Die My Love
Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) and Jackson (Robert Pattinson) create a seemingly ideal life for themselves in the country when Jackson inherits his uncle's home, a place for him to make music and her to write, but after she has a baby and Jackson mysteriously disappears for lengthy periods of time, Grace begins to spiral, breaking down in "Die My Love."
Laura's Review: B
Scottish director Lynne Ramsay ("We Need to Talk About Kevin") returns with her first feature since 2017's "You Were Never Really Here," adapting Ariana Harwicz's novel with Enda Walsh ("Small Things Like These") and Alice Birch ("The Wonder"), moving the setting from France to what appears to be the American Midwest with the flavor of a Southern Gothic. And while Lawrence and Pattinson's early passions burn up the screen, this is Lawrence's movie, the latest in a trend equating motherhood with madness. But Grace is suffering from more than post-partum depression, her unraveling more akin to Gena Rowlands' in John Cassavetes' "A Woman Under the Influence."
Having moved from New York City, the remote, ramshackle house with a 'rat problem' in the country might not seem idyllic, but Jackson is enthused about its possibilities. 'I found an office!' he shouts from upstairs, a clear encouragement of Grace's writing ambitions. The two dance maniacally to rock music when they're not rolling in the hay, their behavior reined in when Jackson's family - Aunt Jen (Gabrielle Rose), mom Pam (Sissy Spacek) and his declining dad Harry (Nick Nolte) - visit, all watching Grace's growing belly expectantly. 'If it's a boy, don't let him cry,' Harry tells Grace, Grace's rapport with her senile father-in-law, envisioned by Ramsay as the two dancing in the forest.
At first all seems well when young Harry is born, his eponym having made a widow of Pam in the interim, but things quickly begin to go downhill. Jackson is away and Grace, saddled with an infant and nothing to do is bored. She splatters ink on a sheet of paper which is obscured by milk from the exposed breast of her nursing bra, a heavily symbolic visual. When Jackson returns, he brings home a dog whose incessant barking and whimpering adds to the general tension and Jackson isn't responding to his lusty wife the way he once did, leading her into an affair with Karl (LaKeith Stanfield).
Ramsay often transitions from one scene to the next with eerie landscapes, disorienting because, while they look like photo negatives, they are not. Grace's madness becomes impressionistic, camera focus lost as a segue into dreams (cinematography by "Atonement's" Seamus McGarvey). In one memorable moment of calm, Grace wonders into the woods holding her infant in a scene evocative of Snow White visually and musically. But when Jackson calls from a diner, Grace overhearing a waitress calling him an endearment, is his resultant hookup real or her imagining? Not so when, as her behavior becomes more and more outrageous, she approaches Karl in a supermarket parking lot, the man panicked in front of his wife and children. But after another scandalous incident at a party, Jackson finds Grace crawling through the grass and he joins her, the two nuzzling like animals and he asks her to marry him. Her acceptance is enthusiastic, but their initially celebratory, increasingly disastrous reception is the beginning of the end, a caring Pam interceding to avoid another embarrassing family humiliation, Jackson finding his wife on the road wheeling Harry in his carriage the next morning and finally committing her to a mental health facility.
The rollercoaster mood is joyous again when Jackson arrives with Harry to pick her up, but when Grace is greeted by a freshly painted house, its interior spotless and inviting, we can tell by her demeanor she sees this as a cage. After having accused herself of being a bad mother for buying a cake to celebrate Harry's first six months, she bakes her own Welcome Home cake, 'Love Me Tender' playing in the background, but the woman who now appears the perfect wife and mother will bristle at the second mention of how well she looks. 'I shot a dog!' she'll scream to the assembled guests, rushing out of the house, but after one more hopeful moment, Jackson and Grace duetting to John Prine and Iris Dement's 'In Spite of Ourselves,' their (perfect) wedding song, Grace declares 'Enough!'
"Die My Love" is unconventional, Ramsay's impressionistic approach perhaps faithful to her source, but also distancing. Jennifer Lawrence is on fire here, her finale a literal conflagration, throwing herself into the role with abandon (and frequent nudity). Yet the storytelling approach makes her character difficult to connect with, unlike, say, Rose Byrne's beleaguered mom in "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You." Pattinson, too, takes a while to embrace, his character's ineffectual responses to Grace's obvious turmoil rendering him lightweight considering the film's heavy themes, but he (and Jackson) grow into their roles as the film progresses, a weightier, more responsible and emotionally mature adult finally emerging. Spacek has little to work with, her Pam seemingly understanding of her daughter-in-law's issues with nothing to back that up, but the actress is always a warm and welcome presence. Nolte, whose Harry is greatly missed once he's gone, makes that plausible with brief screen time. Stanfield's role didn't require an actor of his caliber.
As a great admirer of Ramsay's work, "Die My Love" seems to elude one's grasp, the filmmaker going all in on impressionistic visuals over practical human drama. Still, the film entices with its over the top passions and Lawrence's blow the house down performance.
Robin's Review: B-
Mubi releases "Die My Love" in theaters on 11/7/25.
