Die My Love review: Jennifer Lawrence stuns in Lynne Ramsay’s blistering portrait of a woman on the verge of a breakdown
Die My Love review
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, Sissey Spacek
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Star rating: ★★★.5
Only Lynne Ramsay could inject so much angst, fury and passion into the untranslatable pain of not being seen. Her cinema is so alive and so sensory, from Ratcatcher to You Were Never Really Here, and in her latest offering, she adapts Ariana Harwicz’s novel to blistering effect. It is irksome that the film has been pocketed as a study of postpartum depression, when it is about so much more. Co-written with Enda Walsh and Alice Birch, it is often a discomfiting watch, but Ramsay wants you to stay till the very end. She wants you to extend your empathy with a woman who won’t listen, agree or look you in the eye. It exists from her point of view. (Also read: Interview | Jennifer Lawrence knew she wanted to do Die My Love from the beginning: ‘It starts with empathy’)
The premise
It starts with a long shot of Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) and Jackson (Robert Pattinson) inspecting a property far off the town, which will soon become their home. The cinematography by Seamus McGarvey, exquisite throughout, establishes this scene from a distance. It is as if there is a ghost somewhere, lurking behind the room. Grace and Jackson arrive, and in the blink of an eye, there’s a baby too. It is a family of three now, and the baby cries, babbles and coos like most babies do. Jackson goes off to work, and Grace is left alone with the baby.
An aspiring author, her days are spent in hallucinatory woes as she slowly loses her mind. She cannot contain anything anymore; there is no signal or directness in the way the days turn into night. It is a frenzy of unbridled emotions, which Ramsay explores with tight control. She is not looking for a reason here. The film operates on an operatic level of momentum, where we are passive witnesses to Grace’s growing sense of despair and anxiety. We cannot save her from herself, and we are not given any answers. Jackson’s mother (Sissy Spacek is wonderful if not fully realised) is the first one to see her truly, even as she sleepwalks at night with a loaded gun. They share a key scene during a gathering, as they raise glasses to each other.
Final thoughts
However, Die My Love is also a little stubborn in its portrait of Grace’s meltdown(s) without really trying to find her along the way. I am certain this is due to the changes made in the adaptation. In the book, the story takes place in rural France, while in the book, it is in rural Montana. The shift in context does not add any pervasive layer of control or the lack thereof in the study of this marital psychodrama. I am reminded of the intense socio-political landscape that loomed large in Ratcatcher, or even in We Need To Talk About Kevin. None of that biting social unrest is present here. LaKeith Stanfield is sadly given the most wafer-thin, bizarrely drawn-out character in the film. I am tired of seeing Black actors stereotyped like this over and over again. Either make sense of his place, or don’t give the character a face at all.
Die My Love is ignited mostly by the presence of Jennifer Lawrence. The actor is arresting to watch here, fully committed to the filmmaker’s vision. Even when the film shakes, she holds it tight under her grasp. Whether Grace is deliberately teasing the ego of Jackson (Robert Pattinson, who is also splendidly cast here), or hurling herself into a swimming pool filled with kids, or dancing like no one’s watching at her own reception, Lawrence delivers a soul-baring, utterly breathtaking performance here. Her Grace will not stop until she has her peace, until she burns everything down. Lawrence and Ramsay want you to watch till the very end. This is a film of hypnotic power, one whose effect holds and shakes you to the bone.
