‘Die, Love’, with Jennifer Lawrence, is a ‘love story with madness involved’, says director

Watching a person fall apart on a movie screen is deeply unsettling. Even more so when this process does not require dramatic music or close-ups begging for sympathy. In Die, Lovewhich hits Brazilian cinemas this Thursday, 27th, the Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay He does what he does best: putting us in the shoes of someone who is losing their ground, without giving us the crutch of moral judgment.

The film brings Jennifer Lawrence as Grace, a young mother struggling with postpartum depression in rural America, alongside Robert Pattinsonwho plays Jackson, her husband. Completing the cast are names like Sissy Spacek, LaKeith Stanfield e Nick Nolte.

In a round table with the press, of which the Estadão participated, Ramsay said the production almost didn’t happen. “I didn’t respond immediately when Jennifer sent me the book”, admits the director, referring to the novel of the same name by the Argentine writer Ariana Harwicz. “It’s a challenging piece. I had to find my way to it.”

Unapologetic anti-heroine

What, in the end, seduced Ramsay was not just the story of motherhood in crisis, but the wild and completely remorseless nature of the protagonist. “She just says it like it is, very directly and honestly. It felt bold,” he explains. “It’s not a character we try to gain sympathy for. It’s the opposite. You can love her or hate her, but she has some kind of honesty.”

For a filmmaker We Need to Talk About Kevinit was essential that Die, Love not be reduced to a single theme. “It’s not just about postpartum. It’s about isolation, about a marriage falling apart, about sex that stops when the baby arrives”, he points out. And he adds, with a dark humor typical of his cinema: “It’s a love story with madness involved.”

Jennifer Lawrence, who approached Ramsay for the project, was pregnant during filming — a detail that, according to the director, made her presence on the scene even more powerful. “She put a lot of trust in me because we did some pretty wild things,” Ramsay reveals. “But she was bold, she was brave. I think that comes across in the film.”

Working with film legends like Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte was, in Ramsay’s words, “incredible.” “Sissy has been one of my heroines for a long time, one of the greats of cinema. And Nick Nolte has one of those faces where you just put the camera and go: my God, this guy is mesmerizing.”

Spacek, according to the director, works as “the glue of the film” as she is the only character who truly sees Grace clearly. LaKeith Stanfield, in a smaller but impactful role, plays an ambiguous figure — real and fantasy at the same time. “Part of her is writing that character in her head. It’s an imaginary man, because she has sexual desires that aren’t being satisfied,” explains Ramsay.

Mirror of the mind

Visually, Die, Love it works as a descent into Grace’s psychological abyss, and the house where the couple lives is an essential part of this journey. “We chose that particular house,” explains Ramsay. “With the forest behind, the glass doors… It felt like she was trapped there. It’s a reflection of Grace’s mind. It deteriorates along with her.”

There is a scene at the beginning where the couple enters their new house and they both talk excitedly about how much work they will be able to do there — he as a writer, she on her projects. “I thought: it would be interesting for them to have this hope, this projection of the future. And then everything falls apart”, says the filmmaker.

The director works with a camera that breathes with her characters, in long takes that capture not only the action, but the silences, the involuntary gestures, the exact moment when someone stops pretending. “Sometimes I let the camera roll a little more, when the actor doesn’t know exactly what he should do. Something unprotected starts to happen”, he explains about his method.

No matter how dark Lynne Ramsay’s universe is, there is always room for the absurd. In Die, Loveone of the most memorable scenes involves Grace telling the dog that he should have made better choices. “I wanted it to have this absurd tone from the beginning,” says the filmmaker. “I love it when they’re fighting too — it’s intense, but funny at times. Hangman humor, I guess. I don’t like it when things get too heavy. I like this idea of ​​more three-dimensional characters. But some people don’t know whether to laugh or not.”

A film that refuses moralization

Die, Love it offers no easy answers or convenient redemption. Ramsay is clear about her stance. “I don’t feel like it’s my job to moralize. I don’t like making big statements. I like to leave things open to the public. I don’t judge my characters. She’s absurd, irritating, a lot of things. But I prefer to observe in a different way, without making judgments,” he says.

It’s this refusal to point fingers that makes Ramsay’s cinema so potent and, for some, so difficult to digest. There are no clear villains or victims, just human beings trying to survive—and often failing.

The director dedicates the film to her mother, who died this year. She was the one who introduced Lynne to cinema as a child, showing her works by Hitchcock, classic melodramas and films with strong female characters. “It was a difficult year”, he summarizes, with the simplicity of someone who has already placed their pain in the place where they know how to process it best: on the screen.