Postpartum depression as it has never been portrayed before

Die my love It closes with a version of Love will tear us apart Joy Division's song, sung by Lynne Ramsay herself. Quite a statement of intent from a director who, since her debut with Ratcatcher (1999) has stood out with such forceful and unconventional titles in his female portraits as Morvern was silent (2002) and We need to talk about Kevin (2011). This adaptation of Ariana Harwicz's novel of the same name is defined as a portrait of a mother with postpartum depression. To Ramsay's credit, the film doesn't aim for a prosaic description of this scenario and its circumstances, but rather unfolds as a cubist and emotional approach to a woman under the influence, Grace (Jennifer Lawrence), who experiences an overwhelming situation, presented in a way that borders on horror. All this unfolds while her love story with her partner, Jackson (Robert Pattinson), implodes.

The problem is that this vision doesn't quite work as intended. Undoubtedly, Die my love It's a film permeated by the emotional and physical expression of its protagonists. But the film comes across as more strident than intense, driven more by a desire to provoke than to understand its protagonist. And the exaggerated effort of a star like Jennifer Lawrence to deliver an extreme, almost primal performance overshadows the character. Thus, the artificiality of the excess ends up supplanting the convulsive and fatalistic poetry of uncontrolled emotions that the Joy Division song represents.