Lynne Ramsay has never shown much interest in making films that are easy to digest. The uncompromising Scottish director hasn't softened with her jagged fifth feature. Die my love. Jennifer Lawrence gives a career-free performance between disturbed reality and disturbed fantasy, while Jennifer Lawrence plays a woman transplanted into the wide open spaces of rural America where marriage, motherhood and home approach her and chipped in her sanity.
Screenwriters Enda Walsh, Ramsay and Alice Burch relocate Argentine writer Ariana Malwich's 2012 debut novel from the French countryside, but they remain true to their focus on women fighting her demons in an increasingly enthusiastic state of quarantine.
Die my love
Conclusion
A punishment watch that will ultimately be rewarded.
venue: Cannes Film Festival (Competition)
castJennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, Sissy Spacek, Nick Norte, Lakes Stanfield
director: Lynn Ramsay
Screenwriter: Based on novels by Enda Walsh, Lynn Ramsay, Alice Burch and Ariana Malwitz
2 hours
Lawrence stars as Grace and Jackson across from Robert Pattinson. The couple is making a major change from New York to an unnamed spot surrounded by tall trees and meadow prairie. His family comes from the area and his mother, Pam (Sissy Spacque) and Dotty's father, Henry (Nick Norte). Jackson inherited the house with spacious weather from his uncle. He commits suicide in an extraordinary way that makes no sense, and is now zero in the story.
Cinematographer Sheamus McGarvey (Ramsay's DP) working in a box-shaped 4:3 aspect ratio. I need to talk about Kevin) Shoot the opening with an impressive fixed camera medium shot as the couple arrives first at the house and enters and out of frames while they are in and out of different rooms.
Jackson tells Grace that she has no neighbors nearby, so she can blow up the music loudly as she wants. She did that and worked to the point where they both began to boning down on the floor. It has been established from the beginning that Grace's appetite for sex is huge.
But by the time their boys arrive, the couple's passion for their union appears to have already been turned down several times. This doesn't work with Grace, who wanders around the garden like a Panther, flops on his back, slams his pants, slams his trousers, wandering around the garden, flops on his back, shooting Jackson and his son in the bored voices on his porch. She ignores housework and starts sexual fantasies – or is it true? – Sometimes we sway around her to get her to see her about the hot biker (unused Lakes Stanfield) who keeps roaming by her house.
Ramsay shuffled the chronology without a valid reason and returned to Grace's pregnancy after the birth of the baby (I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks she's expecting a second child). Pam, along with Jackson's chatty aunt, pays for the visit and sits clutching about motherhood. Although Grace doesn't even pretend to be interested, she is sweet and patient, patient with Harry, and comes and goes in and out with clarity. Like many of the threads here, threads about Pam sleepwalk go anywhere.
It's a bit of a trudging as I'm sure the first hour or so of the expanded film is getting more and more unstable, and Jackson is getting messed up while he's at work. Her general complaints are evident in her rudeness towards chatty convenience store cashiers and women at parties. She bewilders Jackson by undressing in the living room and diving into a pool full of kids in revealing underwear.
Pam tries to reassure her. But going through glass doors and destroying the bathroom is far beyond the loop. Early on, Jackson tries to brighten up his mood by bringing his dog home. This turns out to be a bad idea when Grace has constant yuppies and whining, and when he has access to the shotgun. Jackson talks to her in the car and tries to understand what's wrong, and she ends up having an accident. She then tells him that two and a half months after they have sex, and that he will verbally abuse him when he fails to take command.
Postpartum depression continues to manifest, which probably caused Grace's mental breakdown. However, her connection with the baby is vibrant. The problem is the fraying connection with her husband.
Lawrence certainly seeks it in a physically demanding role, and she is always dynamic. But Ramsay is a stunning qualities of the film, known for her abrasive characters and total dislike for her emotions, and for shaking quotes with shock and fear, keeping her bounty far away. She is a trap wildlife, and seeing walls and masturbation and nails has long been interesting.
It's easy to feel anything for Jackson. Pattinson has a sensitivity and an emotional spirit, and an emotional spirit when he falls into despair. Ask for grace to marry him when she is in her batch crazy – really wtf? Movement – Drunk weddings are even bigger mistakes than dogs, given that people tend to eliminate restraint. Or whatever the grace leaves behind.
Staying in a mental health facility – it doesn't fix Grace, who plays the role of a happy wife and mother, but rescues the film from a long-taxing bipolar episode. The fun scene in which Grace and Jackson sing alongside David Bowie's “Cook” in the car reminds us that behind the tense union there is a couple who really love each other. Ramsay himself will not sing “Love Treats Us” by Joy Division over the end credits.
Regardless of the film's flaws – part of that may be because they were able to run through the final stages of the post to close the Cannes deadline, but the closing stretch has a retrospective effect on everything that was before. It changes Die my love (The film loses commas in the novel's title) From self-destructive solo shows to thoughtful investigations of complex relationships and all the patience and understanding it requires.
Just before the end, the image of a forest fire that is temporarily seen at the start returns in a more expansive way. One partner goes to the extreme to feel the freedom she longs for, and eventually sees her unruly desires and realizes that he has to make space for them. Ramsay's films are hard to love, but its beautiful visuals cast such a fierce glow, and it pulls the whole thing that is cumbersome together.