Quite accidentally and unofficially, in the midst of major superhero fatigue, the best Incredible Hulk movie I’ve ever seen is coming out this weekend. It’s not a Marvel movie, though — it’s a lesbian neo-noir called Love Lies Bleeding.
Let’s back up: Twenty-plus years ago, when X-Men and Spider-Man signaled that movies about Marvel superheroes could make some serious bank, the Incredible Hulk – Marvel’s Jekyll-and-Hyde-style monster-man and former TV star – was one the earliest characters to get the splashy big screen we-know-this-could-be-huge treatment, complete with an internationally acclaimed director following up his biggest commercial and awards hit so far. And ever since the debut of Ang Lee’s gorgeous, serious-minded, inventive, audience-confounding Hulk, the green guy sometimes known as Bruce Banner has been a solo-movie problem child. The 2003 movie did well (and has built an appreciative audience in the years since), but dropped hard after a huge opening. 2008’s The Incredible Hulk soft-rebooted the character into the just-beginning MCU, with Edward Norton replacing Eric Bana in the role. (It’s actually pretty interesting in retrospect that the movie positions itself vaguely enough that it could serve as a sequel to the Lee version, presumably out of wariness over further audience confusion.) That was a conflict-heavy production and, once again, only a modest hit, so by the time The Avengers rolled around, the character was recast again. Mark Ruffalo turned the Hulk into the crowdpleaser Marvel always wanted, but another solo film failed to materialize.
Some of the this was a business decision – befitting its monster-movie heritage, Universal owned the Hulk rights, and would have to be involved with Disney on any stand-alone features. But there was also plenty of evidence that the Hulk worked better as a supporting character; Thor: Ragnarok, which sent him on an adventure with Chris Hemsworth’s god-man, made a lot more money than either of the previous Hulk-only movies (and either of the previous Thor movies, for that matter). So the character went through his arc in the background, eventually becoming a clearly speaking and thinking but still smashing hybrid version in between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. The traditional form of the Hulk – the little guy who transforms, when goaded by anger or stress, into the fearsome big guy – is gone for now, barring any comics-style grand reversals. He was last seen giving counsel to his cousin, the lighter-spirited She-Hulk, in the TV series of the same name.
Love Lies Bleeding brings the Hulk back. Not officially, of course. Officially, this is a steamy, violent new crime romance from director Rose Glass (Saint Maud), wherein relatively puny gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) falls in love with bodybuilder Jackie (Katy O’Brian), who blows into Lou’s small desert town, homeless but determined, on her way to a competition in Las Vegas. In a normal movie, it might even feel borderline insulting to compare O’Brian’s formidable physique to a gigantic green monster-man from a comic book. But Love Lies Bleeding is not a normal movie. It’s more like, what if Bruce Banner fucked the Hulk in an erotic ’80s neo-noir.
Lou has Stewart’s trademark antsiness, but rather than roiling with discomfort, she seethes with rage, caused but not exclusively directed at her criminal father and namesake (Ed Harris). Her attraction to Jackie also provides a welcome respite from dealing with various gym rats, worrying about how her sister Beth (Jena Malone) will survive an abusive husband (Dave Franco), and dodging overtures from Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov), who sometimes appears to be the only other queer girl in town. Admiring Jackie’s physique, Lou offers her steroids to help bulk her up further. Jackie obliges, and her muscles swell. But at key moments, Jackie bulges beyond even bodybuilding proportions – her muscles expanding before our eyes in heightened, cartoonish, and yes, Hulk-like imagery. More specifically, we start to see that when Lou gets mad, it’s Jackie who hulks out on her behalf. It’s not called out as a formal connection, either physically or psychically, but the cause-and-effect linkage seems unavoidable. When Beth lands in the hospital and Lou becomes particularly stressed out, Jackie’s power grows to dangerous levels.
