Jennifer Lawrence Gives Everything to Die My Love
Lynne Ramsay’s film is an extraordinary adaptation of an intense story about a life in collapse.
Background and Source Material
Reviewing Sylvia Plath’s Collected Poems, Philip Larkin noted that her last poems were original and powerful, yet added:
“How valuable they are depends on how highly we rank the expression of experience with which we can in no sense identify, and from which we can only turn with shock and sorrow.”
Die, My Love, the debut novel by Argentine writer Ariana Harwicz, published in 2012, fits this description perfectly. Its unnamed narrator, who embodies all voices in the novel, reveals her rage, contempt, and frustrated desire as she narrates her life.
Plot and Themes
- The narrator is a foreign woman living in the French countryside.
- She is a stalled writer, overwhelmed by caring for her newborn.
- She despises her husband for sexual inadequacy and has an affair with a married neighbor.
- She declares, “A breath of irrationality had set fire to my existence.”
- After a hospital stay, she seems calmer but erupts again at her son’s second birthday party:
“I hope you all die, every last one of you… Just die, my love.”
A diagnosis of postpartum psychosis only partially explains her turmoil. Despite a wave of books and films addressing the alienation of motherhood—like the recent Nightbitch, which is notably lighter—Die, My Love stands out for its extreme, raw portrayal.
Author’s Summary
This harrowing narrative confronts motherhood’s darker emotions with unflinching intensity, revealing deep psychological struggles rarely depicted so boldly.