“Die My Love” Is Smaller Than Life
Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson work hard to bring a sense of reality to this intense drama about marriage and motherhood. Sometimes ignorance can be a blessing—when I watched Lynne Ramsay’s “Die My Love” last week, I wasn’t aware it was based on a novel. This left me with the frustrating impression that the film denied its protagonist, Grace (played by Jennifer Lawrence), a rich inner world.
Later, reading Jia Tolentino's Profile of Lawrence in this magazine, I discovered the film’s source: a novel by Argentine writer Ariana Harwicz. The book is a fiercely intimate first-person narrative, full of confession and fiery expression. Upon reading the quoted passages, I sensed the existence of a more compelling film beneath what was actually shown. The film’s emptiness suggests a deep failure in adapting the novel effectively.
Despite this, I wouldn’t call “Die My Love” fundamentally flawed, since it strongly focuses on Grace’s emotional turmoil in the months following childbirth. At the beginning, Grace and her husband, Jackson (Robert Pattinson), move into a fixer-upper rural house that once belonged to his uncle Frank, who recently died by suicide.
“I had the frustrating feeling that it denied its protagonist, Grace, a detailed inner life.”
“The book is a first-person narrative, intimately confessional and expressively aflame.”
“The emptiness of the film reveals a fundamental failure of adaptation.”
Grace’s struggles with her new environment and the haunted past of the house frame the emotional core of the story, exploring themes of grief, motherhood, and marriage.
Author's summary: The film “Die My Love” offers a fervent but incomplete portrait of motherhood, missing the raw intensity captured in Ariana Harwicz’s original novel.