Die My Love
- Ben Pivoz
- Nov 7
- 3 min read
Die My Love is an unsettling drama about a woman struggling to get back to herself after having a baby. It is quiet and slow, with sudden outbursts of disturbing violence. The performances are excellent and it maintains a strong sense of unease throughout. Yet, in the end, what is it in service of? Individual scenes are captivating. The whole turns out to be a bit less than the sum of its parts. It is a good movie with an unorthodox narrative that doesn’t give the viewer a lot to connect with. It works emotionally, up to a point. The pieces are there for something great. It sometimes feels like it is approaching that. I had high hopes. Though it didn’t meet them, it is still a well-made, challenging, film.
Grace and Jackson are in love. She is wild and energetic. He matches her as best as he can. Then they have a baby. He is off traveling for work. She is stuck at home, bored and lonely. She cannot escape her mental spiral, which brings her to the breaking point, driving a sharp wedge into their marriage.
Part of what makes Die My Love (113 minutes, without the end credits) so compelling is how director/cowriter Lynne Ramsay is telling the story of Grace’s mental state, moreso than a linear look at what it does to the relationship. The movie is mostly presented in order, but the way Grace acts does not always follow what happened previously. That can be the way with mental illness. There is something nightmarish about the inescapable nature of her existence. The style reflects that, keeping the audience off guard by throwing us into a scene with no introduction. Specific events don’t matter. What is important is how Grace reacts to everything, or nothing, happening around her. It all feels the same to her.
Grace is played by Jennifer Lawrence in a performance I can only describe as animalistic. She is a live wire, too broken down to hold anything back. Her anger, sadness and brutally blunt sense of humor are wide open for everyone to see. However, nobody understands. Her actions are unnervingly instinctual. In a way, she seems tied to nature, to earth, and not at all to people. Her love for her infant son is intense and impersonal. She does not seem to have any love to give anyone else, least of all herself. Lawrence is hypnotic in the role, unpredictable. Whether she is crawling through the grass holding a knife or sitting quietly, she constantly seems on the verge of exploding.
Her frustration is mostly directed at Jackson, played by Robert Pattinson like a guy trying very hard not to acknowledge the fact that the woman he has chosen to share his life with is not fully there anymore. Pattinson generally gets out of the way and allows Lawrence room to take over every scene. He is good; she is a force of nature. Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte are also very good as Jackson’s parents. Spacek’s final moment in the movie is heartbreaking.
Die My Love is based on the 2012 novel by Ariana Harwicz. Some of the criticisms of it equal my feelings toward its adaptation. It is sad, psychologically tense and occasionally got under my skin. It is also repetitive and lacks a clear purpose. The spiral it is showing isn’t necessarily a downward one because that is basically where it starts. It is uncomfortably funny at times; Lawrence is tremendous at hitting her aggressive punchlines. It never lets us get to know the characters enough to feel any kind of way about them. I guess I felt bad for them. The situation sucks. That is sort of the conclusion it leaves its audience with. While there are so many sequences I found absorbing, in the end, this one didn’t quite capture me.
3½ out of 5
Cast:
Jennifer Lawrence as Grace
Robert Pattinson as Jackson
Sissy Spacek as Pam
Nick Nolte as Harry
Directed by Lynne Ramsay
Screenplay by Enda Walsh, Lynne Ramsay and Alice Birch
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