Bleeding Love
Directed by Emma Westenberg
Written by Ruby Caster
Starring Clara McGregor and Ewan McGregor
Unrated
Runtime: 1 hour, 42 minutes
In select theaters February 16

by Megan Robinson, Staff Writer

Cliches exist for a reason. They’re narrative beats or character traits or lines of dialogue that have worked before and will continue to work again. It’s not a crime to write a cliche, and they’re easy for an audience to understand, acting as a piece of familiarity in a narrative that you’ve never seen before — a balance between the new and the old. Being filled with old, recognizable tactics, however, quickly turns a promising film with an intriguing premise into the usual, uninteresting, seen-before fare. Bleeding Love is rife with bland and unspecific writing that weakens the new and fresh aspects of the film, namely the grounded performances from its real life father-daughter leads.

Bleeding Love focuses on the vaguely named Daughter (Clara McGregor), recently recovering from an overdose the night before, on a road trip with of course the vaguely named Father (Ewan McGregor). The father promises that their road trip to Santa Fe will be worth it, as the artist friend of his they’re going to visit will inspire the daughter to get back to her painting. Of course there are bumps in the road, including their car breaking down, the daughter being bitten in a truly unfortunate place, and plenty of arguments as the two hash out their strained relationship thanks to the father’s alcoholism and subsequent exit from the daughter’s life.

Everything about the film is well-made, technically, with some particularly gorgeous cinematography from Chris Ripley. Every environment, from closed pharmacies to homes in the desert to the sunset against the train tracks looks crisp and gorgeous. The colors of every scene pop, especially the water in one scene with a motel pool the daughter and father swim in despite being closed. The intimate closeups and love with which director Emma Westenberg shoots the American southwest’s deserts is engaging, calling to mind her previous work on two music videos for Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer, “Pynk” and “Screwed.” Every intricacy of, particularly, Clara McGregor’s face is captured in rich detail, bringing a raw, humanistic touch to the look of the film.

Just as well, the performances are grounded and naturalistic. The two McGregors play off each other well, each comfortable playing off the other whether it be in a snarky back-and-forth, a silly singalong to Leona Lewis, or a full-blown, screaming argument. Clara McGregor shines here; acting is Ewan McGregor’s forte, and he has nothing to prove, but his daughter certainly proves that she could have a strong future in the field, with or without his name attached. 

Though the look of the film and its performances are vibrant and engaging, the writing truly makes the film suffer. Ruby Caster’s script, with a story credit from Vera Bulder and Clara McGregor, is extremely typical. One scene, in which the father brings the daughter to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, has the senior McGregor deliver a monologue about looking like a monster in his daughter’s eyes, all while looking right at the junior McGregor the entire time. When he says he wasn’t revealing this truth to a bunch of strangers but just to her, it feels like the kind of saccharine line out of a lesser film. The same can be said for the sex worker they meet outside the pharmacy who offers to look at the daughter’s bite, who quickly goes from an honest woman just making a living to a mystical “hooker with a heart of gold,” exiting the film just as quickly as she entered, dancing in the car’s headlights and throwing literal glitter around in slow motion. 

Most of all, the daughter and father are one note — one the addict who constantly gets into trouble, and one the recovering addict who will always be responsible. While the actors try to make these characters go deeper than they do on the page, they instead add up to a list of quirks and reactions. The daughter has to take pee breaks every few scenes; the father tells her that he thinks being fed M&Ms while potty training gave her a weak bladder. The daughter tries to drink with a stranger at the tow truck driver’s party; the father pulls her away. The father is a reactive character with very little to do, with only small glimpses into his past and how it hurt his relationship with his daughter in the present. Even their relationship seems to flip back and forth between loving and hostile to follow a typical three act structure, rather than be something that consistently grows and changes as the film goes.

What hurts Bleeding Love the most is its writing. Though it has some funny scenes, it never escapes the shackles of a cookie cutter plot. The two McGregors breathe more life into the script and their characters, but they can never quite save the film from boring characters and scenarios. Even the film’s ending borders on questionable, trying to make a heartfelt scenario out of a deception that is particularly jarring given the short timeframe the film takes place in. Still, with more imagination Bleeding Love proves the newcomers at the helm do have some potential in film.