there was one. Love Lies Bleeding is a wild blast of a film, but just when you’ve got a grip on it it throws you completely in the ending, so here’s a summary explained for those who left the screening thinking: WTF.

So, Love Lies Bleeding. The basics. Kristen Stewart stars as Lou, a lesbian gym owner whose sister Beth (Jena Malone) is an abusive relationship with her husband JJ (Dave Franco). The whole family’s life is upended by the arrival of Jackie (Katy O’Brian) a bodybuilder who begins a romantic relationship with Lou and who starts using steroids to get bigger for a looming competition in Las Vegas. Soon, the bodies begin piling up as Jackie’s rage and desire to help Lou fix her family and their violent troubles, including Ed Harris as Lou Sr – a violent, bug eating gangster who owns a shooting rage all intertwine and a caper of coverups and increasingly brutal violence begins. But what the hell happens at the end?

Love Lies Bleeding: The ending explained

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All the way through the film, Jackie whilst using steroids has been experiencing body horror tinged increases to her mass that feel abnormal – and by the end this all comes in to wreak havoc. Having used Jackie as a pawn to shoot Daisy, Lou’s stalker, Lou Sr plans to frame Jackie for the murders in the film so that he and his daughter can evade the FBI. Lou is not best happy about this, so storms Lou Sr’s mansion like it’s a Grand Theft Auto mission to kill him and end his criminal reign of terror whilst also saving Jackie and for the two of them to go on the run Thelma and Louise style.

But it all gets a bit weird. Just as Lou and her dad are in the climax of their fight, Jackie morphs full on Hulk style into a huge figure who pins Lou Sr down like a little bug! It is pretty wild, full on sci-fi twist of chaos and the visuals look spectacular – a complete foray into surrealism. Jackie holds Lou Sr down and Lou pauses and doesn’t shoot him, allowing the arriving FBI to take  him for his crimes.

Jackie and Lou then run through what looks like sparkly clouds, and drive off into the sunset – but not before the previously shot Daisy starts to wake up and Lou drags her out the car to strangle her to death and finish the job as the credits roll. Right. But did all this actually happen in the ending of Love Lies Bleeding – the director has never explained!

This is a surrealist ending where the audience can make their own conclusions if these weird events actually happened or if they’re just figments of the delusional and increasingly violent Lou and Jackie, whose relationship enters new heights of delirium by the end. What a whirlwind

Love Lies Bleeding is in cinemas Friday. For all the latest Netflix drops and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.

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