A Lynne Ramsay film is often bracing and biting, wrestling with thorny themes in a way that promotes raw, salt-in-your-wound vulnerability. Her latest, Die My Love, is an honest depiction of post-pregnancy woes that greeting card companies don’t want you to see. The harrowing adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s novel aligns with titles like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You or Rosemary’s Baby, depicting motherhood not as this angelic blessing, but grueling entrapment. It’s a bit too surreal and non-linear for its own good, shuffling through narrative fogginess, but is propelled by performances that rage with passionate expressions. The good, the bad, it’s all artfully depicted by Ramsay (whose previous directing credits include Ratcatcher, We Need to Talk About Kevin, and You Were Never Really Here)—as long as you don’t find yourself lost in the film’s more ethereal qualities.
Jennifer Lawrence stars as Grace, and Robert Pattinson as Jackson, transplants from New York City who seek serenity in Montana. Before long, they become new parents in the sticks—not much to do, hardly anyone around except Jackson’s mother, Pam (Sissy Spacek). Grace and Jackson transform from this sexually charged, free-willed couple into stressed-out, exhausted husks of their libido-fueled selves. Grace especially succumbs to the crushing isolation of rural motherhood, which causes her mental health to rapidly decline. Once a writer, Grace trades her poetic words for a whining baby and soul-sucked husband—ah, the American dream.
Die My Love is about the “death” of Grace. Lawrence and Pattinson begin the film with puppy-love optimism and tremendous sexual chemistry, unable to stay untangled in one another’s limbs. Ramsay and co-writer Enda Walsh ensure we clock Grace and Jackson at their most heated, hypnotized by Cupid’s magic, as a comparison to the sobering mundanity that overtakes once the baby arrives. This steamy, magnetic energy brings Grace and Jackson together, with Lawrence and Pattinson depicting love in an addictive fervor, if only to emphasize the sunken-eyed maturation of a relationship that has lost its spark. We’ve surely encountered this arc before, but Ramsay brings an intensity to both sides that stokes intrigue by escalating conflicts à la Marriage Story.
Lawrence shoulders tremendous burdens in Die My Love, as Grace watches her playful vivaciousness, her sun-bright vitality, melt away. She’s stripped of defining qualities, which Lawrence reacts to with tragic instability. The actress glides through a rapid-fire display of emotions in a single scene, shifting from seething mad to tearily depressed and then zanily uninhibited. Grace becomes the unpredictable centerfold for women who classify motherhood as an identity crisis, where they devolve into an extension of their child. How Lawrence sustains that chaotic brand of severe displeasure, or how Pattinson portrays a workaholic husband increasingly out of his depth, is the film’s secret sauce. If it were a just world, Lawrence would be in the same Best Actress pool as Rose Byrne for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.
However, for as remarkable as the lead performances are, Die My Love’s storytelling structure is bent out of shape. Scenes feel more like dreams crashing into one another, whether they’re Grace’s delusions or actual events. LaKeith Stanfield plays a mysterious motorcyclist who tempts an inconsolably horny Grace, but his teases offer a disjointed subplot. It’s sometimes hard to decipher if what’s happening is in chronological succession or a flashback, as Ramsay wants us, the audience, to succumb to Grace’s mania. It’s a risky maneuver that sets continuity ablaze, much like how Grace finds comfort in a vision of forest fires engulfing her existence. Ramsay deploys hysteria as a weapon, letting it infect, yet ultimately tarnish her film’s composure as narrative throughlines blow away like embers lost to Grace’s inferno.
Once the ash settles, Die My Love is seen in a different light. It’s the story of a wild-at-heart mama losing her individuality to societal conformity, but with a basic examination under arthouse flourishes. Lawrence’s provocative interactions with Pattinson and a standout Sissy Spacek are lost to stylistic distress over substantial emotional payoffs. We’re captured by breathtaking moments and Seamus McGarvey’s intimate cinematography, vignettes where Grace passionately pleads for help in destructive ways, but altogether, Ramsay’s latest is haphazardly assembled. Whether or not that ruins your experience will depend on your ability to view Die My Love as a performance showcase—its crowning quality, no doubt.