Images of Yellow Wallpaper: Ramsay Charts a Psychotic Break
For her first narrative feature in eight years, Lynne Ramsay returns with Die My Love, based on the 2019 novel by Ariana Harwicz. In essence, it’s a troubling, captivating character study of a woman come undone, which bears thematic similarities to her 2002 feature Morvern Cellar starring Samantha Morton. Jennifer Lawrence headlines with a blazing, acerbic performance as a woman suffering from postnatal depression, a situation exacerbated by a recent move to a dilapidated country home where isolation deepens her discontent. Retooling the novel (set in France) to an unspecified locale in the US, Ramsay also provides a clearer through line to the fragmented interiority of a protagonist who keeps hurling herself towards the precipice.
Grace (Lawrence) and Jackson (Robert Pattinson) have just moved away from New York and into a countryside fixer-upper once owned by his uncle, a man who killed himself some years prior. They’re about to have their first child, and the house is just a few miles away from Pam (Sissy Spacek), Jackson’s mother, recently widowed after the passing of his father (Nick Nolte). But something’s a bit off about Grace, who seems to be unfulfilled in the isolated estate. Erratic behavior, such as wading through the grass like a feral cat with a butcher knife in her hand, seems to be ignored. Boredom reigns supreme, as Jackson is often away for long periods of time for his job, and Grace, a writer by profession, feels blocked. Jackson unwisely brings home a dog with behavioral issues, and an injury to the canine eventually leads to drastic resolution. As the days fly by, Grace’s behavior turns violent while various moments of escalating self-harm make Jackson finally realize something has to be done.
Ramsay and Lawrence literally seem to be channeling Shawn Colvin’s 1996 track “Sunny Came Home” (which thankfully isn’t part of Ramsay usually eclectic soundtrack, but the line “Strike a match, go and do it” rears sharply with an opening credit sequence of a forest engulfed in ravaging flames). There perhaps has not been a more cynically outspoken female character, from the first frame to the last, to rival Lawrence’s characterization since Jane Fonda’s turn in the bleak Depression era drama They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969). She’s masterfully funny, even when she’s being suicidal and the laughter she inspires starts to become uncomfortable. Like the aforementioned Fonda, her refrain seems to reveal she’s broken beyond repair.
Of course, it’s always easy to view a scenario objectively and critique all the missteps Grace and her limited support system make. For instance, for a woman exhibiting certain behaviors (throwing herself through a sliding glass door; wandering into the woods with an infant until a search party is required to retrieve her), it’s difficult to fathom why a husband and mother-in-law would find it appropriate to attend or host social events where Grace is imbibing alcohol, especially as she doesn’t seem to tolerate bourgeois posturing or inane small talk even during the best of times.
A stint in a mental health facility suggests help is on the way, but her husband’s desperate attempts to will her to wellness make observing their toxic journey all the more painful. Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte (reuniting after starring in a similar film about toxic relationships, Paul Schrader’s Affliction, 1997) are Jackson’s co-dependent parents. Spacek gets a surprising amount of screen time as Grace’s well-intentioned Pam, but her kindness does little to alleviate her daughter-in-law’s pain. Lawrence is exceptional, and as committedly bleak as the film is, her empathetic portrayal allows this to feel less like miserabilism and more like an honest depiction of a woman who feels indefinitely trapped. Like Gena Rowlands, she’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
A sequence where she destroys her bathroom, her nails flaying the wallpaper, is likely where her war against complacent domesticity suddenly feels a bit too real for us to ignore her final descent. Pattinson is frustratingly harried, and plays the denial of Jackson with aplomb. Her demand for sex after returning from the hospital is the kind of marital exchange few films have dared to explore.
For anyone who’s been in a long-term relationship or had children, Ramsay nails the depiction of the behavioral issues we’re all forced to confront. These are usually the situations which make or break a couple, even without diagnosable mental health conditions. There’s the added layer of normalization afforded mothers going ‘crazy’ during the first six months to a year after having an infant. Everyone seems to talk about it and relate to it, but the chilly, underlying statement suggests every woman has to figure out how to deal with it for themselves. No one wants the messy specifics in casual social settings.
The essence of madness Ramsay explores recalls all the usual classic films dealing with women and madness, and Robert Altman’s Images (1972) feels a key comparison, much like the early Charlotte Perkins Gilman short story The Yellow Wallpaper (1892). But DP Seamus McGarvey’s look of the film recalls some more stridently mysterious films, such as Philip Ridley’s The Reflecting Skin (1990). A tangential mystery character played by LaKeith Stanfield, a motorcyclist neighbor who may or may not be having an extramarital affair with Grace, reads like Wanda Loden’s comparable classic, Wanda (1970). A comforting moment of bonding arrives in a repeated use of John Prine’s song “In Spite of Ourselves,” which reflects the odd bond of Grace and Jackson. But what transpires feels like the dark side of Johnny Cash. “And it burns, burns, burns/The ring of fire.”
Reviewed on May 17th at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival (78th edition) – Competition. 118 Mins.
★★★½/☆☆☆☆☆
