DIE MY LOVE
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, LaKeith Stanfield, Nick Nolte, and Sissy Spacek
Director: Lynne Ramsay
NICK
Die My Love and If I Had Legs I'd Kick You have many similarities. Both Jennifer Lawrence and Rose Byrne play grieving mothers, while directors Mary Bronstein and Lynne Ramsay each try to put you into the psyche of those mothers. Both films work, but If I Had Legs does it a little bit better. That said, Lawrence gives one of her best performances alongside a committed Robert Pattinson, all while Ramsay does a great job of intentionally unsettling her viewers. Unfortunately, besides those aspects, Die My Love struggles to pair Lawrence’s superb performance with a cohesive and compelling story.
ADRIANO
For a film as abrasive as Die My Love, it's no wonder writer/director Lynne Ramsey's latest takes its time to put everything together firmly. Thankfully, like the best works of art, I began to appreciate the film's depths the longer I sat with it. I admire the surreal filmmaking, the creative descent to madness on display, and Ramsey's risky but profound portrait of a relationship slowly withering away. It genuinely makes the audience engage with this type of psychosis in a visually remarkable way. Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson giving outstanding performances just make it even more outstanding.
AMARÚ
While I can’t deny it’s entertaining to watch Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson play unhinged, out-of-their-wits new parents, I honestly can’t tell you whether or not I enjoyed Die My Love’s unfiltered look into postpartum. Lots of unpredictably random things happen, lots of mundane everyday things happen, and the entire time, both actors, but especially Lawrence, are digging into the most primal parts of themselves to give completely untethered performances. But it’s only because of them that I didn’t cut this off an hour in. Two less talented actors would’ve turned the unsettling “what the fuck” chuckles into a bunch of “I don’t give a damns.”
BODE
As a director, Lynne Ramsay has always tackled seemingly simple loglines in the most expressionistic ways, making them feel anything BUT simple. Her latest, Die My Love, finds her doing this to the point of abstraction. While I wouldn’t say that this is Ramsay at her strongest, I still found myself admiring how confidently fragmented this is in its depiction of how love can tear people apart (like Joy Division once proclaimed). It helps that Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson keep things interesting with their deeply raw performances. Pair it with If I Had Legs I’d Kick You for a bracing double feature.
