52 Films by Women Vol 9. 36. Die My Love (Director: Lynne Ramsay)
Harwicz’s novel is set in France. Ramsay’s film, shot by Seamus McGarvey,
in Montana. Most of the action takes place in the dilapidated clapboard house into
which Grace and her boyfriend Jackson (Robert Pattinson) move into, inherited from
Jackson’s uncle, Frank, who shot himself. Grace questions Jackson’s mother, Pam
(Sissy Spacek) and goes through various killer spots by process of elimination:
head (no), chest or heart (no), don’t tell me, his ass (no response). In a
flashback we meet Jackson’s father, Harry (Nick Nolte) who has dementia. He and
Grace share a moment as she fetches him a drink. They both pull faces,
positioning themselves as outsiders in cahoots, but then Harry sees where he is
and hurls his glass against the wall. ‘This is my brother’s house! We shouldn’t
be here.’ I guess that’s why they call the wine, ‘Shard donnez.’ Someone has to
fetch the broken pieces.
Ramsay’s debut, Ratcatcher, screened at
the Cannes Film Festival in 1999. Die My Love is only her
fifth feature. Her films are defined by brittle characters and brutal outlooks.
Her leading actors – Samantha Morton (Morvern Callar), Tilda
Swinton (We Need To Talk About Kevin), Joaquin
Phoenix (You Were Never Really Here) and now
Jennifer Lawrence – go to the edge, where behaviour expunges personality. Ramsay’s
characters are like automations that pull the plug and keep walking. Ramsay has
in the past proved reluctant to talk about her work, as if each film were a
skin that she has shed. She is concerned with mental health but is reluctant to
pigeonhole her characters’ psychosis. In the case of Die
My Love’s Grace, she does not attribute her behaviour solely to post partem
depression. Violent behaviour – as illustrated by Harry – is as much a form of
protest, a demand to live life in a more appropriate way. Ramsay judges the
world not on ideological grounds or even through the lens of feminism. Her
characters are consumed by a rage that has no gender. At the end of Die
My Love, Grace runs metaphorically (at least) into the fire, a forest blaze of
her own making, words (contained in her journal) lost to the world. I thought the
final scene was of poor taste: a Hollywood star embracing flames by implication
refusing to acknowledge the trauma caused by forest fires in California that consumed
hundreds of homes at the start of 2025, affecting many in her community. Others
will read the scene more generously.
Between 2012 and 2015, Lawrence was one of Hollywood’s most successful
actresses. She headlined a high-grossing franchise (The Hunger Games and its three sequels)
and earned critical kudos – and one Oscar - in three films directed by David O.
Russell, Silver Linings Playbook, American
Hustle and Joy. In those
films, her characters fight for survival (or love) and succeed more through
determination, empathy and resourcefulness than physical strength. In Die
My Love, Lawrence negates the qualities that made her a star, a process that she
began with her 2016 box-office flop, Passengers, in which her
character was stranded on a space craft physically and metaphorically opposite
Chris Pratt. In so doing, she shreds her ability to ‘open’ a picture.
In Die My Love, Lawrence (as
Grace) initially occupies a space without imperatives. We see her stretching
and dancing. The house into which the couple move is almost like a performance
space. In the opening scene, Ramsay’s character is static as Grace and Jackson
look into the house from outside, walk past the side wall and enter from a door
we don’t see. Throughout their voice level is constant. We don’t get a sense of
them getting closer to us. Indeed they don’t, for no sooner than they enter the
room, they are walking away from the camera. The camera itself is indifferent
to their movement. It doesn’t follow them, so when Jackson races upstairs to
explore, he disappears from view. The opening establishes the house as an
unresponsive environment that doesn’t reflect its new occupants. For a long
period, the couple don’t personalise it. It doesn’t feature in their plans.
Outside the house, Jackson and Grace crawl on all fours, enacting a
mating ritual of sorts. This scene tips into something else, the semblance of
an advertising campaign for perfume. We understand that Jackson is a musician
of sorts – he talks about getting a drum kit. Grace has pretensions of being a
writer. Pregnancy and birth supplant ambitions. Then Grace slides. Crockery
collects in the sink.
Just as the house is indifferent to Jackson and Grace, so Lawrence is
indifferent to the camera. Having breastfed her baby, we see her standing up,
one breast poking through her bra. Nudity is unsexualised, though Grace is
consumed by desire. At one point, she lies on the bed in her underwear and
masturbates. In another scene, after a drive, she tries to arouse Jackson
outside his mother’s house. Jackson is mostly absent from the house working –
we don’t know what he does, but we see him wearing a business branded tee-shirt
in one scene. Grace is left alone with the baby, with only Pam to turn to.
When we first meet Pam, she has shotgun in hand. Grace takes the baby to
see her, finds the key outside and calls out, climbing the stairs. She is
greeted by two barrels. ‘You snuck in,’ complains Pam. ‘I didn’t,’ says Grace.
