Die My Love

Grade: C

Die My Love is the kind of movie that salon.com articles are made of. For at least 24 years (I first became acquainted with it when I read their piece on Mulholland Drive in 2001), it’s been a go-to website for thorough “movie explained” articles about those strange, tough films you have trouble cutting through. Watching it, I thought of Oliver Stone and David Lynch – and it even has actors who have worked with both of them.

I learned (and thankfully I found this out beforehand, otherwise I would have been even more lost) that it’s a big metaphor about postpartum depression. This subject matter was done better last year in Nightbitch, which had Amy Adams turning into a dog every night. Die My Love, on the other hand, runs so far off the rails, that I couldn’t grasp at anything resembling a message. Plus, not just the mother, but all the characters were kooky and weird even before the baby came.

I loved the opening scenes, and then nothing was as good afterwards. We meet a couple: Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) and Jackson (Robert Pattinson) as they move into an old creaky house out in the country. They inherited it from Jackson’s uncle, who recently took his life in the most unusual suicide method I have ever heard. It will make you clench up when you hear it. This first scene is all one faraway shot, from deep inside the house – similar to what Robert Zemeckis did in Here. After a quiet opening, it jarringly becomes loud as hell as a punk rock song blares, and we transition into Lawrence and Pattinson drinking, dancing, and graphically/ferociously participating in the activity that will bring them their baby.

We meet their son at six months. He isn’t given a name until the end. I know new babies are understandably confused about what’s going on and why they’re there, and this one looks especially baffled. Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte play Pam and Harry – Jackson’s parents, who live fairly close. Pam has a habit of sleepwalking around and sometimes outside the house, while carrying a rifle. Harry doesn’t talk much, and seems to have dementia. He and his daughter-in-law Grace appear to have a special friendship. They understand each other, despite Harry’s situation. I liked every few and far between scene we got with just Lawrence and Nolte, and I wanted more to go down that road. Unfortunately, Nolte’s character drops off the face of the earth, and I don’t remember an explanation.

The best way I can describe what goes down throughout, really, the whole movie, is Grace has odd, trippy experiences, which include probable hallucinations. She crawls around the field outside her home, brandishing one of those sharp kitchen knives – the kind that, in the movies, always makes the swishing sound of metal scraping up against other metal, just by existing. She engages in some unique forms of self-mutilation, not all of which are intentional. She is one of the horniest female characters I’ve seen – constantly wanting it, and pressing Pattinson for it. She is frequently seen taking matters into her own hand, as he continues to resist her advances. Spacek, as the mother-in-law, when she’s of sound mind and body, is generally unfazed by Grace’s behavior, and almost encourages it. Die My Love itself is of loud sound, scatterbrained mind, and an often naked body.

Lawrence has already been praised in other reviews for her fearlessness here. Anybody can do what she does. Just be naked a lot and act crazy. I didn’t see a performance with nuance. There’s an utterly bizarre subplot involving LaKeith Stanfield. Most of it might just be a fantasy anyway. The night scenes are very well-filmed. When you’re so far away from civilization that the only light you have outside is from the moon and stars, it creates an eerie grey glow, and that’s one thing the film achieves effectively. Lawrence is responsible for a couple of big laughs, particularly in the dialogue with the cashier at the local market. She has another great line about the dog they get. Don’t get me started on the dog. Don’t ask.

The movie spirals out of control, and never gets brought home for a clear landing that has cohesion. I felt so far removed from anything, and wasn’t sure of timelines or even what was real. Die My Love – which I was hoping to love, and even make a Top 10er – is a disappointing, frustrating, irritating mess that never gets out of its own head. Any articles that turn up on Salon or the like will be subjective, straw-grasping rough interpretations.

Grade: C