Even if this is not Ramsay’s tightest thematic work, and the film meanders and zigzags across multiple time frames with less effect than We Need to Talk About Kevin, Die, My Love is a worthy addition to the ever-impressive oeuvre of one of the finest auteurs working in contemporary cinema.
Lynne Ramsay’s fifth feature, Die My Love, an adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s 2012 novel of the same name, begins with a recurring motif from her filmography. A still long shot gazing into, at first, an abandoned, dimly lit home, a quaint kitchen and dining area with two double doors at the far end – very reminiscent of the opening shot of We Need to Talk About Kevin. A minute passes, and a young couple appear from the double doors before entering the house to examine it further. Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) and Jackson (Robert Pattinson) are both looking to relocate from New York City to this deserted, rural, and gradually decaying house in Montana. Although there are practicalities to this move – Jackson wants to live closer to his parents, Pam and Henry (Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte) – they also have wishful ambitions to turn it into a creative space for both their careers and their family life.
Suddenly, the film cuts to a rapid montage of a blazing forest wildfire, Grace and Jackson getting frisky in the kitchen, having sex, having more sex, and then having more sex as the edit spirals out of control before regaining focus on the garishly green title card. This is the tone of the following two hours in a nutshell: stillness followed by shock, always keeping the audience on their toes, forcing them to explore the picture visually rather than be guided by it. Ramsay’s distinctive voice has always been built on this modus operandi since her 1999 debut feature Ratcatcher. But with her first film in eight years, the Scottish filmmaker is not only firing on all cylinders but blasting them into the ether with pure punk attitude.
Unsurprisingly, after this maddening opening prelude, Grace gets pregnant and has a baby. The pair name it Harry (or do they?). At first, it seems so sweet: mum and newborn play in the grass as long-time collaborator Seamus McGarvey’s dynamic cinematography prowls and sweeps through the reeds, as though taking part in an innocent game of hide-and-seek. Eventually, days turn into weeks and months, and Grace’s personality swings from jubilation to irritation to outright boredom. And from that boredom begins a gradual development of postpartum depression before entering psychosis, with Ramsay’s extraordinarily poetic style vividly portraying it every step of the way.
Die My Love is, at times, a disturbing piece of work about the spiralling descent of depression, and the suffocating effects it can have on a household and beyond. If you want to make a comparison, its themes of postpartum are akin to Eva’s troubled mothering of her psychopathic son in We Need to Talk About Kevin. But whereas that adaptation concluded with acidic nihilism in Kevin’s confession, Die My Love, by the end, becomes a deeply transcendent film about female liberation and autonomy as we watch Grace find solace in her hysteria through midnight walks in the woods, crawling in the grass, or conjuring a mysterious motorcyclist as her lover (a haunting turn from LaKeith Stanfield) by means of erotic escapism.
Jennifer Lawrence is relentless in her most visceral performance to date. Ever since she starred in both Winter’s Bone (2010) and The Hunger Games franchise (2012-2015), Lawrence’s status in Hollywood has allowed her stardom to wield a fascinating combination of a typical offscreen persona and an atypical onscreen one, thanks to her experience in crossing flexibly between mainstream, independent and experimental films. We see this on full display in the role of Grace, especially her self-deprecation, which Ramsay and her screenplay, co-written alongside Enda Walsh and Alice Birch, tap into with abundance to unlock the film’s blackly comic humour. When Jackson brings home an adorably excitable puppy who naturally barks nonstop and wees all over the floor, Grace’s response to this nuisance is to dryly advise her ineffectual husband to ‘make better choices in who you bring home. ‘ This is all said whilst she mindlessly eats burnt toast, which garnered considerable laughs from the audience.
Various dark, humorous moments litter the film and would collapse into delusion in the hands of a different filmmaker. But Ramsay and editor Toni Froschhammer handle these tonal humour shifts deftly amid the surrounding insanity, and it’s to the film’s credit that they work.
As in all of Ramsay’s films, motifs surrounding grief, death and guilt pop up in Die My Love – a black horse Grace encounters is either a figment of her imagination or perfect symbolism – but these signifiers support the visual language rather than act as conventional plot devices. The notion of curtains returns again but only briefly as Grace playfully wraps herself in one – an intriguing reference to the opening of Ratcatcher. Crucially, this is muscular, uncompromised, unapologetic filmmaking designed to grab you by the scruff of the neck and hurl you into its unfurling chaos. The sonic soundscape of Ramsay’s films is an aural venture of their own, and Die My Love is no different, with baby cries, Jackson screaming, and Grace’s wailing amplified to create a claustrophobic atmosphere.
Even if this is not Ramsay’s tightest thematic work, as the film meanders and zigzags across multiple time frames to less effect than We Need to Talk About Kevin, Die, My Love is a suitable addition to the ever-impressive oeuvre of one of the finest auteurs working in contemporary cinema. Welcome back, Lynne Ramsay.
Die My Love screened at the BFI London Film Festival and will be released in cinemas nationwide on November 7.
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