{"id":50914,"date":"2024-05-07T18:05:27","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T16:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=2036627"},"modified":"2024-05-07T20:04:11","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T18:04:11","slug":"love-lies-bleeding-ending-explained-director-unpacks-the-surreal-twist","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/love-lies-bleeding-ending-explained-director-unpacks-the-surreal-twist\/","title":{"rendered":"Love Lies Bleeding ending explained: Director unpacks the surreal twist"},"content":{"rendered":"

“What happened felt to us like a very natural progression of the story that comes before.” **CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR LOVE LIES BLEEDING** <\/p>

By Molly Moss\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 07 May 2024 at 16:05 PM<\/p>

\n\n

**WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR LOVE LIES BLEEDING**<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Five years after her horror debut Saint Maud, Rose Glass is back with Love Lies Bleeding<\/a>, a violent and darkly comic tale of a reclusive gym manager\u2019s obsession with a bodybuilder.<\/span><\/p>\n

The new erotic thriller<\/a> tracks the electric and toxic dynamic between Lou (Kristen Stewart) and Jackie (Katy O\u2019Brian<\/a>) as their love ignites violence and draws them further into the web of Lou\u2019s criminal family.<\/span><\/p>\n

Love Lies Bleeding and Saint Maud, which followed a recently converted Catholic nurse, might be very different in terms of story and tone, but both films pivot between fantasy and reality, keeping the audience guessing about what the characters are imagining and what\u2019s actually occurring.<\/span><\/p>\n

And nowhere is this more evident than in the finale, which takes a huge (and we mean huge) leap into the fantastical as Jackie and Lou are left fighting for their lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, what <\/span>did that big visual twist in the final act actually <\/span>mean? R<\/span>ead on for everything you need to know about the ending<\/a>, including what Glass and O\u2019Brian had to say about that<\/em> scene.<\/span><\/p>\n

Love Lies Bleeding ending explained\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n
\"Katy\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Love Lies Bleeding.<\/span><\/figcaption> A24.<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

From the off, it\u2019s clear that Lou is keen to escape the clutches of her father, Lou Sr (Ed Harris), a local crime lord who also runs the local gun range \u2013 but<\/span> she\u2019s held back by the need to protect her sister Beth (Jena Malone), who is stuck in an abusive marriage to a man called JJ (Dave Franco).<\/span><\/p>\n

When JJ attacks Beth and leaves her disfigured, Jackie \u2013 in what appears to be both a steroid-filled and love-struck rage \u2013 brutally murders JJ.<\/span><\/p>\n

Knowing that it will frame Lou Sr and protect Jackie, Lou shoves JJ\u2019s body in the back of his car and drives it to a canyon where she knows that her father has been disposing of his enemies\u2019 bodies for years.<\/span><\/p>\n

While this operation runs relatively smoothly, Lou is spotted by one of the town\u2019s residents \u2013 local addict Daisy <\/span>(Anna Baryshnikov) \u2013<\/span>\u00a0who also happens to be obsessed with Lou.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lou begs Jackie to lay low for a while to keep the police at bay, but Jackie refuses to and heads off to the bodybuilding competition in Las Vegas that she\u2019s long been dreaming of competing in.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, when her turn on stage comes around, Jackie\u2019s reality becomes increasingly distorted, as she imagines herself near the canyon where JJ\u2019s body was dumped and eventually vomits Lou out of her mouth in a steroid-fuelled hallucination.<\/p>\n

The scene then cuts back to reality, as Jackie vomits on stage and<\/span> attacks one of the other contestants.<\/p>\n

In an unexpected turn of events, Jackie is bailed out of prison by Lou Sr, who subsequently manages to persuade her that he\u2019s on her side \u2013<\/span>\u00a0and that she should shoot Daisy, the sole witness to the murder of JJ.<\/p>\n

Jackie does exactly that, but it soon becomes apparent that Lou Sr isn\u2019t trying to help Jackie at all, and that he\u2019s planning for her to take the fall for Daisy\u2019s death, as well as all his previous crimes.<\/p>\n

After Lou threatens to reveal her father\u2019s secrets to the police if he hurts Jackie,\u00a0Lou Sr sends a police officer to kill Lou. But he turns out to be no match for Lou, and she kills him in self-defence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lou then heads to her father\u2019s mansion, where Jackie is being held hostage, and the film then culminates in a head-to-head between Jackie and Lou and Lou Sr.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Why does Jackie turn into a giant in Love Lies Bleeding?<\/b><\/h2>\n
\"Kristen\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Kristen Stewart and Katy O\u2019Brian as Jackie in Love Lies Bleeding.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Initially, Lou Sr manages to get the upper hand, shooting his daughter in the leg and cruelly taunting her by pressing his finger in the gunshot wound.<\/span><\/p>\n

