Lynne Ramsay (YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE) creates a claustrophobic, deeply unsettling, occasionally mordantly funny drama about a mentally fragile woman suffering severely from post-partum depression. It stars Jennifer Lawrence in a raw, vulnerable role as the dangerously unboundaried mother in question. She cannot write, her sex life has gone to shit, she has lost her tolerance for the banal bullshit people say to mothers. Some of her rude interjections are funny. But as the film goes on it becomes more and more frightening. We realise that while post-partum is definitely a factor, Grace was not well from the start. And we ratchet up to a finale that’s both poetic and devastating. It’s a bravura performance from Lawrence, and shows us just what she is capable of when she makes the right choice of material - something that has been sadly lacking for pretty much the last decade. Robert Pattinson is also good in the smaller role of Grace’s husband Jackson. It’s a tricky role because he could so easily be played as unfeeling or feckless but he’s just a young man out of his depth.
This is a film that is slippery and refuses easy answers. We are never really sure if things are happening for real or in Grace’s fevered imagination. Does she really sleep with a mysterious neighbour (LaKeith Stanfield) or is he just a man she meets in a supermarket and then projects her sexual frustration upon. Most importantly, when Grace finally says “enough” is she leaving the baby that she clearly loves, in spite of everything, or is she going to take her own life? Even the attitude of the people around her is tricky to parse. How far was Grace’s mother-in-law (Sissy Spacek) aware of her mental instability from the start? Her attitude at the wedding appears to be one of suppressed shock. And at a social gathering later on in the film, one of covering up and enablement.
My only criticism of the film is that when you make something that claustrophobic and intense then the running time of probably needs to be shorter. I think 100 minutes would have been ideal. But I loved the way Ramsay traps us in a world that threatens to suffocate us, most notably by using a 4:3 aspect ratio and essentially one location.
DIE MY LOVE has a running time of 118 minutes. It played Cannes and London. It will be released in the USA on November 7th and in the UK on November 24th.
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