Love Lies Bleeding (2024)

Direction: Rose Glass
Country: USA

Directed by Rose Glass, the director of the critically acclaimed Saint Maude (2019), Love Lies Bleeding is a muscular and psychologically probing feminist thriller with a 1980s look and neo-noir moods inspired by films like The Wrestler (2008), Bound (1996), and Crash (1996). Working from a script she co-wrote with Weronika Tofilska, Glass manages to achieve a fulfilling narrative arc anchored by surprisingly complex performances and a surreal tinge that works both for and against the film.

This is the type of cynical crime entanglement where everyone is implicated in some sort of scheme. It is centered on the ardent lesbian romance between a lonely gym manager, Lou (Kristen Stewart), and a promising bodybuilder, Jackie (Katy O'Brian). Love conquers all, but the atmosphere in town is heavy, potentiated by vindictive characters with destructive emotions and actions that often lead to violence and death. 

The film’s primal instincts are nihilistic and brooding, but it’s not short of ideas. The finely honed script plays like a greasy bucket-load of uninhibited dirtiness through its rougher patches, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. Stewart and O’Brien have a palpable chemistry, while Ed Harris is phenomenal as Lou’s creepy father, an arms dealer with influential connections to the local police.

Glass’ sophomore picture is not as masterfully visceral as Saint Maude, but the rising filmmaker reveals herself as a gifted portrayer of emotional intimacies and wrenching acts of violence.

Last Night of Amore (2023)

Direction: Andrea Di Stefano
Country: Italy

Embracing gritty neo-noir flavors, Last Night of Amore is the latest film by Italian writer-director Andrea Di Stefano, whose previous works include Escobar: Paradise Lost (2014) and The Informer (2019).

This is the story of Milan police lieutenant Franco Amore (played with charisma by Pierfrancesco Favino), known not only for his adamantine honesty but also for never having shot a gun over the course of his 35-year career. On the eve of his retirement, his life is turned upside down after an on-the-side security job goes wrong. Unexpectedly, it’s his super ambitious wife, Viviana (Linda Caridi), who pulls him out of a deep, dark hole. 

Shot in 35mm, this cop thriller mounted with a mix of plausible and beyond-belief scenarios, has its narrative set against the backdrop of a heated, disturbing Milan where the Italian and Chinese mafias cooperate with cynicism. Di Stefano knows his way around the genre and provides the adequate classic structure and the desperate, nocturnal atmosphere to make it noir. Even so, stalling moments found in the loopy middle part of the film weaken a tale that is only lifted up again by an amusing epilogue. Moreover, the Chinese characters are depicted as caricatures of themselves and never really look scary or even serious. 

Not even close to mind-blowing, Last Night of Amore still comes shrouded in an acceptable aura of obscurity that triggers curiosity.