Lynne Ramsay loves making eclectic movies, ones filled with dread from top to bottom. The newest film she’s directed is an adaptation of a book of the same name, written by Argentinian author Ariana Harcwicz. The book explores a mother’s mental difficulties after childbirth in a very psychological and disturbing manner. Grace, the main character, is losing her marbles the entire story. Jennifer Lawrence does a great job capturing this insanity, and Robert Pattinson is right there with her! But throughout the entire trippy sequence of events I couldn’t help but wonder: why?
I absolutely adore Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson. They are two of the great actors of our time, not to mention two of the hottest people currently alive. So when I found out they’d be starring side by side in this romantic-psychological-thriller-dark-comedy, I was stoked! The film is a beautiful thing to see, but what lost me for the most part was an oversaturated use of symbolism.
Style and/or substance
I really don’t know how I feel about this movie. Basically, I was disappointed. At times though, I was really enthralled. But mainly, I was confused. Of course, I have no capacity of fully understanding what it is like to give birth to a child, but! The best movies have a sense of relatability no matter who the main character is. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is a great example of this. But Die My Love? It felt much more alienating. Though also I think that’s the point. Either way I am stumped!
The film has style for days, that much I know. I really loved the look of it. It mainly takes place in an old, big, deserted house in rural Montana. The scenery is naturally gorgeous. The actors are gorgeous. The baby is adorable. The jump scares work. The frustrating tension between wife and husband burns up on the screen. There’s a lot in this movie that really works. Stylistically. But any film about a person going crazy should maintain a level of substance to keep things interesting.
The biggest crime Die My Love commits, is being boring.
With a title like that…
You’d expect an explosive ending, or climax, one way or another. Right? But watching the ending of this movie felt very much like watching the end of a magic show. I was bedazzled all the while, sure, but then I felt tricked and short-changed. About halfway through the movie I knew I wasn’t going to be satisfied. It’s really quite funny though, for a movie as sexually explicit as this one, the climax falls flat.
What kills me is how excited I was for this. Both Lawrence and Pattinson have played their fair share of roles where they have to act cuckoo. Silver Linings Playbook, and The Lighthouse for example, both remind me of Die My Love. The themes are similar: relationships, isolation, identity, losing yourself, and finding yourself. But while the prior two films both have an assured sense of humor, the tone here felt much more dark than comic.
There were several scenes, and lines, that were pretty hilarious. And the couple sitting next to me in the theater were cracking up, so clearly it works on a certain level. But to me, the story was very dark, and threatening to fall in on itself multiple times. I was constantly unsettled from scene to scene, and never felt safe. Like something bad could happen at any time. So, when the humor arrived I was too shocked to find anything laugh out loud funny, as the film is mainly hard to watch.
Tedious pacing and pretentious tone
This is a very art-house film. Great! I love that stuff, for the most part. But when it’s slow just to be slow, and when metaphors are your only basic form of storytelling, I’m gonna have to stop you right there. There were many scenes that dragged, or otherwise, felt super repetitive. And I get it, its madness, its losing your mind. Things happen slowly, things happen again and again. But filmmaking allows you to work around making a story feel slow-moving and hard to understand.
There is a lot being thrown at the audience, and despite the near incoherence at times, I thought it was an impressive try at adapting what must be a very esoteric book. The point of the film is to capture what it feels like to be a mother after childbirth, while also being in a very toxic relationship. But to what end? If the book gets the job done, I don’t see the need to create a beautiful yet lackluster visual poem.
Also, why is it that Rom-Coms are drying up while movies about toxic relationships are all over the place these days? I don’t know what that says about the current state of things in the real world, but it makes me quite hopeless at times. This rocky on-screen relationship takes many turns, most of which seem inconsequential, which is weird. It made it hard to care about Grace or Jackson, the frenzied couple. And while unlikeable characters can still be sympathetic, I did not sympathize with either. I was too busy searching for meaning of it all.
Live, my hate
I’ve decided I’m not too big a fan of this film. It’s a shame. A lot of good talent worked on it, and it’s very pretty! But what did I get out of it? Not a heck of a lot.
It also has one of those endings. One that made me think: “wait its over?” but also: “wait, what just happened? Is that it?”. Then the music starts playing and the credits role. (Oh, I will say the soundtrack in this one is amazing. The theme of love and hate was really well done musically).
But I would never see this again. I wouldn’t see it with friends, or family. Wouldn’t throw it on at a movie night. I don’t regret seeing it, I just feel… nothing.
So while I can’t recommend Die My Love, I can at least tell you that it is still playing in theaters currently and you should see it if you would like to.
