Afew friends and I went to see on the day of its UK release. I’d been desperately excited to see it: muscular women, a murder plot, Kristen Stewart – what more could one want from a film? We clambered into our seats in the middle of the cinema, oohing and aahing at the advertisements (we are easily amused). We’d all been excitedly discussing the film in the lobby.
I made my friends take a picture with the film poster, doing a “pretend I’m your mother and we’re on holiday” bit. We thought we knew what to expect. Kristen Stewart would fall in love with a bodybuilder and said bodybuilder would win a contest.
There would be some kind of crime subplot. Overall, we were expecting a queer romantic thriller with a fairly straightforward narrative. “The audience is treated to plenty of frames of sweaty, muscular Jackie and a pining Lou” Of course, we were completely wrong.
, from British director Rose Glass, follows Lou (Kristen Stewart), a moody gym employee, whose main concern in life is her sister, Beth, who is in an abusive relationship. She meets a bodybuilder, Jackie (Katy O’Brian), who is hitchhiking to a bodybuilding contest after leaving her family. The two fall in love and the audience is treated to plenty of frames of sweaty, muscular Jackie and a pining Lou.
Soon, however, the audience is embroiled in a gun smuggling operation, gore-ridden, steroid-related murders and strange, monstrous transformations. The queer love story is put aside for more pressin.
