Jennifer Lawrence Gives Everything to Die My Love
Lynne Ramsay’s film is an extraordinary adaptation of an intense story about a life unraveling.
Background and Source Material
Reviewing Sylvia Plath’s Collected Poems, Philip Larkin noted that her final works were original and powerful but added:
“How valuable they are depends on how highly we rank the expression of experience with which we can in no sense identify, and from which we can only turn with shock and sorrow.”
Die, My Love, the acclaimed debut novel by Ariana Harwicz, an Argentinian writer living in France and published in 2012, fits this description perfectly. It delivers a shocking experience that challenges the reader.
Plot and Themes
- The unnamed narrator embodies all voices in the novel, expressing rage, contempt, and frustrated desire.
- She is a foreigner living in the French countryside, a stalled writer who resents caring for her newborn.
- She despises her husband for his sexual inadequacy while having an affair with a married neighbor.
- She states, “A breath of irrationality had set fire to my existence.”
- After a hospitalization, she appears calmer but breaks down during her son’s second birthday:
“I hope you all die, every last one of you… Just die, my love.”
Psychological Context and Genre
A diagnosis of postpartum psychosis only partially explains her state. Among numerous works by and about women confronting disturbing motherhood experiences—such as last year’s Nightbitch—Die, My Love stands out for its raw and extreme portrayal.
Author's Summary
This film and novel depict the harrowing psychological crisis of motherhood through a brutally honest and unsettling narrative.