Once in a while a film comes along that sits in your brain for days, unable to fully process or comprehend the experience. Thoughts feel nearly impossible to put into words even as they fire a mile a minute inside the mind and getting it all out there seems like an impossible task. That’s the case with “Die My Love,” a visceral, impressionist examination of depression, postpartum, disassociation, the fallacy of normalcy and the longing to be seen made as an unsettling tapestry of vignettes that blur the lines between reality, dreams and nightmares. I genuinely don’t know what to do with all of that in one big bold swing from Lynne Ramsay, who carves out a new way to engage with motherhood and women in cinema.
“Die My Love” is not easy, but then again neither are any of the subjects or themes it’s trying to convey. Ramsay is so purposeful in her ambiguity and undefined characters and plotting. I get why people are leaving the theater confused and ultimately landing negative on something extremely difficult to watch and even more challenging to understand. And before we get a little deeper into my thoughts, I need to let it be known that I feel deeply unqualified to talk about this experience. This is a woman’s perspective through and through, an experience I will never know and – like Jackson (Robert Pattinson) in the film – will never fully understand. That’s obviously the point, but I would encourage everyone to seek out reviews written by women. Their perspectives are vital here to unlocking the story, and positive or negative, women can speak to their own experiences far better than my male gaze ever could.
Short on plot and character, “Die My Love” follows Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) and Jackson (Pattinson) as a young couple who move from New York to Montana to take over their uncle’s secluded farm home. Passionate and youthful, the two seem enthralled with each other, charged with unbridled sexual energy and carefree invincibility. All of that changes when they have a child and Grace begins to slowly lose herself, slipping into a madness and mental unravelling that neither she nor anyone around her seems to understand. It also stars Sissy Spacek, Nick Nolte, and a blink and you miss him LaKeith Stanfield. The film becomes a series of events rather than a linear story, Ramsay constructing that sense of unease and blurred reality that forces the audience to quite literally experience mania instead of just watching it from afar.
Lawrence has never been more committed to a role, unleashing her full talents into a struggling mother while she herself was 5 months pregnant. She’s laid bare both physically and mentally, and delivers a captivating performance that serves as the driving force here. She is soul crushing and heartfelt, completely restless and charged but also confused and unsure of what is happening to her. Lawrence is calm and loving one minute, brash and disassociated the next, desperate and heartbreaking then absolutely feral and extremely violent on a dime. That said, this film asks so much of her, and only someone as talented as Lawrence is up to such a big task. Pattinson is doing much more subtle work here, the absentee husband but not in the typical ways you would expect. Like Grace, Jackson bares some faults, but he’s also helpless and confused too.
When Grace literally throws herself through a glass window just to be seen, Jackson reacts but also has no idea what to make of it or what to do. He wants to be better but doesn’t know how, and his own fecklessness and distance only exacerbates Grace’s mania and mental suffering. This is an actors’ showcase, with Lawrence unleashed and Pattison more understated but equally compelling. Ramsay has no easy answers for her characters or her audience, letting its dreams and nightmares and reality all collide without any key to decipher which is which. “Die My Love” leaves you in a fascinating limbo that never lets you catch your barrings. Hard edits, disjointed needle drops, non-sequential events and beautifully textured cinematography all create a sense of unease, functioning more like an experience than a feature film.
This movie is purposefully off-putting and disorienting, and its low audience score isn’t all that surprising considering the difficult subject matter. But if you’re willing to meet it on its own terms, there’s some truly masterful work being executed. I thought a lot about “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” both films sharing similar frameworks and examining the experiences of women and mothers in more profound and necessary ways. Strangely, “Die My Love” is even harder to get through but that doesn’t diminish its effectiveness or vitality. We need these stories and perspectives regardless of how hard they are to watch, and we need more women like Lynne Ramsay and Mary Bronstein to keep pushing the limits of women in cinema.
Being seen as you are and not as men want you to be speaks to something new in movies and the recent run of bold women filmmakers, and big swings like this gives a voice to so many who have for far too long been unheard. The line between being normal and living your life and wanting to say fuck it and run into the woods never to return again is smaller than you realize, and this film expertly sits on that razors edge for its whole runtime. “Die My Love” is a profound piece of cinema I’m still not entirely sure what to do with and will most likely never watch again but am so glad it exists. If for nothing else, I hope it sparks more honest conversations about motherhood and women.
Talk to them, please. Talk to women. They have a lot to say about themselves and their experiences that deserves to be heard and “Die My Love” is a demanding conversation starter, a testament to why this is so important and completely removes the male gaze filter to lay bare the things we’re too afraid to say out loud.
Also, free advice: never, EVER come home with a surprise dog. It will not end well.
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
“Die My Love” is now playing in theaters. you can watch the trailer below.
