Sumith Prasad
Rose Glass’ romantic thriller film ‘Love Lies Bleeding’ revolves around the intricate relationship between a bodybuilder named Jackie and Lou, a gym manager who runs her father’s establishment, Crater Gym. Jackie has been preparing for a bodybuilding championship that will take place in Las Vegas, Nevada, by training at Lou’s gym. Their lives get entangled beyond the possibility of separation when the bodybuilder kills the abusive brother-in-law of her partner. The narrative’s realistic depiction presents the protagonist as two individuals rooted in reality. However, that is not really the case. Glass conceived her characters with her screenwriting partner, Weronika Tofilska, without any broad knowledge about the world of bodybuilding!
The Origin of Jackie and Lou
Rose Glass created Jackie and Lou without drawing inspiration from any real-life figures who were or are involved in the realm of bodybuilding. The filmmaker was once impressed by the photograph of an anonymous “strong woman” from the 1940s or 1950s, who was, for her, a “freak show attraction.” Other than this unidentified female bodybuilder, nobody in particular inspired the characterizations of the two protagonists. However, Glass wanted to make a film about these fictional characters because she was intrigued by bodybuilding in general, especially its psychological aspects displayed physically.
“I have always been interested in the relationship that people have with their bodies and the opportunity to say something external about what’s going on inside. With bodybuilding, it’s pushing things to an obsessive extreme,” Glass told The Hollywood Reporter. “There’s something so completely undeniable about it [bodybuilding]. There’s just nothing to hide behind. You only get looking like that one way, and it’s by an undeniable amount of work,” she added. These intricacies of the physical practice motivated her to create Jackie and the gym manager, Lou, who becomes her companion.
Even though Jackie is completely fictional, her struggles to become a champion can be paralleled with the efforts and commitments of real-life bodybuilders. In the same interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Glass discussed the neglection of one’s body while making it look the best to win the bodybuilding championships, stating, “And there’s all this work getting to look this incredible way, but by the time they come to compete, they’re physically at their weakest because they are so dehydrated.” Jackie suffers from the same fate as she enters the competition unfit, only to vomit and cut her performance short.
Through Jackie’s preparations for the bodybuilding championship, assisted by Lou, Glass was trying to make a film about a “female bodybuilder who perhaps finds herself unraveling as she’s training for a big competition,” as per her interview with Filmmaker. As the competition gets closer, the bodybuilder displays the unstoppable ambition that drives her. She is not scared of the cops even after killing a man and helping Lou to dispose of his body. She sees the championship victory as the pinnacle of her life journey, which is something she cannot compromise initially. This particular unwavering ambition is what makes Jackie rooted in reality.
Jackie and Lou: The Two Sides of the American Dream
When Glass was developing the film with Weronika Tofilska, the filmmaker realized that Jackie and Lou’s tale is also a story about the American Dream. “The film is also, on some level, about ambition and taking a slightly cynical look at the pursuit of the American Dream,” the director told Filmmaker. Jackie is a bodybuilder who ran away from her family in Oklahoma in pursuit of a “better life.” She believes that she has the freedom to fight to become a champion, and the championship in Las Vegas presents itself as an opportunity to elevate her life. It is her pursuit of this potential success that convinces her not to hide even after committing a murder.
On the other hand, Lou is a representative of the people for whom the American Dream is just a fantasy. She committed many crimes as the “sidekick” of her father, Lou Sr., from which she cannot escape. The gym manager does not have the freedom to pursue a better life when she is mentally stuck at the moment she had to kill someone in the past. The thoughts concerning the same trap her in her little town, only for her to work for her father irrespective of her hatred toward him. Lou even fails to understand Jackie’s ambition because she never had an opportunity to be ambitious.
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