Jennifer Lawrence is at the center of it all and gives a spectacular performance. She plays Grace, a writer and new mother. When she and her husband Jackson (Robert Pattinson) inherit an old house in rural Montana, she begins to unravel. Is it simmering tensions surfacing in their relationship, issues with postpartum depression, the casual and constant pressure society places on mothers? Whatever the cause, it’s fascinating to watch Lawrence. She brings a wild, feral physicality as Grace and Jackson practically tear each other apart on an empty floor or as she catapults herself through a glass door. Traversing her world with zero fucks to give, she unleashes skin-crawling awkwardness as she eviscerates vapid small talk and empty platitudes in sardonic, hilarious fashion. Is she going through a mental health crisis no one addresses, or is she simply seeing through all the layers of bullshit for the first time?
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Based on the 2012 novel, Die, My Love, by Ariana Harwicz (the lack of a comma in the movie title, which is sometimes there but most often not, is doing bad things to my brain), and adapted by Ramsay, Alice Birch, and Enda Walsh, the story unfurls loose from the bonds of time. We see Grace and Jackson young and in love, experience the latter days of Jackson’s dementia-addled father (Nick Nolte), see that Jackson’s mother (Sissy Spacek) may get Grace’s situation more than anyone realizes, watch as their marriage crumbles; it all plays like a drifting trip through deep memory holes and threads of recollection.
While incredibly effective storytelling in moments, it also means that at times, especially in the middle, that the film wanders off, meandering through the woods like Grace, lost in its own reverie. How much or little this affects you is a matter of individual taste and tolerance, but even for those with a high threshold, Ramsay pushes the boundaries. With a gauzy, near-dreamy aesthetic and pace, it pays lip service to the idea that maybe not everything we see is real as we see it, but that never goes anywhere. An affair with LaKeith Stanfield, who exists primarily as a mysterious motorcycle rider who mysteriously rides his motorcycle by their house, is indicative of this and feels thrown in and of little consequence.
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Sahara cinematographer Seamus McGarvey shot the film on 35mm and in 1.33:1 ratio. The boxy, claustrophobic frame violently contains Lawrence as Grace flails and rages within its rigid confines, lashing out at various constraints and restrictions placed upon her. There are shots, especially early on, that ape iconic looks from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and with day-for-night sequences, the graininess of the film, and exquisitely framed imagery, it often looks like horror movie from an earlier era, but one that also occasionally makes you laugh your ass off.
They also make unhinged use of the soundtrack. Grace spirals as she repeatedly blasts Toni Basil’s “Oh, Mickey.” Half a dozen times at eardrum-crushing volume is enough to drive anyone mad. Seemingly innocuous cuts from the Great American Songbook, or bubbly children’s ditties, reveal themselves to be absolutely deranged in the given context. It’s all very off-kilter and, much like what Grace is going through, puts a new, unusual, uncomfortable spin on what most people take for granted as typical and normal. But it also uses music to drive home the emotionality, like with John Prine and Iris Dement’s “In Spite of Ourselves” as a running thread anchoring Jackson and Grace to the feelings they have and once had for each other.
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In the end, I don’t know what Die My Love amounts to, or that it needs to amount to anything concrete and specific. Art doesn’t owe us a tidy, “this is what we learned today” conclusion or hero summary. It’s funny and weighty, and often mesmerizing to watch. That’s likely how it’s best viewed, as an immersive experience that you sink into. Robert Pattinson is fantastic, but this is Jennifer Lawrence’s movie. She’s clearly working on another level, and she and Lynne Ramsay appear to be on identical wavelengths, and the result can be transcendent.
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