For a performer who’s been in the eye of the public storm for over two decades at this point, Kristen Stewart still feels like an open proposition. First attracting attention at the ripe old age of 12 in David Fincher’s Panic Room, the actress parlayed childhood roles into supporting turns in beloved indies like Into the Wild and Adventureland. Then came the Twilight flicks, household fame, and scrutiny along with them. Seemingly burned out by her time in the tentpole trenches, both her and co-star Robert Pattinson have since become stable players for auteurs both international and state side, but where Edward Cullen seems to have successfully altered his onscreen perception, reactions to Stewart’s pivot have been more mixed. While undeniably captivating, her work is distinctly less chameleonic, a whirling dervish of ticks and mannerisms invading her every role. If her unhinged performance in David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future was an early indication that we might be entering a new era, Love Lies Bleeding is a confirmation. All hail Kristen Stewart, our new Queen of Trash.

It’s meant as a compliment. Of all the things that could be held against Love Lies Bleeding’s star and writer/director Rose Glass, being oblivious to the assignment isn’t one of them. A smutty crime thriller from the jump, the movie opens with a montage of bulging muscles glistening under glaring gym lights, set to corny 80’s rock that booms so loudly out of theater speakers that you end up taking it seriously. This is Lou’s (Stewart) workplace, the kind of dump we’re used to seeing damsels in distress be rescued from, but when a mysterious female bodybuilder (Katy O’Brian) wanders in from out of town, salvation isn’t exactly top of mind.   

The setting and sweaty limbs on display serve as foreshadowing for what’s to come, as Love Lies Bleeding uses the human form as its own north star. Steering straight into the perspiring intersection between pain and pleasure, Glass’ camera hones in on every dropping bead and bulging vein, rendering an otherwise fantastical story as a tactile tangle of flesh. It’s a savvy choice that makes the flick’s second-half turn into a violent crime saga feel completely of-a-piece with the star-crossed and salacious romance of the first act. With the humidity already reaching unbearable levels of excess, it only stands to reason that some poor choices would follow.

The primary perpetrator of said misdeeds is played by Ed Harris, wearing a wig that must be seen to be believed, another gleeful reminder of the exact kind of cinema with which we’re engaging. While Harris mostly downplays his kingpin role, he cuts a powerful archetypal shadow, a guiding light to those pining for the days of 80’s pulp who’ve gone woefully underserved since that bygone era. Plenty of recent films have gestured at that decade’s campy inclinations toward gloss and wayward excess, but always with the safety net of reinterpretation, whether it’s Bones and All bringing austere stateliness to a story of teenage cannibals, or the gaudy sex-and-danger farce of Saltburn making haphazard stabs at class war commentary. Love Lies Bleeding doesn’t see anything wrong with simply rolling around in the mud, subtext be damned, and the propulsive manner in which it passes 105 sexy, blood stained minutes makes it hard to argue otherwise.

It also shows a blessed aversion toward moralizing, and for all the hand wringing over superheroes and streaming services bringing about the death of modern moviegoing, our present need for ethical handholding might be the multiplex’s biggest antagonist. Right and wrong barely enter the equation in Glass’ flick, buried under a steady stream of steroidal injections and lethal outbursts. Laying its scene in a barren, underpopulated New Mexico that seems to have escaped god’s attention a long time ago, the characters in Love Lies Bleeding act out of self interest, only considering sin in terms of legal and interpersonal ramifications. Audience loyalty reflexively follows the protagonist, and Glass is smart enough to see that sympathy is more powerful than any form of righteous grandstanding.

Our history with Stewart is the last piece of the puzzle, and as the movie enters the homestretch, her onscreen persona becomes a superpower of its own, weaponizing her off-kilter magnetism into a stuttering battle cry. She doesn’t disappear into the role so much as the role disappears into her, a trick straight out of the Nicolas Cage handbook, wherein the element of surprise is less important that the familiar jolt of watching a twitchy mass of idiosyncrasies reach its inevitable combustion. Cage’s reliance on our preconceived notions should serve as a cautionary tale, as likely to land him in damnation delights like Mandy and Joe as paycheck jobs like The Old Way and Butcher’s Crossing. Stewart is two-for-two so far, and has all the peculiarity it takes to sit on the long abdicated junky movie throne. She just has to avoid garbage, because the trash has been fantastic.