Movie Review: Love Lies Bleeding (2024)

Genre: Romantic Crime Drama  

Director: Rose Glass  

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Katy O'Brian, Ed Harris, Jena Malone, Dave Franco  

Running Time: 104 minutes  

Synopsis: In rural New Mexico of 1989, gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) falls in love with muscular drifter-from-out-of-town Jackie (Katy O'Brian), who is planning to compete in a Las Vegas body building competition. Jackie accepts a job at the shooting range managed by Lou's estranged father Lou Sr. (Ed Harris), and starts to inject herself with large doses of steroids. Meanwhile Lou's sister Beth (Jena Malone) is being abused by her sleazoid husband JJ (Dave Franco). When the abuse goes too far, Jackie intervenes, triggering a cycle of violence.

What Works Well: Director and co-writer Rose Glass creates a sweaty and gritty genre-melding backwater drama. Against the backdrop of corruption (Lou's father) and exploitation (Lou's brother-in-law), a romance blossoms and hopes for Vegas glory spur optimism, but drug-fueled violence leads to neo-noir shadings and even moments of levity. The cast excels within the economic doldrums (Jackie is effectively homeless; Lou's main task as gym "manager" is to clear clogged toilets), and Kristen Stewart exudes intent as a protagonist emerging from passivity.

What Does Not Work As Well: The final act is buffeted by too many dead bodies and erratic tonal shifts, undermining the more subtle set-up work. The sub-story about the FBI's investigation into Lou Sr.'s shady criminal activities receives only half-hearted attention.

Key Quote:

Jackie: Anyone can feel strong hiding behind a piece of metal. I prefer to know my own strength.



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Movie Review: Nerve (2016)

A teen-oriented thriller, Nerve explores the exhilarating excitement and lurking risks of the online world.

In Staten Island, Vee (Emma Roberts) is approaching her high school graduation with a reputation for playing it safe. She cannot gather up the courage to talk to her crush, and does not dare express to her protective mother Nancy (Juliette Lewis) her desire to accept a position at a California college. In contrast, Vee's best friend Sydney (Emily Meade) is an outgoing vivacious cheerleader.

Seeking to break out of her shell, Vee joins the Nerve on-line game, where Players earn money and ranking points by completing dares posed to them by Watchers. She teams up with fellow Player Ian (Dave Franco), and the initial dares are easy and harmless enough. But as the couple climb the rankings and gain Watchers, Vee is sucked in by the thrill and euphoria. The dares become more dangerous, a serious rift develops with Sydney, and Vee realizes she is stuck in a deadly serious situation.

The smooth addictiveness of social media, whether to anonymously view and like content or create, influence and gain followers and notoriety, receives appropriately glitzy treatment. Jessica Sharzer's script, adapting Jeanne Ryan's book, is often clever and always brisk, quickly setting the premise then unleashing madness through the events of one night, highlighting the baffling speed of fame in the digital age.

After the initial rush and once Vee and Ian pair up, Nerve does hit a dull-ish middle, where the dares are samey, Vee and Ian zooming on his motorcycle this way then that, and some antics consuming an inordinate amount of screen time. Dares then creep into dances with death, and Nerve clunkily shifts moods into suspense territory. 

Although the world of teenagers can be a succession of emotional whiplashes, Sharzer handles human relationships with less elegance than the digital metaphors. The friendship between Vee and Sydney oscillates wildly, while quiet hacker Tommy (Miles Heizer), who has a secret crush on Vee, is emotionally stranded for most of the film. Vee's mom is equally abandoned in frazzled territory, Juliette Lewis wasted in the role.

But dazzling visuals compensate for the lack of human depth. Co-directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman play on two artistic scales, mainly deploying a slick and polished nighttime look with tech overlays to meld the digital and real worlds. But they also occasionally revive 1990s early internet era signposts, including font styles, crude graphics, boxy monitors, robo voices, and spam pop-up ads, all enhancing the diabolism of a cobbled-together open-source dark web game with no central control.

Nerve roars towards a hastily packaged but still potent call to re-discover the humanity obscured by keyboard anonymity. It's an audacious idea, but also an almost quaint call to roll back time.



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Movie Review: The Disaster Artist (2017)

A comedy and drama about an exceptional character self-producing a horrible film, The Disaster Artist is a worthy homage to unique individuality.

In San Francisco, aspiring actor Greg Sestero (Dave Franco) meets enigmatic fellow performer Tommy Wiseau (James Franco). The men strike up a friendship, although Wiseau reveals little about himself. He has a strange accent, claims to be from New Orleans, and refuses to reveal his age or the source of his seemingly impressive wealth. The two men move to Los Angeles, where Wiseau just happens to have an apartment, to pursue their common acting dream.

Greg's good looks help him find an agent, but the roles don't follow for either man. Undeterred, Wiseau decides to write, finance, direct and star in his own production, titled The Room, an incomprehensible drama and romance about betrayal and lost love. He assembles a ramshackle crew including script supervisor Sandy (Seth Rogen) and cinematographer Raphael (Paul Scheer), and marginal acting talent including actresses Juliette (Ari Graynor) and Carolyn (Jacki Weaver). When Greg starts spending time with his new girlfriend Amber (Alison Brie), a chasm develops between the two men, further compounding Tommy's erratic behaviour.

The Room (2003) is considered one of the worst movies ever made, and as such has achieved admirable cult status. The Disaster Artist, directed by James Franco, is an adaptation of Sestero's book, chronicling his experiences with Wiseau. In many ways, this is the prototypical American story, the underdog outsider who plays by his own rules, faces adversity and obstacles at every turn, pushes ahead regardless, takes his creative lumps, but unexpectedly emerges victorious after paying the necessary price.

In a compact 103 minutes, Franco delivers a sterling film. The Disaster Artist is brisk, and draws phenomenal energy from Wiseau's character, at once impenetrable and irresistible. His passion is authentic, his friendship genuine, his accent just about incomprehensible. Franco brings Wiseau to life as a rounded person worth knowing, a marvellous example of singularity contributing to society's rich fabric.

The film is neatly divided into three parts, and each works well. The opening introduces the characters and their initial interactions in San Francisco, including discovering a shared appreciation for all things James Dean. The middle segment focuses on the struggles to make it in Los Angeles, the city of mostly unfulfilled dreams. The final and funniest act features the making of The Room, as Wiseau strides into a world of movie creation he knows nothing about, throws money at everything and haphazardly creates a masterpiece in his own mind.

On the screen, James Franco disappears into Wiseau and delivers a wonderful acting performance, free of irony or self-awareness and yet full of humour. Franco nails the deadpan self-belief of a man marching to the tune of his own drummer.

The Room was not the film Wiseau intended, but he nonetheless achieved his dream. Thankfully, he proved to be both a disaster creator and an artist. In the often stale filmmaking world, Wiseau's off-kilter brand of clueless determination is a welcome bolt of lunacy.

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