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Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Die My Love' Review: Jennifer Lawrence Is a Mother Grappling with Postpartum Depression (and Punk-Rock Angst) in Lynne Ramsay's Showy Mess of a Marital Psychodrama
In one of the terrifyingly labored and overwrought scenes that make up Lynne Ramsay's 'Die My Love,' Grace (Jennifer Lawrence), who's suffering from an acute case of mental trauma — the film would have you believe it's postpartum depression, though you could make a good case that it's not — has had enough of the noisy dog that her partner, Jackson (Robert Pattinson), brought home for no good reason. The two are living in the country, in a home that Jackson inherited from his uncle, a house that definitely qualifies as a fixer-upper. These two just haven't bothered to fix it up. They have a baby, you see, a sweet little boy, and ever since he came into their lives everything has been falling apart. The dog literally never stops yapping (it's the most annoying dog in history), so Grace, who has brought over a shotgun, asks Jackson to shoot it. He says: Are you kidding that's crazy! So Grace picks up the shotgun and does the deed herself. More from Variety Ezra Miller Speeds Down the Cannes Red Carpet at 'Die, My Love' Premiere in Surprise Festival Appearance Visceral Chilean Docs Head to Cannes for Fifth Annual Showcase, Featuring Chile and Cuba's Parallel Battles, a Chilean Cowboy, an Argentine Sex Worker Man Dressed Up as Bird Shocks Cannes Red Carpet at Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson's 'Die, My Love' Premiere It's clear that she's got a problem. Yet I couldn't help but wonder why Jackson, with a new baby to deal with, brought home that dog in the first place — or, more to the point, why he seemed so flagrantly insensitive to the fact that Grace didn't want a dog. This situation typifies the dynamic of 'Die My Love,' which is as follows: Grace acts out in delirious, raging, violent, inexplicable ways — and Jackson, while understandably dismayed at her behavior, reacts to it by rarely lifting a finger to do anything that would help her. Is he insensitive or just dumb? Pattinson, in a rare bad performance, just plays him as an unpleasant clueless bro. 'Die My Love' presents us with a case of the blind leading the damned. Postpartum depression is a syndrome that was once in the shadows, and there are ways it remains so. It's still misunderstood and under-treated and not empathized with enough. Yet 'Die My Love' serves up a showy yet strange, in many ways baffling hyperbolic projection of what can take place in the hearts and minds of women during the first months (or even years) of motherhood. This is the first film directed by Lynne Ramsay in seven years, since the startling Joaquin Phoenix depravity-and-revenge drama 'You Were Never Really Here' (2017), and what she establishes in the film's early scenes, which feature a lot of in-your-face drinking and fucking, is that Grace and Jackson are a kind of dissolute punk-rock couple, the sort of nihilist parents who aren't going to let having a baby get in the way of their Budweiser regimen. That's okay; they have a right to keep drinking and raise a kid at the same time. But there's very little sense that either of them has decided to become a responsible adult. She's an aspiring writer who says, as soon as the baby is born, that she's done with writing. He's got…some kind of job, that he seems to do occasionally, on the road (we have no idea what it is), but mostly the two are just hanging out in that house. There's very little structure to their lives, or to the movie, beyond Ramsay's art-house showbiz instinct to keep cranking up the shock level of Grace's behavior. It's not really a dialogue-driven movie. Grace and Jackson never have a simple conversation about future plans, or health insurance, or buying groceries, or about how they intend to parent. They just seem like morose post-collegiate slackers who had a baby because they like to fuck a lot and, you know, shit happens. So when Grace starts to act out in a way that makes it seems like she's totally not with the mommy program, the context the movie has created for that is: These two already seem like they're not really with the mommy-and-daddy program. There's never a moment, for instance, when we see them beholding their son with joy; he's more like an accessory they have to take care of. And while there's no simple template for how postpartum depression expresses itself, it can often be incredibly inward. Grace's total alienation from motherhood, on the other hand, is flamboyantly outward. As a filmmaker, Ramsay is a mood poet who favors violence and needle drops (there's a lot of Scorsese in her blood), in this case literal ones, since our two hipster parents have a turntable. Grace first starts to transition into derangement when Toni Basil's 'Mickey' is playing, and the song starts to skip and repeat, and Grace keeps saying 'All right! All right!' and then licks the window pane. Ramsay has a lavish gift for staging that sort of baroque rock 'n' roll breakdown. (A little later, Grace will crash through that same window.) From the start, though, the film almost seems to be getting high on the dysfunctional flamboyance of the behavior it's showing you. 'Die My Love' keeps saying: This may be mental illness…but wow, is it ever cinema! On some level we're watching Grace crack up because wallowing in this much trauma is fixating. In pre-feminist times (say, the 1950s), it was the definition of unenlightened patriarchal myopia to view a woman as 'irrational' or 'overemotional' or — Freud's word — 'hysterical.' But just as many aspects of the past, including those that once seemed retrograde, can be reclaimed with a new consciousness, the notion that a new mother has every right to be irrational in her despair — something that just about everyone in the movie, notably Jackson's mother, Pam (Sissy Spacek), tells Grace — is very much at the center of where we are now. That, in its way, is progress. Because it's reality. The burdens of motherhood can be every bit as staggering as the joys. But 'Die My Love,' for all of Ramsay's talent, isn't designed to explore that experience. It's designed, rather, as a kind of thesis movie: reckless on the surface but overdetermined. And I think that's why Jennifer Lawrence's performance feels so explosive but, at the same time, so emotionally reined in. In 'Die My Love,' you feel the power of her presence, the hellbent quality of her rage. When it comes to chewing out a blabby cashier, crawling around like an animal, trashing the bathroom and pouring soap products all over the floor, or bashing her head on a mirror, she's an ace wastrel. But the very force of her destruction makes us want to go: What is happening? We want the film to offer some kind of answer. Jackson checks Grace into a mental hospital, and she gets 'better,' to the extent that that means she emerges eager to bake cakes and hide her darkness behind a sunny agreeability that looks like a parody of happy-homemaker domesticity. But by now we're onto the film; we're just waiting for that façade to crack. Frankly, it looked to me like Grace, whether or not she's suffering from postpartum depression, has borderline personality disorder. But that would be a different movie. By the time 'Die My Love' reaches its voluptuously incendiary yet somehow rather rote ending, you may wish you were watching a different movie. Best of Variety The Best Albums of the Decade
