“It’s a Wonderful Life.” “Back to the Future.” “To Kill a Mockingbird.” “Fargo.” One need look no further than a few canon classics to argue that small-town America is the setting of some of the country’s greatest films, the throbbing heartbeat at the center of some of its most prolific stories.

Over the decades, we’ve seen the traditional small-town setting adapt to changes in technology, era and genre, bending to new societal norms and shifts within the film industry to prove itself as a one-size-fits-all template with which to capture the spirit of an ever-shifting nation.

However, “Love Lies Bleeding,” a juiced-up, queer romance thriller from writer and director Rose Glass, takes its southwestern town setting in bold new directions and sets out to prove that this pillar of cinematic Americana still has more unique stories left to tell.

The story follows Lou (Kristen Stewart), a washed-up gym worker who is just trying to keep her head down and steer clear of her estranged father (Ed Harris) and the criminal dealings at his gun range on the other side of town. All this is shaken, though, by the arrival of Jackie (Katy M. O’Brian), a wandering bodybuilder whom Lou falls for, breaking her out of her apathy while simultaneously stirring up her familial drama to its breaking point.

Harris is a delight in a menacing — if somewhat one-note — villainous role, but it’s Stewart and O’Brian who steal the spotlight in scene after scene. Stewart in particular becomes an unstoppable force by the last act of the film, in which her tidal wave of confusion, grief and determination imbues the viewer with an infectious sense of urgency and thankfully justifies the first half’s slow-burn narrative.

While it’s at its strongest in the latter half, “Love Lies Bleeding” is best represented in its overall ability to portray the mystic haze of a small desert town in the late ‘80s, with clever touches that quickly alienate this seemingly mundane world from reality.

Glass opens on an expansive shot of the twinkling night sky before swinging the camera back down to the cigarette fog, fluorescent lights and greasy aluminum of Lou’s gym, a pronounced signal of the film’s wobbly balance between the uneasy stagnancy of the town and the desolate wilderness that stretches beyond it.

Tension is very much the name of the game here: the film often keeps both the characters and the audience in the dark about other characters’ motivations or the nature of the story as a whole, contracting its narrative muscles and locking you into dreamlike sequences with impressive editing until snapping forward and whacking you in the gut when you least expect it.

With that said, “Love Lies Bleeding” is certainly true to its title: there is love, bleeding and everything in between. If a scene doesn’t feature a sensual moment between Stewart and O’Brian — whose chemistry will win you over before they even lock lips once — then there’s probably guaranteed to be a healthy amount of violence on screen instead.

What this amounts to is not necessarily a large focus on romance or action alone, but rather a quiet intensity that serves to both enrapture viewers and tease at its underlying themes, allowing the suspense of its story to mirror the buried tension within Lou and draw meaning out of the characters’ actions without them having to say a word.

At the same time, there is a nagging sense that after the A24 logo flashes in bright red at the start of the film, you can already guess what you’re in for; despite its impressive looks and strong ideas, none of the tense, thematically potent storytelling it’s reaching for feels incredibly groundbreaking. This isn’t much of a dig while the film is actively working its magic, but it fails to carve out much of an identity that will stick with viewers in a landscape full of similar mid-budget, concept-driven thrillers.

In the end, though, it’s hard not to appreciate “Love Lies Bleeding” for what it is: smart, sleek and relentlessly engaging. Don’t let the talk of “A24-ness” scare you off, either: its 100-minute runtime breezes by, and hearing a nearly full Thursday night theater laugh, groan and audibly gasp along to this raunchy, moody and thoroughly enjoyable thriller was more than worth the price of admission alone.

Kevin Lynch can be reached at lync1832@stthomas.edu