DIE MY LOVE REVIEW: A FEROCIOUSLY ELECTRIFYING PSYCHODRAMA
words by SONNY NGO
In Lynne Ramsay’s latest, ravishing picture, Die My Love, Jennifer Lawrence’s Grace crawls on all fours through the sunny meadows of Montana. With a knife in her hand and a weeping baby out of frame, we don’t quite know what is happening, but are hypnotised by the screen nonetheless. And then she pounces like a lioness, to frolic and cuddle, of course. The film has been described as a slow descent into madness, but when we first see Grace she is already wildly passionate, intensely primal – though most of all, madly in love with Robert Pattinson’s Jackson. In a hallucinatory depiction of post-partum depression, and with exuberant direction of Ramsay, we watch how domestic life weighs down on her with gravitational force in ways we can’t describe just yet.
image via cineart.nl
Based on Ariana Harwicz’s novel of the same name, we follow the couple as they leave New York for the rural countryside, where they take over the fixer-upper of Jackson’s recently deceased uncle. Initially, the two are enthusiastic about the fresh start. He is a musician and she is a writer – the new environment is perfect for creative flows, and for fiery sex. They do it all the time, and then sometimes, and then it’s been two months since their last time. What began as sporadic lovemaking quickly turns into a dwindling wildfire as they both have to readjust to their isolated surroundings and its quotidian. And when they have a baby, that heat has died down completely.
While Jackson works a daytime job as a driver, Grace takes care of the household next to her writing aspirations. But with her inefficacy to put down words on paper, she often takes a stroll with the unnamed baby to Pam instead, Jackson’s mother portrayed by the iconic Sissy Spacek. She sees right through Grace’s aching and assures her that the first year of having a baby is always the worst. Yet, her mood swings continue to be volatile. Sexual and emotional frustrations run high and to make matters worse, Jackson decides to bring home a dog one day – a clear clash against the feline energy of Grace. The two fight and discuss and collide, and don’t have makeup sex. “Something you love is suffering. Put it out of its misery,” she tiresomely tells him, referring to both the dog and in some cruel ways as well to herself.
Around the house, the bugs keep swarming, horses turn up galloping, and dogs won’t halt their barking. Everything reminds both Grace and the audience of her repressed animalistic, free-spirited nature. Almost mockingly, her surroundings are a constant relic of what she once was and has lost ever since she and Jackson exchanged the wild concrete jungle for the isolated rurals of Montana. Even in the shots of its landscapes, the film feels claustrophobic as Grace remains suffocatingly stuck. Her mental state continues to slip away and as it does, you begin to question the very fabrics of the film’s story. You question its technicalities, its little details, its narrative holes which are drowned under waves of lies, delusions, and its inbetweens. Is Grace a reliable narrator? Certainly not. But can you consider Jackson as one? I doubt it. Moreover, is the story even told chronologically? The film lures you into its fragmented linearity, as it in a way entrances you in its colours, sounds, and movements. Much of this is thanks to the film’s cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, who is brilliant in conveying narrative beats into visual elements. From its straining aspect ratio to its saturated palette, the movie manoeuvres with visceral force. Both its narrative construction and Grace’s self-destruction are cyclical in nature: they just go on and on and on, until it all goes up in flames.
image via cineart.nl
Die My Love is far from subtle, if anything it is the polar opposite. Lawrence is a formidable storm and acts out her rage and confusion with domineering conviction. And Pattison finely walks the tight rope of a neglectful spouse and totally charming husband. On the rare occasion we see them crawl the ground together, they are magnetising. They growl, spiral, and emanate the thrill of the hunt. For a moment, the couple feels connected again: not in their domesticity, but in their utterly untamed selves. “Im right here, you just can’t see me,” Grace confessed to Jackson once during a car fight, but when they are grounded like this, it seems as if they are one and the same - circling each other like two seductive animals.
Ramsay previously expressed that critics are reducing the film too much. It’s not simply about post-partum depression; it’s also about their marriage breaking apart, their creative blocks, their dried up intimacy, Grace’s loneliness, an absolute implosion of their family dynamics. In a way it makes sense that she left out the comma in her adaptation of Harwicz’s Die, My Love, because in doing so the title’s almost statement-like phrasing is omitted. Instead, Ramsay invites the audience to see the film for all that it is, a connection of two seemingly contradictions: love and death, fervor and emptiness, intimacy and estrangement. It’s fitting for a film so ferocious, raw, captivating, and alive.
Die My Love premiered earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival and will have its official release in Dutch cinemas starting November 20th.