For Me, The Most Shocking Part Of Love Lies Bleeding's Ending Isn't Jackie's Transformation

Spoilers are ahead for the ending of Love Lies Bleeding.

Summary Lou and Jackie defy the high death count of Love Lies Bleeding, with both characters surviving the film's harrowing violence.

Love Lies Bleeding deftly avoids the "Bury Your Gays" trope and even allows Lou and Jackie to triumph — in more ways than one.

The ending of Love Lies Bleeding is important for queer cinema as it proves filmmakers can defy long-ingrained expectations and film's long-standing visual and narrative lexicons.

The ending of Love Lies Bleeding shocked me — in a good way — and it wasn't because of Jackie's (Katy O'Brian) surprise transformation. Directed and co-written by Rose Glass (Saint Maud), Love Lies Bleeding straddles several genres. When I first saw the movie, it reminded me of Wild at Heart, David Lynch's 34-year-old romantic crime thriller starring Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern. Rivered with neo-noir elements, Love Lies Bleeding is a psychological romantic thriller at its core, but it also boasts healthy doses of dark comedy and surrealism, especially in its ending.

Leading Love Lies Bleeding's cast of memorable characters is Oscar nominee Kristen Stewart, who plays Lou. The reclusive manager of a small-town gym, Lou meets Jackie, a rising bodybuilder who's headed to Las Vegas for a life-changing competition. Lou and Jackie fall hard for each other, which prompts Jackie to pick up a job at the local gun range. Coincidentally, the range is owned by Lou's criminal father, Lou Sr. (Ed Harris). Encouraged by Lou, Jackie takes steroids that alter her psyche, leading to blood, breaks with reality, and, against all odds, a happy ending for the couple.

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Love Lies Bleeding's Lou & Jackie Both Survive In The End

The Main Characters Defy The Crime Thriller's High Death Count

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I knew going into Love Lies Bleeding that it would be a blend of lust and violence — the pulpy and queer Coen Brothers-type film that Drive-Away Dolls had hoped to become. However, Glass' blunt approach to the shockingly bloody moments in Kristen Stewart's best-reviewed movie surprised me, so I was somewhat worried that Lou or Jackie (or both) wouldn't survive the harrowing journey. As the couple fall deeper in love, Jackie's potent cocktail of passion and steroid-induced rage pushes her to brutally murder J.J. (Dave Franco), Lou's abusive brother-in-law.

The bloodbath causes a rift between Lou and Jackie...

Thanks to her estranged father, Lou knows just where to dump J.J.'s body. Better yet, she starts a signal fire to draw the authorities' attention to Lou Sr.'s long-time desert graveyard. The bloodbath causes a rift between Lou and Jackie, who hitchhikes to Vegas for the bodybuilding competition. While there, Jackie has another violent outburst, culminating in one of Love Lies Bleeding's biggest WTF moments. Eventually, Lou Sr. captures Jackie, eager to pin J.J.'s murder on her, but Lou breaks into her father's mansion to save her lover. Somehow, neither Lou nor Jackie die.

Related Love Lies Bleeding Review: Kristen Stewart Is Better Than Ever In Thrilling Crime Romance With action, crime, and romance mingling and building toward an explosive and engaging finale, the film is a thrilling ride from start to finish.

Despite Being A Crime Thriller, Love Lies Bleeding Avoids The "Bury Your Gays" Trope

Love Lies Bleeding's Queer Relationship Survives All The Way To The Credits

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In Love Lies Bleeding's ending, Lou Sr. shoots his daughter in the leg as she and Jackie flee his compound. Enraged, Jackie transforms into a giant, pins Lou Sr. to the ground, and considers killing him. Ultimately, the gigantic Jackie and Lou bound off into the sunrise. It's an incredibly surreal moment, but I also find the ending weirdly touching and beautifully joyful. In a movie where violence defines characters and shapes the trajectory of the plot, it's staggering that the queer protagonists live. That fact that they stay together is the icing on top, in my opinion.

[The] Hays Code... didn't allow Hollywood films to depict queer people on screen unless they were punished or made wicked.

Even today, Hollywood's "Bury Your Gays" trope dominates movies and TV, thanks in large part to the Hays Code, which didn't allow Hollywood films to depict queer people on screen unless they were punished or made wicked. Although not always intentional, queer characters are often still portrayed as more "expendable," and killed in the wake of finding happiness or demonstrating their queerness in some explicit way. While what happens to Katy O'Brian's Jackie is startling, the fact that Love Lies Bleeding's queer characters survive — and even triumph — in a crime thriller is pretty novel.

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Why Love Lies Bleeding's Ending Is So Important For Queer Cinema

Love Lies Bleeding Defies Long-Ingrained Expectations For Queer Characters & LGBTQ+ Films

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Given that film has its own visual language and storytelling patterns, I believe there's a lot of unlearning to do — and not just in the Bury Your Guys department. The way Love Lies Bleeding subverts long-ingrained expectations is an exciting step in a new direction. The movie's queer characters cause most of Love Lies Bleeding's deaths and behave badly, but the terrible things that haunt them don't stem from their queerness. Put simply, there's no harmful correlation being made between Lou and Jackie's odds of survival and their singular love story.

As of August 2024, Love Lies Bleeding is streaming on Max.