Die My Love

by Mike McGranaghan

Despite starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, Die My Love is not a commercial movie. It’s important to know that going in. You won’t get another Silver Linings Playbook or Twilight. In fact, this latest effort from director Lynne Ramsay is a lot closer to Lawrence’s mother! or Pattinson’s The Lighthouse. The story is dark and occasionally disorienting, designed specifically to create a sense of discomfort. Walkouts from frustrated viewers are inevitable, but if you’re in an adventurous frame of mind, this explosive work will cast a spell over you.

Grace (Lawrence) and Jackson (Pattinson) have just moved into an old country house that belonged to his late uncle. From the start, we can see that Grace is sexually insatiable. She wants it all the time, and he happily complies. Everything changes after she has a baby. A nasty case of postpartum depression sets in, taking a serious toll on her mental health. Jackson’s mother Pam (Sissy Spacek) tries to offer support, to little avail. Grace grows distant from Jackson, begins engaging in bizarre behaviors, and becomes fixated on a man (LaKeith Stanfield) she repeatedly sees around town.

Movies directly dealing with postpartum depression are rare. The Amanda Seyfried drama A Mouthful of Air took a serious look at the topic but had the misfortune of opening during the height of the Covid pandemic, meaning very few people saw it. Beyond that, the malady has largely been utilized as a secondary theme onscreen.

Die My Love takes a different approach. Ramsay structures the film to replicate Grace’s state of mind. Storytelling is intentionally fragmented, occasionally jumping around in time and containing moments that may or may not be real. Like, for example, Christopher Nolan’s Memento, the point is to force the viewer to experience the protagonist’s symptoms vicariously. Editing choices, sounds, and Lawrence’s fearless performance combine to produce that effect.

And what a performance the actress gives. She creates a manic combination of depression, anxiety, anger, sarcasm, and dissociation. Unafraid of looking less than glamorous – or, for that matter, being nude in multiple scenes – Lawrence goes for broke, delivering one of the most captivating turns of her career. Best of all, it never comes off as acting-with-a-capital-A. She remains undeniably real throughout.

Pattinson and Spacek provide first-rate support, as does Nick Nolte in a small role as Jackson’s dementia-ridden father. Even though this is technically Lawrence’s show, her co-stars interact in a meaningful way that sells how frightened their characters are by Grace’s continuing decline.

Ramsay isn’t interested in coddling the audience. Grace doesn’t get any easy resolution, so why should we? Die My Love can be a bit too obtuse at times; the whole subplot involving LaKeith Stanfield doesn’t add anything, and the symbolic final scene is perhaps too on-the-nose in suggesting what we can already infer. The filmmaker is nevertheless onto something important. We all understand the concept of postpartum depression. After witnessing Grace’s journey, maybe we can grasp the tragedy of it more fully.

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