Die My Love

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★1/2

Rated: MA15+

Directed by: Lynne Ramsay

Screenplay Written by: Enda Walsh, Lynne Ramsay, Alice Birch

Based on the Book by: Ariana Harwicz

Produced by: Andrea Calderwood, Jennifer Lawrence, Justine Ciarrocchi, Martin Scorsese, Thad Luckinbill, Trent Luckinbill, Molly Smith

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, Sissy Spacek, LaKeith Stanfield and Nick Nolte.

‘Everybody gets a little loopy in the first year.’

A black screen opens to an abandoned house.  An empty house with leaves strewn across the floor.

‘It’s not New York, but it’s ours,’ says Jackson (Robert Pattinson) to his new wife, Grace (Jennifer Lawrence).

The countryside is peaceful and they’re a couple in love.

They claw at each other, as a forest burns.

‘Did you write anything?’

They love; they have a baby.

Jackson goes to work.

Grace can’t write.  Instead, she crawls across the ground.  Her hands always down her pants.

This is about a woman who wants.  She always wants.  She’s bored. Losing her mind.

It’s tempting to describe the storyline of, Die My Love as a woman unravelling because of postpartum depression.  Grace, played by Jennifer Lawrence explains that it’s not the baby she wants to leave, he’s perfect.  It’s everyone else.

In director, Lynne Ramsay’s statement about the film, she says the idea of, Die My Love is, ‘To explore the tiny loaded dramas, traumas and endurance in the everyday. The unexpected happening. The loss of oneself. The paralysis. I found that all in Grace. And how Jackson loves her despite his inability to ever understand her.’

It’s a story of an unravelling, told in pieces.

A burnt sky.  A dark horse in the yard.

Conversations, moments.  So I kept wondering if what was happening was in Grace’s imagination.

There’re grounding moments like when Grace disses a friendly girl at a petrol station.  Grace doesn’t want to know; she doesn’t want to talk.  She’s leaving in thirty seconds. What does she have to say?

Grace’s behaviour is understandable because she’s isolated; but there’s also the realisation the road she’s taking is leading to disaster.  So there’s tension.  The focus intent on Grace.  In the spotlight.

Jackson’s face isn’t seen clearly until later in the film – he comes into focus as Grace falls apart.

The feeling of isolation is amplified because there’s no soundtrack, just the music the characters play on the stereo, guitars, country.

It’s an unfair unravelling because Grace is likable.  She genuinely cares about her child, but to the extent it becomes a blur.

Die My Love isn’t as confronting as I thought it was going to be because there’s a poetry in the telling.  Director Lynne Ramsay does this well, I’m thinking back to Joaquin Phoenix as a hit man in, You Were Never Really Here (2019) (a film I gave 5 stars).

And Jen gives everything to her character, Grace; embracing the crazy love and want.  She somehow makes the desperation relatable.

As I’m watching the film I’m thinking everyone’s going to see, Die My Love to spy Jennifer Lawrence get her clothes off, but it’s not a stylised sexy, more breastmilk mixing with ink, so there’s more to the story than sex here.

I had the green light of an exit sign in the cinema shining in my eyes.  I wondered if I’d be tempted to leave the unsettled exploration of a woman’s failing mental health.  But, Die My Love isn’t pushed to the extent of disturbing.  More disjointed, but in a way you want to piece the film together into a meaningful story.