From here, Love Lies Bleeding uses some familiar crime-movie elements not typically present in a Hulk story. No spoilers, but the body count in the Hulk comics doesn’t usually reach these levels, nor does the horror-movie gore. Thematically, however, Love Lies Bleeding depicts the Banner/Hulk dynamic with unusual clarity. In the 2003 Hulk, Bana’s Banner claims that “what scares me the most… is that when it happens, when it comes over me, when I totally lose control… I like it.” But Bana’s human performance – committed and effective though it is – never completely sells that darker side to Banner’s desire; it’s too busy grappling with all of the familial darkness right in front of him. The Avengers gets a little closer, after Captain America questions whether Banner will be able to get angry enough to transform on cue: “That’s my secret, Cap,” Banner responds. “I’m always angry.” It’s a great line, but in a way it doubles for an explanation of Ruffalo’s gentle exterior: If Banner says he’s always angry underneath, and we trust Ruffalo as an actor, then we don’t necessarily have to detect any visible anger in the performance. It’s a writerly solution to a more elemental disconnect between Banner’s two bodies.
Stewart’s Lou, on the other hand, is demonstrably angry, and – being a slight-of-frame woman in a man’s world – is less immediately able to find an outlet for that anger. The She-Hulk TV series had an opportunity to explore female anger, and occasionally did, but it was so focused on clumsily mimicking sitcom dynamics that its exploration of gender often felt you-go-girl glib. Jen (Tatiana Maslany) might have a temper, but she rarely appeared genuinely out of control, turning her rage into garden-variety “strength.” Stewart makes Lou plenty defiant, but also, at times, cornered, punching a wall in anger; being surrounded by workout equipment only seems to emphasize how jacked so many bad dudes can be.
O’Brian’s Jackie can receive Lou’s love as well as her fury, absorbing both with her body and, when it comes to her anger, redirecting it outwards with righteous strength. Much of the time, the objects of Jackie’s wrath “deserve” it, but, especially with increasing steroids in her system and men backing her into corners, this warped form of justice isn’t entirely in her control, either. She and Lou seem least dangerous when they’re together in sexual union, complementing each other in sex scenes shot with great urgency. Apart, Lou practically quivers with desire to let out a Hulk that’s not quite inside of her, and in the film’s early scenes, Jackie arrives as a drifter, not unlike the Hulk of the old TV series (whose Hulk form, by the way, was played by… a wrestler named Lou). And as with Hulk stories, there’s a slightly guilty awe we may feel, anticipating and even (depending on your gorehound tendencies) admiring the mayhem, before flinching at its extremity. Love Lies Bleeding, being genuinely violent rather than smashing-CG-buildings violent, only increases that lurid apprehension, keeping one eye on the aftermath that makes Lou and Jackie’s relationship so difficult to resolve.
That’s also why it often feels like the movie has more to say about bleeding than love. The movie’s compatibility with the pulpy rush of comic books extends to its worldview, which can feel a little adolescent in equating lusty abandon with hard-won romantic relationship. That’s part of the move’s allure, too – Glass keeps it moving with gnarly propulsion, and eventually sends it off into a zone that’s either hallucinatory (for a normal movie) or more or less par for the course (for a comic book). It doesn’t feel reductive to talk about Love Lies Bleeding in funnybook terms because, if anything, it understands the form’s graphic immediacy better than a lot of official adaptations, and throws the timidity of flop-era superheroes into sharp relief. Sexual desire (nevermind the act itself) has become a third rail for most superhero pictures, especially those that should be rooted in some kind of monster-movie perversity.
In contrast, everything that happens in Love Lies Bleeding feels fully physical, even the stuff that must involve some manner of special effects, pushing against our human limitations with an extra kick of transgression. The movie embraces the idea that being a Hulk-like figure involves actual work, not just angst leading into balletic or otherwise palatable mayhem. There’s going to be physical damage when that force becomes externalized, and the movie doesn’t have the easy out of CG destruction spectacle. In this Hulk story, bodies will be both tested and desired – and the body we admire on someone else may be what we secretly desire from ourselves.
Love Lies Bleeding opens in theaters today. Love Lies Bleeding will be available to stream Spring 2024.
