Director Lynne Ramsay says we’re getting ‘Die My Love’ all wrong

By Thomas Page, CNN

(CNN) — Back in May, Lynne Ramsay debuted her latest film “Die My Love” at the Cannes Film Festival. Within days, she was telling critics they had her film all wrong.

The Scottish director’s adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s 2012 novel stars Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson as a couple tearing at each other in rural Montana while raising their six-month-old son. Journalists singled out Lawrence’s eye-catching performance as Grace, a spiraling writer, and dispensed various mental health diagnoses: she had postpartum depression, postnatal depression, psychosis or bipolar disorder. Ramsay called “the whole postpartum thing” “bulls***t.”

Six months later, she can’t believe she phrased it that way, but she stands by it.

“People love to sit and have their little pigeonhole, just to make it easy to say in a couple of words: ‘It’s about this,’” she told CNN in a recent interview. “And I don’t think (the film) is just about that. It’s about their marriage breaking down, her being isolated, her loneliness and her creativity drying up, the sex drying up, and everything kind of imploding. I think it’s too reductive just to say it’s ‘that.’”

It’s a curious paradox that as an artist, the two-tine BAFTA winner felt the need to intervene and say what her film was about to preserve space for interpretation. But that’s Ramsay; she’s not one for neat explanations, on or off-screen.

The writer-director is not prolific – it’s been eight years since “You Were Never Really Here” starring Joaquin Phoenix as a tortured mercenary rescuing trafficked children. Before that, there was “We Need to Talk About Kevin” (2011), “Morvern Callar” (2002) and “Ratcatcher” (1999). Each movie Ramsay releases is something of an event among cinephiles who appreciate her work, and her fans inside the industry include Lawrence and Martin Scorsese.

Scorsese, who serves as a producer on “Die My Love,” read Harwicz’s novel as part of a book club and shared it with Lawrence. The actress – one half of production company Excellent Cadaver alongside Justine Ciarrocchi – reached out to Ramsay about the idea of adapting and directing. “She just kept emailing me,” Ramsay recalled. “They were so super keen.”

“It’s quite a surreal novel. It’s non-linear. It was not an easy adaptation,” she added. “I had to find my own way into it before totally committing … I said to Jennifer, ‘I’m going to try it my way. Let’s see how it goes,’ and they really loved it.”

The filmmaker was quickly enchanted by Grace. “She’s pretty unapologetic and a bit childlike at times,” Ramsay said of the character. “She’s frustrated at all these different things. I hadn’t really read a part like that … It’s not like you’re trying to engage sympathy (for her).”

Ramsay and fellow scriptwriters Edna Walsh and Alice Birch decamped the story from France to the US, added some humor and fleshed out the role of Grace’s partner, Jackson. Lawrence took the lead, adding Pattinson as Jackson, Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte as Jackson’s parents, with LaKeith Stanfield supporting as a mysterious stranger. Then they all got to work ahead of production in Calgary, Canada.

“I got (Lawrence and Pattinson) together as early as I could, got them doing expressive dance classes and crazy things … making them a bit embarrassed and getting over that embarrassment,” said Ramsay of their preparations.

On the first day of filming, she had the duo perform the chaotic sex scene that kickstarts the movie – “a bit risky, but it totally broke the ice,” she remembered. From there on, she tried to shoot the film as chronologically as possible.

In the film, Grace’s unravelling takes almost no time at all. Frequently abandoned by Jackson, she lashes out in all directions, including herself. She gripes, “A real mom would have baked a cake” for their son’s half-birthday, then snaps at a cashier (“Find everything you were looking for?” says the worker. “In life?” Grace sneers). She believes Jackson is having an affair (not without evidence) and she’s crippled by boredom, keeping the baby up for company and spilling breast milk on the blank pages of what might have been a new book she was meant to be writing. Meanwhile, her well-meaning mother-in-law gently says of motherhood, “Everyone goes a little loopy the first year.”

It’s been well publicized that Lawrence was pregnant with her second child while filming. On screen, the part of Grace looks physically demanding: She wrestles Jackson, destroys a bathroom, masturbates with a knife in hand and runs through a glass door, to name only a few moments in the film. She’s also frequently nude. Lawrence was game for everything, said her director. “I don’t think she wanted to be wrapped in cotton wool,” said Ramsay.

The director said her process is to instill discipline in the front end of pre-production and allow for experimentation on set. No hitting marks. Takes ran long, pushing the actors to improvise.

“Jennifer was inside the character, and you never knew what to expect, which is lovely,” said Ramsay.

“I said, ‘Walk up to the window,’ and she walked up to the window and licked (it) like a wild animal trapped. I was like, ‘Wow.’”

Sex, or lack thereof, is a dull ache for long stretches of the film, as Grace’s desire goes unfulfilled by Jackson. “She’s a sexual animal,” said Ramsay. “She wants to be with him and he’s rejecting her, and she feels invisible.” That perspective, she added, is one seen more in men than women in cinema, and a key aspect of the novel she wanted to maintain.

A confluence of factors leads to Grace being committed by Jackson and separated from her child: a wrenching turn in a film full of shocking moments.

I shared with Ramsay how I’d first watched her movie at an early morning press screening at the Cannes Film Festival. It was the first time I’d been away from my baby, I said, and it was a lot to take in. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for the actors – both new parents themselves – to live out their parts.

“I always feel sorry for people who see my films at 8am,” said Ramsay, grimacing slightly.

But the director wants to offer audiences some hope – particularly about the film’s ending.

Though Grace returns to the family fold, their reconciliation is uneasy. “Enough,” she eventually says, before walking into the forest and setting her notebook, the forest and possibly herself ablaze, as Jackson follows behind.

Even here, the filmmaker sees it as a love story. “It’s not a literal ending,” Ramsay stressed. “I think it’s her character setting her work on fire, the world on fire, and him still wanting to be with her.”

While Lawrence is getting Oscar buzz for her daring work in the movie, Ramsay has a bit of trepidation around the more industry-tinged side of things, including box office and award campaigns.

“You always want people to go and see your movie, of course,” she said. “But to me, it’s about whether the film’s around down the line. That always tells you the film’s got staying power. If people are still watching your films 20 years later, then you know it’s still relevant. And I think I’ve been lucky enough with some of my films that people still want to watch them.”

“To me,” she added, “that’s the real deal. Not prizes. It’s whether it lasts the test of time.”

“Die My Love” is on wide release in the US and UK, and distributed by MUBI worldwide.

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