So after a lot of pre-release buzz the Jennifer Lawrence film Die My Love fizzled at the box office and did not get much attention. (Note: Minor spoilers ahead.) That’s a bit unfortunate, as it has the terrific performance of Sissy Spacek as crazy J-Law’s mother-in-law, who is trying to help her overcome postpartum depression.
Sissy’s and Jennifer’s scenes are the glue that holds the fractured storyline (and structure) together. Sissy plays Pam, Jennifer Lawrence’s (as Grace) husband’s mother, with husband played by the feckless Robert Pattinson (as Jackson). I felt sorry for Jackson throughout, who seems harmless enough, except for bringing home a puppy to the much-addled and psychologically desperate Grace, not the right move. Grace descends into madness as the new dog barks and barks.
After a while you see this is not going to end pleasantly. Ultimately she channels her inner Kristi Noem, famous for bragging about how tough she was to shoot a dog that bothered her. (It’s a short step from shooting a troublesome dog to shooting troublesome people, as Kristi’s ICE goons are doing now in Minnesota. No. Correction: It’s not a short step. It’s no step. It just shooting living things you don’t like.)
Looming in the background of Die My Love is the topic of postpartum depression. I hesitate to say that’s what it’s “about,” which would be reductive and dismissive. It’s not a Lifetime Channel movie or an ABC After School Special. It has a great cast (including Nick Nolte as Harry, Jackson’s dementia-cursed father), an artsy sensitivity, and a fragmented structure—much is elliptical and unstated. Jackson works but it never really shows what he does. We never know much about him. He’s the Boyfriend, the Young Father, then after their (ill-advised) marriage he’s the Husband. The guy we can feel sorry for.
Then there’s Grace, the Mother, who starts out like a firecracker—in vintage, sassy Jennifer Lawrence mode—and fizzles into a basket case. She creates a tragic, believable character, although at times it seems the director told her, “Just act crazy.” She crawls around on the ground a lot. She barks a lot. She pleasures herself . . . a lot. She takes care of her baby a lot—until the madness sets in, and then it’s like “Baby? What baby?” Ostensibly she’s a “writer,” although they never really mention anything she’s written. At one point Jackson asks her how she’s doing on writing The Great American Novel. He’s lucky he doesn’t get stabbed in the forehead with a fork.
One of the saddest scenes occurs late, when Jackson is driving Grace home after she’s had a hospital stay. They sing along with the great John Prine/Iris DeMent song “In Spite of Ourselves” as it plays on the radio. Poignant moment. When she finally confesses, “I can’t go back” it’s heartbreaking. We the audience don’t know exactly why she feels cornered and trapped, but we can guess. Good soundtrack. They also play the great Johnny Cash song “The Beast in Me.”