Among the finer performances wasted in mediocre storytelling this year is Die My Love. This tour-de-force performance film reminded me of Blue Sky, a film that won an Oscar for Jessica Lange despite not having a single moment worth remembering. If Die My Love follows suit, I shouldn’t be too surprised; there’s certainly a non-zero chance.
First off, let me say that I never considered stalking my baby with a butcher’s knife. I don’t think that’s a normal thing to do. And there folks is the entire film in a nutshell. I’ll elaborate for the sake of posterity, but remember: baby-stalking-knife – that’s what this film is about, which is to say a new mother losing her freaking mind.
Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) is that new mother. She and her partner Jackson (Robert Pattinson) have fled the big city to live in the rural Montana house where his uncle killed himself not long ago. [The latter detail is salacious, but relatively insignificant.] Grace and Jackson make plans to gussy the place up and make it a home, but mostly they just have wild sex for a while, which doesn’t stop even after the child is born. Somewhere along this road, however, Grace starts to lose her mind.
Later in the film, the evidence becomes even more glaring – while attending a neighborhood party, Grace decides the crowded kitchen is the ideal place to strip to her underwear and go jump in the pool … following the reception of her marriage, Grace decides that instead of waiting for the groom to arrive, she’ll invite the “room service” guy up for an impromptu acoustic jam session. Mind you, these are the fun aspects of losing one’s mind. If the subject looks like Jennifer Lawrence and the activities are relatively innocuous or even, dare I say? Sexy, you could live with the results.
That isn’t generally how insanity works, sadly.
I’m told that JLaw got along famously with Robert Pattinson during this shoot, which strikes me as 
odd because this is 100% Jennifer Lawrence’s movie. Robert Pattinson is barely more than a piece of furniture for most of this film while we watch Jennifer Lawrence lose her mind and own the screen, not necessarily in that order.
Die My Love certainly gets a great performance out of Jennifer Lawrence; the question is, “What for?” Did this movie have anything to say, really? I still can’t tell if Grace goes crazy from small-town blues, post-partem depression, or -I dunno- too much Tylenol. The film seems to know, but it won’t easily divulge its secrets. So, for as wonderful a performance as the film gives us, Die My Love left me empty and wishing for more of a story. I have no doubt that this is a truer reflection of real life than the usual scripted Hollywood dive into insanity would give us, BUT that isn’t what I want. Hollywood doesn’t exist just to describe lives, but to comment on them and offer choices. I don’t feel like I was given much of either here.
There once lived a woman named Grace
Who found herself out of her place
And now, broken brain
She is going insane
But for crazy, she sure gives good face
Rated R, 119 Minutes
Director: Lynne Ramsey
Writer: Edna Walsh, Lynne Ramsay, Alice Birch
Genre: Films you’ll talk about before realizing they aren’t very good
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People into performances
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People into storytelling
