die my love review
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, Sissy Spacek
Director: Lynn Ramsay
Star Rating: ★★★.5
Only Lynne Ramsay could inject so much anger, rage and passion into the unbearable pain of not being seen. His cinema is so alive and so sensory, from Ratcatcher to You Were Never Really Here, and in his latest offering, he adapts Ariana Harwicz’s novel to tremendous effect. It’s troubling that the film is presented as a study of postpartum depression, when it’s about much more than that. Co-written with Enda Walsh and Alice Birch, it’s often an uncomfortable watch, but Ramsay wants you to stay until the end. She wants you to increase your empathy for the woman who won’t listen to you, agree with you, or look you in the eye. It exists from his perspective. (Also Read: Interview | Jennifer Lawrence knew from the beginning she wanted to do Die My Love: ‘It starts with empathy’)
Base
It begins with a long shot of Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) and Jackson (Robert Pattinson) inspecting a property far from the city that will soon become their home. Seamus McGarvey’s cinematography, excellent throughout, sets the scene from afar. It seems as if a ghost is hiding somewhere in the back of the room. Grace and Jackson arrive, and in the blink of an eye, there is a baby there too. Now it’s a family of three, and the baby is crying, babbling and cooing like most babies. Jackson goes to work, and Grace is left alone with the baby.
An aspiring writer’s days are spent in hallucinatory crises as she slowly loses her mind. She can no longer keep anything; There is no hint or directness in the way day turns to night. It’s a frenzy of unbridled emotions, which Ramsay explores with tight control. He is not looking for any reason here. The film operates at an operatic level of pace, where we are passive witnesses to Grace’s growing sense of despair and anxiety. We can’t save him from himself, and we’re given no answers. Jackson’s mother (Sissy Spacek is wonderful if not entirely realized) is the first person who truly sees him, even when she walks around sleeping at night with a loaded gun. They share a key scene during a gathering, when they raise glasses towards each other.
final thoughts
However, Die My Love is also a little stubborn in its depiction of Grace’s downfall, not really trying to find her along the way. I’m sure this is due to changes made in optimization. In the book, the story takes place in rural France, while in the book, it takes place in rural Montana. The change in context does not add any greater layer of control, or lack thereof, to this study of marital psychoanalysis. I’m reminded of the intense socio-political landscape that plays out in Ratcatcher, or even We Need to Talk About Kevin. No such social unrest exists here. Sadly, LaKeith Stanfield is given the most thinly veiled, awkwardly drawn character in the film. I’m tired of seeing black actors stereotyped like this over and over again. Either realize his place, or don’t give the character a face at all.
Die My Love is primarily fueled by the presence of Jennifer Lawrence. The actor is a treat to watch here, completely committed to the filmmaker’s vision. Even when the film shakes, she still holds it tightly in her grasp. Whether Grace is deliberately stroking the ego of Jackson (Robert Pattinson, also brilliantly cast here), or throwing herself into a swimming pool full of kids, or dancing at her reception like no one is watching, Lawrence gives a soul-baring, utterly breathtaking performance here. Her grace will not stop until she finds peace, until she burns everything. Lawrence and Ramsay want you to watch to the end. This is a film of hypnotic power, whose impact leaves you shaken.