Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Lynne Ramsay
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, LaKeith Stanfield, Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek
Jennifer Lawrence attempts to steal Michelle Williams' title of our modern day Gena Rowlands with her most striking performance to date in Lynne Ramsay's adaptation of Ariana Harwicz's novel Die My Love. Just as Tilda Swinton did in Ramsay's We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lawrence plays a woman desperately struggling with motherhood, and anyone who watches Die My Love will feel an immediate need to talk about Lawrence.
Lawrence plays Grace, a writer who finds herself stricken with severe postpartum depression following the birth of her first child. Her boyfriend (who will later become her husband) Jackson (Robert Pattinson) has moved them to the remote Montana home he inherited when his uncle took his own life. Jackson spends much of his time on the road, with a box of condoms suspiciously tucked away in his glovebox, and Grace imagines him committing adultery with roadside diner waitresses.
Rather than confronting Jackson with her suspicions, Grace goes quietly mad. Unsatisfied by Jackson's inattentiveness, she masturbates furiously at all hours of the day. She crawls through the grass on all fours with a knife in her hand, like a cross between the subject of Andrew Wyeth's painting 'Christina's World' and Britney Spears in a TikTok video. Friendly small talk from locals is met with rudeness and cruel derision from Grace, who seems determined to isolate herself in this small community. Jackson's mother, Pam (Sissy Spacek), recognises Grace's troubles and tries to help despite struggling mentally herself in the wake of her husband Harry's (Nick Nolte, forming an Affliction reunion with Spacek) death, but Grace pushes her away. In flashbacks we see that Grace had a friendly bond with Harry, finding comfort and kinship in his unbridled senility.
Over an increasingly gruelling two hours, Die My Love charts Grace's mental breakdown, which rises to acts of physical cruelty (animal lovers will struggle to sympathise with Grace following one shocking act) and the fear that her baby may not be safe in her presence, no matter how much she claims to love him. With his failure to recognise Grace's troubles, Jackson is the film's nominal villain, but we can't help but sympathise with him at points. Neither Grace, Jackson nor Pam are prepared or equipped to deal with Grace's self-destruction, and none of their words can offer comfort. Ramsay's film highlights the shortcomings of holistic therapy and kind words. Grace has a mental illness of the sort that can only be fixed with medicinal bluntness; in less enlightened times she would have been condemned to an institution and strapped to a bed 24/7.
Both Ramsay and Pattinson have described their film as a comedy, but while I have a darker sense of humour than most, I have to confess I didn't find much to laugh at here. This is an intellectually rewarding but emotionally draining watch, the sort of movie that makes you sigh with relief when the credits roll, not because it's a bad film but because it's a suffocating experience.
Lawrence's portrayal of a woman well past the verge of a nervous breakdown is as terrifying as anything you'll see this year. Ramsay takes her cues from the horror genre, hinting that the conditions that claimed the life of Jackson's uncle now have Grace in their merciless grip. It's probably no coincidence that Grace is a writer who can't produce a word in this isolated setting, as Die My Love is almost a reimagining of The Shining where it's Wendy rather than Jack who becomes deranged.
Ramsay draws on magic realism, with a mysterious motorcyclist (LaKeith Stanfield) and a black horse roaming the periphery of either Grace's physical reality or her subconscious. There are allusions to Bambi, with a needle drop of 'Little April Showers' and an ominous premonition of a forest fire. Following Materialists, Die My Love is the second film in recent months to feature John Prine and Iris Dement's 'In Spite of Ourselves', but here the song plays like a cruelly ironic joke. If Ramsay genuinely set out to make a comedy, she's missed the mark and accidentally fashioned a disturbing study of an all-too recognisable but not so easily treatable affliction.
Die My Love is in UK/ROI cinemas from November 7th.
