'Die My Love': A Bold, Feral, Psychological Drama

PHOTO: MUBI

The opening moments of Die My Love may feature the best example of tone setting I’ve seen all year. We begin with an extended shot of our two lead characters, Grace and Jackson, entering a dilapidated house in rural Montana. This house belonged to Jackson’s late uncle, but now belongs to them. Grace and Jackson quietly discuss the house during this, and eventually sit on the floor. It is daytime in this scene, and there is a stillness to it that makes the film feel observational, almost mundane. However, we then cut to nighttime, and we focus directly on Grace and Jackson as they begin to behave more animalistically and have sex on the floor of their new house. This is underscored by loud rock music and is choppily edited, occasionally intercutting between them and a forest fire. This moment also happens extremely fast, majorly contrasting with the slower, quieter moment that precedes it. But altogether, this sets up what’s to come incredibly well. 

Die My Love is a story about feeling stuck and descending into madness because of life’s boring moments. This opening demonstrates the rhythm the film operates in, spending plenty of time within rather banal moments before interrupting them with erratic behavior and intense emotion. It may sound repetitive, but that’s the whole point. Through Lynne Ramsay’s gift for visual storytelling and unflinchingness in exploring the darker aspects of life, Die My Love puts us in the headspace of its protagonist and evokes discomfort and anxiety. With an incredible performance from Jennifer Lawrence at its center, the film is a gripping and visceral experience that left me absolutely floored.

Grace and Jackson (Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, respectively) have just moved to rural Montana from New York City in search of a quieter, more simple life. As time passes, the two settle in and eventually become parents. Grace becomes a stay-at-home mom and starts to suffer from postpartum depression. This leads her to feel isolated and to behave erratically, as she begins to feel trapped in the mundanity of everyday life.. As she dives further into psychosis, Grace becomes more unpredictable and unsettling things begin to happen that drives a wedge between her and Jackson. 

Lynne Ramsay makes the type of films that cut me to the core, and Die My Love certainly did that for me. I felt rattled quite often throughout the film, and many moments put a pit in my stomach. Some might be frustrated by the film’s storytelling, but I really liked how Ramsay and co-writers Enda Walsh and Alice Birch establish a consistent rhythm that puts the viewer into the day to day monotony that Grace experiences. This makes it so much easier to connect with her, as we see everything through her eyes and can understand why she begins to spiral. The film views her as a person who is stuck in a life she didn’t ask for, as well feeling boxed in by the expectations that society puts on women. There is certainly some pressure on her to embrace domesticity, but Grace seems largely uninterested in doing so. There is this desire to break free that is present in her actions, but her inability to express this as well as her unsureness of how to go about this leads to her misplacing her emotions and engaging in strange behavior. The film captures the existential breakdown that comes from this powerfully, and it unsettled me many times throughout.

Ramsay is an expert visual storyteller, and her gift is on full display here. She is able to get certain story elements across with simple visual cues, leading to an efficiency that keeps the film from getting hung up on anything extraneous. Not only that, but she uses the Academy ratio to create a boxier picture, evoking a claustrophobic feeling that pairs well with the film as a whole. There is also a dreamlike quality to some of the film’s images, further contributing to the film’s uneasiness and adding some interesting wrinkles to everything. There is an expressionistic quality to much of the film’s photography that may not click with everyone, but it certainly clicked with me. 

At the center of everything is Jennifer Lawrence’s performance, which is fearless and one of her best turns ever. Lawrence breathes life into the character of Grace, making her feel authentic and complex. There is a ferality from her that emerges from time to time, which gives Grace an air of danger. While watching the film, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure what Lawrence (and by extension, Grace) was going to do next, and I was completely rapt by her performance. This role could have become a case of over-the-top, capital-A acting, but Lawrence is perfectly attuned to who the character is much more rooted in reality. Yes, she has moments where she gets to go wild, but she never forgets Grace’s humanity, and her performance greatly benefits from this. I was blown away by what Lawrence pulls off here, and it easily ranks among my favorite performances of the year. 

Die My Love is yet another bold and uncompromising vision from Lynne Ramsay, exploring the mundanity of life and how it can drive a person mad. Like much of her other work, it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I was blown away by it. I love it when a film rattles me a bit, and that is certainly the case here. It is definitely the type of film that has come into focus the more I think about it, and I’m sure I will be thinking about it for a long time. Jennifer Lawrence’s performance alone is astounding, but what Ramsay pulls off from a directorial standpoint just took it to the next level for me. Die My Love is a searing, fascinating psychological drama, and it burns ever so bright.

Rating: 4.5/5