A New Way to Look at the Pressures of Motherhood

"Tucked away amid tall grasses and verdant woods in rural Montana, it seems idyllic. But Grace (played by Jennifer Lawrence) appears uncomfortable as soon as she sets foot inside her new home. She flops over like a rag doll while her boyfriend, Jackson (Robert Pattinson), explores the building, which he inherited from his uncle. Months later, she and Jackson have a baby. Grace becomes a doting mother."

"At first glance, Grace resembles the type of mothers who have become a dominant cinematic presence in recent years-women portrayed as troubled about being a caregiver. This year has seen a spate of them: In the propulsive psychological dramedy If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You, Rose Byrne plays Linda, whose daughter has special needs; at the end of the film, after a series of escalating disasters, Linda throws herself repeatedly into the ocean as if hoping the waves will subsume her."

"As someone who's lonely, caustic, and adrift, Grace may share some of those women's traits, but she's never at a loss about what to do with her child. Die My Love draws much of its raw power from Grace's love for her son, Harry; the director, Lynne Ramsay, a master at precisely conveying a character's inner life, creates a kaleidoscopic study of Grace's shattered headspace while showing how Harry serves as her lone anchor."

A new mother, Grace moves into a remote Montana farmhouse with her boyfriend and soon becomes intensely attached to her infant son. The house provokes violent, self-destructive episodes and appears to accelerate Grace's psychological unraveling. Contemporary films often depict mothers as struggling caregivers, but Grace remains competent and devoted to her child even as her interior life fractures. The director uses fragmented, precise imagery to map Grace's shattered headspace and to show the child as her emotional anchor. The apparent demands of motherhood function as a misdirection from deeper sources of Grace's pain and instability.

Read at The Atlantic