This post was updated Nov. 13 at 8:49 p.m.
Editor’s note: This article contains mentions of self-harm and descriptions of mental health challenges that may be disturbing to some readers.
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
“Die My Love” may wish to take a stab at conveying depth, but its many shortcomings fail to draw blood.
After premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in May, the 119-minute feature from director Lynne Ramsay arrived in theaters Nov. 7. The picture – adapted from the 2012 novel by Ariana Harwicz – follows the dysfunctional relationship between Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) and Jackson (Robert Pattinson), a young couple that relocates from New York to Montana and became parents shortly after the move. Despite efforts to portray Grace with some level of intrigue as her mental and emotional instability intensifies, the film’s self-indulgence and lack of characterization strip the story from ever rising above monotonous and unoriginal depictions of mental illness.
This is not Lawrence’s first time portraying a character with mental illness – she won an Oscar for her performance as a struggling widow in 2012’s “Silver Linings Playbook” – and for the most part, she is daring enough in her acting to reach toward some semblance of Grace’s humanity. There is a great deal of evocative physicality to her performance, especially as Grace goes on spontaneous walks with a knife in hand or crawls through grass in an imitation of a feline. But in terms of scenes where she appears nude or engages in acts of self-harm, Grace remains an enigma to the audience because the film’s muddled approach toward her undisclosed mental health condition holds Lawrence back from accessing a deeper layer of the character.
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As Lawrence’s primary foil, Pattinson is laughably underwhelming as Jackson, an adulterous partner so devoid of an identity he could have been played with equal effect by practically any other working actor. Despite Jackson’s key role in the plot as an indifferent father whose laziness and infidelity contribute to Grace’s volatility, Pattinson’s one-dimensional acting fails to convey that he or the audience should care about Grace. This apathy is most apparent in the third act when Jackson commits Grace to a mental health facility, but even this raising of the stakes falters at moving either lead star out of their static characterization.
The sole standout in the cast is Sissy Spacek as Jackson’s mother Pam, a wounded, grieving widow who just wants to spend quality time with her newborn grandson. Spacek is the most believable character in the film through her soulful depiction of Pam’s own mood swings, hinging back and forth between well-intentioned efforts to empathize with Grace and sorrowful sleepwalking with a rifle. Pam’s character offered an opportunity to explore Grace’s vices on a more personal level, but she is regrettably relegated to a backseat in the plot.
Likewise, actor LaKeith Stanfield is presented with no meaningful dialogue or substantive material to work with. Stanfield plays a motorcyclist neighbor named Karl – whom Grace may or may not be having an affair with, depending on the viewer’s impression of what is literal and what is in Grace’s head. The constant blurring between reality and fantasy may have seemed creative in capturing Grace’s unpredictable mental state, but in practice the result is a tedious challenge for viewers to follow and is so vague that any attempt of a character study on Grace falls apart.
Throughout its excruciatingly dull but overextended runtime – a disappointing statement, given the feature is less than two hours – Lawrence and Pattinson are shown in an exhaustingly cyclical set of scenarios. A cordial or friendly interaction in the house or yard turns heated, shouting ensues, Grace storms out and the same pattern repeats a few scenes later. This structure may have been intentional to convey the recurring obstacles of Grace’s mental health and relationship, but the overreliance on the same, slightly varied vignette loses its entertainment value almost immediately. The absence of any visually striking cinematography techniques only exacerbates the narrative stagnation.
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When watching “Die My Love,” there are some loose parallels to David Fincher’s 2014 film “Gone Girl” – a portrait of a dysfunctional relationship based on a popular 2012 novel. In that story, the couple – Nick and Amy – relocates from New York to Missouri, Nick engages in an extramarital affair and Amy’s mental instability catapults the pair into an unpredictable criminal investigation. “Gone Girl” is a brilliant film anchored by stellar performances from Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, and one wishes “Die My Love” took notes about character development from the former’s excellence.
Of course, the source material for “Die My Love” is quite different from “Gone Girl,” and Grace is never meant to be as cold and calculating as Amy. But for a movie marketed as a psychological thriller, “Die My Love” lacks any truly thrilling components and instead finds itself incapable of providing a lens through which viewers can understand its characters. While Nick and Amy’s motivations were clear – from their relocation being prompted by the 2008 economic crisis to the charming origin story of their romance – Grace and Jackson’s entire relationship is shrouded in mystery. There are few details for viewers to latch onto and no depth that encourages viewers to stick around for the rest of the movie’s plodding, insipid events.
Never managing to cut deep, “Die My Love” is undone by a number of fatal filmmaking flaws and a surprising lack of convincing romance.
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