Watching the two actresses, you reflect on their trajectories. Spacek achieved
fame in her twenties playing the victimised student who exacts revenge through
telekinesis in Carrie and won an
Oscar as country singer Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner’s Daughter. A few more
leading roles followed, but Spacek became a supporting actress and a touchstone
of sorts, weathered by experience but always authentic. When Pam tells Grace
that all mothers lose a sense of themselves after giving birth, we feel that
she has survived that particular storm. Pam has her own condition. She
sleepwalks with a shotgun in hand, waking up on a quiet road. We wonder how she
unlocked the door while encumbered with a weapon. One night, Grace creeps into the house and steals
Pam’s shotgun for herself.
‘I got us a dog.’ ‘We needed a cat.’ Jackson and Grace don’t so much
communicate as lay out their fait accompli. The dog that Jackson brings home
barks constantly. It has the potential to threaten the baby. One day, Jackson
shows it ‘a magic trick’, placing a bowl of mac and cheese powder (with added
water) into the microwave, then feeding the cooked product to his pet. The dog becomes
ill. It whimpers. Grace shakes Jackson conscious. ‘You have to put down your
dog. It’s sick.’ ‘I’m not killing it,’ he replies. Grace takes the shotgun and
blasts the canine. It is not the only wounded animal in the film. Whilst out
driving, Grace finds a condom in Jackson’s glove compartment and inflates it,
blocking his view of the road. Their car collides with a horse, which somehow
walks away having damaged the vehicle’s fender. The incident doesn’t cure Grace
of her erratic behaviour.
Purchasing the mac and cheese brings out the worst in Grace, who silences
the perkiness of the shop assistant. She doesn’t want two for $6 or to be asked
about her baby. She just wants to pay for her shopping. Playing a mother who
can’t share her inner torment, Lawrence channels the aloof movie star who
doesn’t engage. A party pooper. We see this when Grace, Jackson and the baby
attend a party. Grace strips to her underwear and jumps in the children’s pool.
Pictured: 'We need a cat.' Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) struggles with her mental health in a scene from the film, 'Die My Love', adapted from Ariana Harwicz's 2017 novel by director Lynne Ramsay, who co-wrote the screenplay with Alice Birch and Enda Walsh. Still courtesy of Mubi. Photo credit: Kimberley French.
‘What are you doing?’ Grace asks Jackson on the phone. ‘I’m eating a
burger,’ he tells her. ‘When will you be home?’ ‘Late.’ Grace imagines Jackson
having sex with another woman. The car crash is motivated by her unfulfilled
desire.
Grace appears to be stalked by a helmeted motorcycle rider in black
leathers (Lakeith Stanfield). Eventually they meet in a barn. Grace bites his
lip. Later, she sees him with a woman and child outside a supermarket and
approaches. ‘Can you help me? I think my tyre is flat.’ ‘We ain’t going there,’
the woman says, immediately sensing a threat.
The film begins with a six-month party for the baby, Grace lamenting that
the cake is shop bought. ‘I should have baked.’ It ends when the child is one.
By then, Grace and Jackson have married, though their wedding is marred by
Grace’s manic behaviour. She dances in a frenzy, then retires to the honeymoon
suite where she pleads with the desk clerk to bring her some ice. He tells her
to use the ice machine outside. She lures him to her room. Towards the end,
Grace smashes her skull against a bathroom mirror and squeezes shampoos and
lotions onto the floor. She has to be sectioned. She writes in a journal which
has horses on the cover, recalling the early films of Eadweard Muybridge, not
to mention the horse injured by Jackson’s car. Grace appears to have recovered the
desire to write. The climax refutes this.
Pictured: No 'Mr Brightside.' Grace (Jennifer Lawrence, left) and Jackson (Robert Pattinson, right) dance at their wedding in a scene from co-writer-director Lynne Ramsay's film, 'Die My Love', adapted from Ariana Harwicz's 2017 by Ramsay and co-writers Alice Birch and Enda Walsh. Still courtesy of Mubi (photo credit: Kimberley French).
The uneasiness continues during a trip to the beach. McGarvey’s camera is
pointed at the water, which reflects the sun and appears to blind Grace and
Jackson. Three girls approach. ‘Do you mind if we play with your baby?’ one
asks. Grace permits them to take the child. We wonder about their motivation
and about Grace’s apathy.
While Lawrence dominates the film, Pattinson takes a back seat. Jackson
broods but with no purpose, as if turning over a series of half-baked ideas in
his mind. He is out of synch with Grace, tries to accommodate her but acts as
if he too is weathering a storm.
‘I hate guitars,’ Grace tells Jackson, asking him to switch off the car
radio. Later, she tells him she likes them. They sing along to a duet, ‘In
Spite of Ourselves’ by John Prine and Iris DeMent (‘She don’t like her eggs all
runny’, etc). It is a moment of respite. But not really. The new car. The house
all fixed up. It’s no cure.
Reviewed at PictureHouse Central (Screen
One), off Shaftesbury Avenue, Central London, Friday 7 November 2025, 12:40
screening
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