However,\u00a0Jackie soon comes to the rescue and undergoes a huge (and we mean monster-sized 50-feet) transformation <\/span>as she e<\/span>ffortlessly picks Lou Sr off the ground before hurling him back down.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lou then points a gun at her father\u2019s head, but she doesn\u2019t fire. <\/span>Instead, she leaves him tied up and escapes with Jackie before the police arrive. <\/span><\/p>\n

Glass\u2019s camera then follows the fantasy they both share, showing Jackie and Lou, now both giants, running among the clouds and taking huge strides across the earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking about her interpretation of the superhero-like giant scene, O\u2019Brian exclusively told RadioTimes.com<\/a>: \u201c<\/span>Yeah, when I was reading the script, after I threw up Kristen, I thought nothing would surprise me, and then I read that I become 30 feet, or whatever, and I was like, \u2018What is this?\u2019 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt took me a while to sit down and really think it through, and I think with discussions with Rose, she was like, \u2018See what you want into it but also have fun with it,\u2019 and there was originally a clip of the 50-foot woman that I was working out to.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She continued: \u201cAnd I think it was this self-actualisation, in a weird way. Originally, I was supposed to be naked, and fortunately they decided to put me in a bikini and make me look like I wanted to look on stage, like if I had won. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo that informed the self \u2013\u00a0I\u2019d achieved what I\u2019d wanted to achieve and it wasn\u2019t getting mild fame through bodybuilding, it was saving the love of my life, essentially<\/strong>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Glass added that she nearly chickened out of the surreal twist, but that an alternative \u201cgrounded\u201d ending felt like too much of a cop-out.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think similarly to St Maud, I had the ending quite early on, and then a lot of it\u2019s kind of finding your way to it,\u201d she explained. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo we had a version where that happened really on. Because I think for me and Weronika [Tofilska], my co-writer, what happened felt to us like a very natural progression of the story that comes before. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like very natural, and then at some point we did get cold feet. So we did write versions where we kept it very grounded and in the real world, and essentially the same kind of dynamics played out, but just in a very literal way, and it just always felt like a bit of a cop out, and kind of unsatisfying.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What happened to Lou and Jackie? Final scene meaning explained<\/b><\/h2>\n
\"Kristen\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Kristen Stewart as Lou in Love Lies Bleeding.<\/span><\/figcaption> A24<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

While the giant scene is the film\u2019s climax, it isn\u2019t actually the end of the film.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the final few minutes of the movie, Lou and Jackie head west in Lou\u2019s pickup, cruising along. <\/span>But their peace is disturbed when they hear a bang from the back of the truck and realise that, while <\/span>Daisy may have been shot, she\u2019s very much still alive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lou takes matters into her own hands, finishing Daisy off for good before dragging her body into the desert.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here, again, Glass is commenting on the cyclical nature of violence, as <\/span>well as the fine line between desire and obsession, and love and toxicity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking about the final scene\u2019s meaning, O\u2019Brian said: \u201cI think we see that Lou\u2019s character starts to smoke again and is back to her old ways, and Jackie is blissfully ignorant again, so I think it\u2019s kind of like, \u2018This is just going to go downhill again<\/strong>.\u2019<\/strong>\u201c<\/span><\/p>\n

Glass added: \u201cIt\u2019s definitely a bit of a double-edged sword \u2013 it\u2019s, again, like a darkly comic ending, and definitely from one character\u2019s perspective it\u2019s a tragic ending.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut for our heroes, yeah, it\u2019s probably not everyone\u2019s idea of a feel-good movie, but to me it was a little bit how I saw it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd yeah, I guess there\u2019s\u2026 I had many a friend [that] when they knew what the story was about, [they were] like \u2018don\u2019t kill them\u2019. So yeah, I was kind of committed to following that through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why did Jackie throw up Lou in Love Lies Bleeding?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Like all of Jackie\u2019s violent moments, it\u2019s suggested that the dream-like sequence in which she vomits and births Lou is fuelled both by her steroid use and another kind of rage \u2013\u00a0one that\u2019s fuelled by love.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking about the scene, Glass told Dazed<\/a>: \u201c<\/span>Lou and Jackie have this monstrous rage and that turns each other on, and their love for each other is extreme and all over the place. One second, they are fighting on the streets, another second, they are embracing each other. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m interested in seeing women making terrible decisions and really making a mess of things. When Jackie throws up and gives birth to Lou in this dream-like sequence, we were thinking of how lovers consume each other in this kind of dependent relationship<\/strong>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She continued: \u201cWhen Wera and I were first writing it, the idea was of a Pygmalion kind of thing where one woman creates the other and controls her, then it all gets out of hand. We were not trying to let them off the hook easily for this insane love.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n