Review of Die my lovethe new film from director Lynne Ramsay based on the novel by Ariana Harwicz starring Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, Sissi Spacek and Nick Nolte. Premieres on November 14th.
Lynne Ramsay releases a film and it immediately catches our attention. After films as difficult and risky as Ratcatcher, we need to talk about Kevin any You were never really herefaces a new literary adaptation in Die my love.
The source material is provided by the Argentine writer Ariana Harwiczwhich has a very disruptive literary style that Ramsay tried to imitate when showing the family ties in which violence, eroticism, vulnerability and explosions emerge. An appeal to the visceral, the physical and the dreamlike that mixes with an enigmatic lyricism.
In the background of the story, a profound instability marked by the personal, creative and sexual dissatisfaction of the protagonist, whose erratic behavior is disconcerting but also hypnotic, like watching a train derail in slow motion. That’s why he was interested Jennifer Lawrence who acts as producer and protagonist.
The film, which will be released in cinemas in Spain on November 14th, had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year and can be seen at the San Sebastian Film Festival, where its protagonist, Jennifer Lawrence, received the Donostia award.
In Die my love for her He is the absolute center of the show: he defines the audience’s point of view and gives everything to the camera, although most of the time he tries to make us uncomfortable,
A very unique rural life
Grace and Jackson are a young, passionate couple, full of dreams, who move from New York to an inherited house in the country. The idea is to settle down permanently, start a family and find time and space to dedicate yourself to writing with complete freedom,
However, when their child is born, their lives take a tremendous turn. Grace begins to show all the symptoms of a barbaric postpartum depression: she refuses the responsibility of taking care of the baby, abuses alcohol at any time and experiences a sexual awakening in which her husband does not accompany her.
She is also paranoid: she believes that he abandoned her at home and that he is unfaithful to her, which is why they stopped having relationships. The trust between them is broken and Grace reaches the point of hurting herself.
Fatigue, loneliness and lack of support hang over her, as the house falls on top of her with no room for maneuver to find a way out until her mother-in-law begins to empathize with her. Die my love It is the portrait of a broken and emotionally unstable woman who does not know how to distinguish her affections..
The film has a very limited main cast, including Jennifer Lawrence (The Bright Side of Things), Robert Pattinson (Mickey 17), LaKeith Stanfield (Daggers in the back), Nick Nolte (fear of cable) and Sissy Spacek (Castle Rock).
One of the main problems Die my love is that the schedule is very complicated. To the point where you’re not sure what’s going on all the time. As is evident, our Grace is not at all reliable because she has a tendency to daydream and it is difficult to discern what is really happening and what is part of her desires and fantasies.
So that the film, at a certain point, is a collection of images of self-destructive behaviors that end up losing their impact capacity due to accumulation. The viewer becomes progressively numb and stops having empathy for a woman with incomprehensible behavior, so disturbed that she puts her baby at risk.
It is also not very clear what the husband’s role is in the development of the plot: he never ends up seeming like an ally in his partner’s recovery, but rather a perpetual aggravator of the situation, even when he wants to “do things right”.
If a serious defect is the lack of clarity, it is no less true that it has its virtues: a soundtrack that creates very specific atmospheres and gives a halo of elegance to a raw, visceral and relentless story, as well as the photography, with lots of grain and abundant close-ups, without fear of penetrating the characters to the core.
Die my love It’s a complicated film, the director’s least successful film to date, but a tremendous showcase for the generous Lawrencethat opens up in front of a demanding and invasive camera.
ASSESSMENT:
It may be Lynne Ramsay’s least brilliant film to date, not because the subject matter isn’t interesting or because the actors don’t give it their all, which they do, but. because the characters’ behavior is most of the time incomprehensible.
THE BEST:
The interpretations, despite being very extreme.
WORSE:
The timeline is not very clear, many gaps need to be filled in to understand the plot.
About The Author
