Die My Love is based on the best-selling novel of the same title, and it’s an exercise in showcasing two actors who are free to dial down their over-the-top performances. That’s both a plus and a minus in every sense.
Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson star as Grace and Jackson, a young couple from New York who move to his childhood home in Montana. Grace is a writer trying to get her creative juices flowing and it’s not certain what Jackson does for a living.
The two work nonstop trying to get their house how they want it and soon they welcome their son. However, the threat of constant isolation soon becomes too much for Grace, and she displays erratic behavior following postpartum depression.
Much of Lawrence’s performance and the movie itself reminded me of one of her other efforts, Mother!, in which she also played a woman living in an isolated environment whose life starts to unravel, but Die My Love gives a much more realistic treatment that alternates between crushing naturalism and histrionics. A good example is when Grace and Jackson get invited to a party and Grace takes off her clothes and jumps into a pool without any warning, and Jackson is abhorred by her spontaneity.
Die My Love showcases Lawrence and Pattinson in roles that are volcanic, and as the drama unfolds, it becomes increasingly explosive and excruciating. We want Grace to get help for her bizarre behavior, but we also know that’s when the movie’s overblown theatrics have to stop. Lawrence is a spectacular trainwreck to watch in her scenes, and Pattinson is borderline the same way as a man trying desperately to save his wife for the sake of their marriage and their son.
Lawrence’s performance is Mommie Dearest for a new generation as she flirts with uncomfortable behavior and unintentional comedy. Maybe the movie and the novel are trying to express the hardships of what women go through following postpartum depression, and some may see it as realistic, while others may think it’s an overkill of mockery.
The movie’s climax may be a little too anticlimactic for my taste and some audiences will no doubt think the same. Still, Lawrence and Pattinson’s work makes Die My Love an edgy, neurotic mess that is inundated with many moments of shocking preposterousness that no one who sees it can forget.
