Die My Love: Turns Out Postpartum Depression Is Really Not That Entertaining
By Liz Braun
Rating: B
Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk About Kevin) directs Jennifer Lawrence. That should be enough right there to make any film fan happy. Hard to explain, then, why Die My Love, co-written and directed by Ramsay and starring Lawrence as a young mother slipping into some sort of postpartum madness, is such a slog.
Die My Love has gorgeous cinematography, delicious nudity, way-cool music and Robert Pattinson, but the irresistible urge to check one’s watch kicked in early — at the one-hour mark. That’s not a good sign.
Lawrence is Grace, and Pattinson is Jackson, a couple we meet as they tour the house in which they’re going to live. It’s a house way out in the country where Jackson’s uncle used to live, and it’s a bit of a wreck, but what do they care?
They are young and mad for each other, with a hot sex scene to prove it, and within seconds they’ve moved in, she’s pregnant, they’re dancing in the kitchen and then there’s a baby and Jackson’s swilling beer at breakfast.
Grace aspires to be a writer; there’s a quiet moment when she splashes ink on the empty pages of the notebook in which she no longer has time to write. Her tears splash down onto the page to mix into the ink blots. Maybe time to invest in a laptop.
Any vague disappointment or disillusionment for Grace is initially swept aside by the sheer physical effort involved in women’s work — brief sequences convey the caring, comforting, coddling and cajoling involved in tending to everyone from that baby to Jackson to Jackson’s elderly father (Nick Nolte).
It’s exhausting, watching someone who is the emotional glue in the family juggle three generations of needy men; you’ll pardon the redundancy, but that juggling happens in an isolated rural area where spooky sleepwalking, midnight garden waltzing and gun-toting seniors appear to be the norm.
Some of this is flashback, some is present day. Other things — a horse in the garden, a man with a motorcycle wandering the property — are caught somewhere between fantasy and reality. Maybe.
Grace needs a lot of things from Jackson that she’s not getting, especially sex. She begins to imagine him having affairs. Their house is a huge mess, and Jackson helps out by getting a dog nobody wants. The dog won’t stop barking. Grace’s biggest supporter is Jackson’s mother Pam (Sissy Spacek), a woman who still irons her dead husband’s shirts.
So, yeah, there’s a descent into madness for Grace. She hits her head in one scene and then has a couple more cranial bashes. As Grace’s mental state deteriorates, Pam says, “You’re still so pretty, Grace. Let me help you,” illustrating the standard way in which women are (under) valued.
Jackson tells Grace she has embarrassed him after one public meltdown or another; someone at a party says, “Postpartum depression is much more common,” etc. etc. in case you were having trouble keeping up.
The music (which is great) gets increasingly bonkers: “Hey Mickey” (Toni Basil) on repeat, that manic “Little April Shower” song from Bambi, twangy singalongs to John Prine and Iris Dement.
Why so many people just stand around and watch while Grace loses the plot is never made clear but never mind. Is mental illness supposed to be sexy or fascinating or entertaining in some way? Die My Love is initially harrowing to look at. Eventually, it’s boring.
Crazy girl; gosh, there’s no help for it; love though! The End.
Die My Love is full of beautiful images. The thing is lit and shot like a Renaissance masterpiece, and you half expect Lawrence’s character to ascend into heaven.
By the umpteenth time the actress is seen crawling through verdant fields in a feral fashion, you have to figure that somebody — the director? the cinematographer? the editor? — fell madly in love with her and jettisoned the movie in favour of simply capturing magnificent pictures of her.
That’s probably more than enough for a lot of moviegoers. Everyone else can re-watch A Woman Under the Influence.
Die My Love. Directed by Lynne Ramsay, written by Enda Walsh, Lynne Ramsay and Alice Birch. Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, Sissy Spacek, LaKeith Stanfield, and Nick Nolte. In theatres November 7.