Love Lies Bleeding starts off as a relatively conventional romance: two girls meet, fall in love, and get sucked into a world of drugs and violent crime. (Okay, maybe it’s not that conventional.) As the story goes on, though, it gets increasingly fantastical, with some events that leave you wondering if you’ve just witnessed a fever dream. And then there’s that ending!
What does it all mean? Let’s break down the end of Love Lies Bleeding.
Warning: massive spoilers for Love Lies Bleeding ahead!
Jackie learns her own strength
Jackie (Katy O’Brian) tells Lou (Kristen Stewart) that she became a bodybuilder as a way of exploring her own strength. She also tells Lou Sr. (Ed Harris) that she doesn’t like guns, and prefers to rely on the strength of her own body instead. It’s a powerful statement, and it sets up a theme that we see throughout the movie.
When Jackie finally gets to the bodybuilding competition in Vegas, she’s strung out and exhausted. Why? Because she’s become dependent on the steroids that Lou is giving her in order to bulk up. She and Lou think that the drugs will enhance her strength, but as we see during her solo routine during the competition, they do the exact opposite.
While performing, Jackie is plagued by disturbing visions of a larval Lou coming out of her mouth, and the people around her turning into monsters. At first, it looks like she might actually eke her way through her routine, but it all falls apart when she runs back stage and starts punching one of her opponents. Soon, Jackie is arrested and booked, her dreams of winning the competition going up in smoke.
When Lou Sr. bails her out, he gives her a mission: kill Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov), who knows that Lou and Jackie killed J.J. (Dave Franco) and hid his body. In a scene potent with symbolism, Jackie does the job with a gun—wholly giving her strength over to Lou Sr.
In the end, though, Jackie learns to rely on her own strength again. After Lou Sr. kidnaps Jackie and Lou comes to save her, Jackie grows to the size of a house. She pins Lou Sr. down while Lou threatens to shoot him, and she and Lou are able to flee.
Does Jackie actually turn into a giant?
Some of the fantastical parts of the movie, like Lou and Jackie running through the clouds in sequined leotards, are obviously symbolic. Others, like Jackie’s breakdown onstage, can be chalked up to hallucinations. But what about Jackie hulking out? Does Jackie really turn into a giant? If that moment is symbolic, too, then how do she and Lou escape?
Eh. Don’t worry about it. It’s not clear, and it doesn’t have to be. It’s a beautiful, funny, powerful moment, and we can let it just be that.
Lou severs her ties for good
Throughout the movie, we see Lou’s lower-middle-class life: a small apartment, a job in a gym, a father who runs a shooting range (when he’s not illegally exporting weapons, that is). But then we see Lou’s childhood home.
Lou Sr. lives in a mansion, and we see Lou and Beth’s (Jena Malone) childhood bedroom. We see how much material comfort Lou has given up by rejecting her father’s crime syndicate—and, tellingly, we see that despite the giant house, Lou and Beth used to share a bedroom. Did Lou Sr. stuff them both in there to keep the rest of the space to himself? Or is it a testament to the bond they used to share?
In any case, Lou find Beth in the bedroom, and confronts her about the fact that if J.J. hadn’t been killed, he would have eventually murdered Beth. Then Beth says something stunning to Lou: she claims that Lou doesn’t know what real love is.
There’s a lot to unpack in that line. Beth refuses to admit that J.J. was an abuser, even after he put her in the hospital. However, Lou and Jackie aren’t in a great place themselves, with Lou having given Jackie the drugs that sent her into a violent spiral. In Love Lies Bleeding, love and violence are tightly intertwined, and the moment Beth rejects Lou is the moment that Lou gives up on her. All throughout the movie, Lou has been staying in her hometown to protect Beth, but now she decides to cut ties.
What happened to Lou’s mom?
A quick note on Lou’s mother, who’s been missing for years. Lou finally confronts her father, accusing him of killing her, and Lou Sr. replies that she left to get away from her family. So what’s the truth?
It’s meant to be ambiguous, but my money is on Lou Sr. having killed her. I mean, come on. Even the FBI can’t find her? Her skeleton is definitely at the bottom of that ravine.
Lou and Jackie escape
At the very end of the movie, Lou and Jackie take off across the desert in Lou’s pickup truck. (Did anyone else feel like there was a nod to Thelma and Louise in that shot of their truck driving down the highway?) As they drive, though, Lou notices a problem in the back: Daisy is still alive.
Remember that Lou has rejected her old life as an assassin for her father. She’s not the one who killed J.J. Lou’s done with murder.
Except. Well. Look, Daisy is mostly dead anyway. When Lou pulls over and chokes Daisy to death, she’s just … finishing the job. Right?
Hmm. The moment marks one final turn for Lou. She couldn’t bring herself to kill her father, but here, in the desert, where the evidence can be easily hidden, she shows that she’s more okay with murder than she thinks. As a final flourish, she reaches into Daisy’s purse to get out one of her cigarettes—an act she couldn’t stomach with J.J.’s body. So much for quitting.
Notice that she protects Jackie, though. Jackie’s asleep in the car, and Lou doesn’t bother to wake her. Lou has tried to protect Jackie throughout the entire film, getting rid of J.J.’s body and insisting to Jackie that she only shot Daisy because Lou Sr. forced her to do it. Now she continues to protect her by shielding her from the knowledge of what she’s done to keep them both safe.
And honestly? That might be one of the purest expressions of love in the whole film.
Love Lies Bleeding is now playing in theaters.
(featured image: A24)
