The lines between love, responsibility, respect and mental health get blurred in a new movie hitting theaters this weekend. Die My Love tells the story of Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) and her husband Jackson (Robert Pattinson) as they start their life together in an old family members home that is isolated in the country. Grace, has the dream to write the next Great American Novel, but quickly the isolation and neglect at home starts to mess with who she is, how she operates and how she sees the world around her. Her husband is always gone for work, and now she’s left at home with an infant and a dog that barks nonstop.
The movie only touches on Grace being a writer a couple of times, not showing her actually struggling to write. It hints at her lost passion for it and ability to write. It also only touches on her past, and instability or mental issues she may have had before she got married and had a child. But it does quite clearly show how dismissive her husband, his family and everyone is to her about her struggles. How even her Mother in Law mentions she lost herself after her husband passed. And the isolation of where they’re living looms large and seems to amplify any issues Grace is having.
It seems like the movie is almost trying to tackle the overwhelming pressures put on women and the disregard for their own lives once they get married and have kids, but seems to fall short. It uses it as a story device, but much like Grace, the audience isn’t given any way out of the situation or any good resolution. Her husbands cheating and emotionally manipulating is never called out, instead, like many women in the past, she’s just disregarded, committed and told to be better.
To say that Die My Love is a great movie would be stretching it. Visually it has moments that are stunning, and with limited locations and sets used throughout the film, it’s an interesting perspective. That only adds to the isolating feeling that Grace is feeling. And while the cast is loaded with large name actors, the pacing seems slow, and the description doesn’t quite prepare you for what you’re about to watch. Instead, while it’s an interesting look at isolation, depression and even neglect – it seems like it could have just gone a step further to make a point instead of just sitting with Grace’s loss of herself and her dreams. It, just, could have been more.
Die My Love is in select theaters and markets this weekend.
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About Die My Love
From renowned filmmaker Lynne Ramsay, DIE MY LOVE is a visceral and uncompromising portrait of a woman engulfed by love and madness. Anchored by a ferocious, tour de force performance from Jennifer Lawrence, and co-starring Robert Pattinson.
The film follows Grace (Lawrence) and her partner Jackson (Pattinson), who have recently moved into an old house deep in the country. With ambitions to write The Great American Novel, Grace settles into her new environment, and the couple welcome a baby soon after. However, with Jackson frequently – and suspiciously – absent, and the pressures of domestic life starting to weigh on her, Grace begins to unravel, leaving a path of destruction in her wake.
Based on Ariana Harwicz’s celebrated novel and co-starring Sissy Spacek, LaKeith Stanfield and Nick Nolte, Ramsay marks her eagerly-awaited return with this fearless new cinematic vision that charts the complexity of love and how it can change and transform over time.