Telegraph
09-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
The cheap fixer-upper is over because young buyers can't be bothered
Have you embarked on a fixer-upper project and made a profit? Share your story by emailing money@ Buying a house used to work thus: find a place that's less than perfect, offer under asking, do it up and pocket the difference. For today's first-time buyers, though, that ethos has all but vanished. Many younger buyers don't want a fixer-upper; they just want to move straight in. 'We've noticed a trend in the last few years that despite soaring costs and interest rates, many first-time buyers are acquiring significantly higher-value homes than they would have in the past,' says Edward Heaton, founder of buying agency Heaton & Partners. Those in Generation Z (adults under 29) and millennials (29- to 44-year-olds) 'are far more likely to want a turnkey first property which they can move into', adds Heaton. 'Long gone are the days when most first-time buyers would relish a project to create their dream home for themselves.' Data from the Mortgage Advice Bureau shows that 43pc of 19- to 25-year-olds were looking to buy a new-build home last year, with modern features and low maintenance among the key selling points. Chris Mulry, of Knight Frank, has seen this interest among his clients: 'Well-presented, move-in-ready properties are commanding a premium, particularly among first-time buyers who prioritise convenience and certainty,' he says. He adds: 'The value gap between refurbished and unmodernised properties has widened significantly compared to previous years when labour was more readily available, material costs were lower and interest rates were more favourable.' According to figures from Mojo Mortgages, the average age of a first-time buyer is now 33 years and eight months old. Former milestones of adulthood are increasingly being delayed due to static wage growth and rising house prices, which are now 8.6 times the typical salary (or 14 times higher in London). Over the past 20 years, the cost of a UK home has grown 98pc – a fifth of first-time buyers is now over 40. It's not just the age of first-time buyers that is different to prior generations, but their sensibilities, says Heaton. 'Generation Z and younger millennials have grown up in a world where they expect everything immediately. They are the Instagram generation where optics are everything – preferring to show off a shiny new home on day one rather than waiting a few years to display the fruits of their own labour.' Research published earlier this year showed that a quarter of Gen Z would pay up to £1,300 for household tasks like changing a lightbulb (one in five said they wouldn't tackle the job themselves, for fear it would be 'too hot'). DIY rates are dwindling, the figures appeared to suggest – making them less likely to seek a property that requires work. 'Many younger people spend so much time looking at screens that they can lack the practical skills previous generations have learnt,' according to Heaton. 'Many literally wouldn't know where to start with a fixer-upper, so would rather look to a turnkey solution rather than having to live in a building site for years to come.' Megan Hess* recently bought her first property at 24. 'I didn't write-off a do-up job initially,' she says. 'But when we saw the state some of the houses were in for not a particularly low selling price, it put us off due to the sheer continuous cost and time it would take for something that was not our 'forever home'.' She and her partner turned to new-builds. 'We realised we also had no interest or knowledge in DIY. For less time and cost, we could get a home that felt ready and ours, while also maintaining a social life and holidays,' she says. For Lou Chambers*, 27, the decision to buy a ready-made property 'is definitely about the fear of buying something older and not knowing what hidden problem there may be'. She moves into her first home – a two-bedroom flat in Cardiff – this month. 'I just don't have the time or the money for a fixer-upper,' she says. 'I've had friends buy houses that weren't new-builds, and they've uncovered heating not working, a leaking roof, etc. I just can't deal with the expense and faff.' Other Gen Z buyers point out that many more of their generation are single, effectively adding 22pc to mortgage costs, according to Hargreaves Lansdown. It means that, for these buyers, renovations that might lead to unexpected expenses aren't feasible. New-builds also come with warranties, typically covering defects found within the first two years, or structural issues uncovered in the first 10 years, further boosting their appeal among those who have already emptied their bank accounts to afford a deposit. As such, new-builds are looking particularly attractive to young buyers – especially given the glut of unloved buy-to-let properties being put on the market, as landlords rush to get rid of their stock. 'Properties that have been rented out for a long time tend to be in a poorer state when they come to the market,' Heaton explains, making them an undesirable prospect for many searching for their first home. One vendor, whose two-bedroom flat in a leafy north London suburb has been on the market for seven months, says that 'first-time buyers seem to be very concerned by things we would have perhaps dismissed' when trying to get on the property ladder, such as faded paintwork or decor that isn't to their liking. Period features like sash windows appear to be out of favour too, she adds, unless they are in 'pristine condition'. The impression she has been left with is that 'the less work that needs doing, the better'. While much of the change comes down to shifting habits among the young, it is also true that renovations are becoming a growing financial challenge. The Building Cost Information Service forecasts that home renovation costs will increase 17pc over the next five years – no wonder, then, that many would rather avoid them completely. Dropping mortgage rates are also having an impact on what young people buy, according to Jack Mogridge, who works for Knight Frank. 'With interest rates becoming more attractive, first-time buyers seem more inclined to borrow to the max once again. The cost of works have become really expensive and in many cases unaffordable.' *Names have been changed.
