Sexuality as Reclamation of Space in ‘Die My Love’

Over her nearly 30-year long career, Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsey has shown a proclivity for depicting the darker side of domesticity. Her five feature-length films – all of which, I discovered, I’ve watched over the years, without any conscious effort at completionism – center around broken homes, and all except the first have been adapted from books. This literary borrowing is most evident in her signature use of wordless montage – extended sequences that abandon linear and occasionally physical reason. The post-partum misery of Ariana Harwicz’ 2012 novel Die My Love thus makes perfect sense in Ramsey’s catalog, and I was able to receive it the same way I receive all films seeking to convey the complexities of motherhood: with immense sympathy.

Image via IMDb.

What struck me most about Die My Love was not the fact that it dared to portray a woman on the verge. Jennifer Lawrence’s performance is, indeed, memorable; perhaps it’s not a huge stretch from what she’s proven herself capable of since her breakout in 2012, but it is a reminder of how actors can grow into parts after experiencing parallels with the text (she gave birth to her first child in 2022, five years after playing the titular role in Mother!), and the fact that certain rags-to-riches talents  – Lawrence among them – will always stand apart for their rawness. Showing literal skin is only a small part of this vulnerability, but to ignore the rampant sexuality of the film would be to dishonor Ramsey and what I believe to be her thesis: lust as self-actualization within claustrophobic home life. 

Lawrence plays Grace, a married woman in Montana reeling from the birth of her first child. She’s living in a run-down house hand-picked by her husband, whose parents live nearby, and she’s recently unemployed, mainly because it is not expected of her that she be employed. As we’ve seen time and time again, this reduction of a modern woman to a traditional role may not bode well, and it certainly does not for Grace, who faces a mental health crisis. Part of the way she copes is by relegating herself to her most primal instincts. 

Image courtesy of IMDb.

Is she still fuckable? Grace asks this of her husband, Jackson (Robert Pattinson), in a myriad of ways, demanding the same attention she received back before she became a parent. She aspires for the spontaneity of life without responsibility, for a time when there was no boundary between family-friendly and inappropriate. At a party with neighbors, Jackson scolds her for jumping into the pool in her underwear while kids are around, even though she has no predatory intention. When he is away for work, she pleasures herself, in the yard or in the house, trying to achieve whatever ecstasy she can manage amidst the mundanity. Focus on the baby, he implores her. But who’s supposed to focus on her?

In the social sciences, academics often refer to varying scales, from international to household, while crafting their research. However, when discussing space, social geographers tend to take it one step further; they define the most micro level of society as the body. And the way that one uses their body in space — otherwise known as embodiment — is indicative of their relationship with the macro environment. Beyond the broader system of patriarchy that landed her unhappily in her house, the transition to motherhood leaves Grace laden with the direct byproduct of her body. The connotational shift from sex partner to life-giver that occurs threatens her connection to her husband, as well as her valuation of her form as she’s come to understand it. She does engage in infidelity, but it's implied that she sees very little emotional stake in the man (Lakeith Stanfield) she chooses to do so with.

Image via IMDb.

Grace’s arc from promising young writer to sexually frustrated housewife is not an A to B trajectory; there’s an underlying component of ferality, befitting of the rural setting, to her and Jackson’s relationship that sometimes borders on aggressive. At what point does simulated play invite actual danger? We get no insight to what their married peers are up to in the meanwhile, but Grace pays heed to the narrative change-up once a baby comes into the picture. Suddenly, passionate relationships become sanitized, and there is no room for the baby’s means of conception while playing house. The traditional function of her body has been extracted. How to proceed now?  

As I reflect on male characters who have pleasured themselves to feel powerful (my immediate thought was Roman Roy [Kieran Culkin] overlooking New York City from his office in the first season of Succession), the parallels with female characters are comparatively slight. There is the iconic orgasm scene in Pleasantville (1998), in which Betty (Joan Allen) discovers life with color while soaking in her bathtub. But really, the well comes up pretty dry after that. And privacy is still implied; women confined to the domestic sphere often wind up staying within the domestic sphere. The house is their domain, and so the only realistic space to exert power – in this example, via sexual gratification – is the house. Thus, Grace fights back against her feelings of imprisonment with one of the few parts of her that remain intact: her sexuality. 

Image via IMDb.

Home is a curated place to dwell, and where one should feel most themselves. But Grace has a baby, a fixer-upper and a stupid dog that she hates all begging for her attention; how else to lay claim to herself than to give her body pleasure? And so she battles her sense of intellectual latency with physical euphoria, striving for a sense of power against the prevailing order. The home is not her dollhouse, but expectations seem to demand she act like a doll. She is resolute to disrupt this miniaturized world, and so she uses her body – the society’s smallest scale – to rebel against the home.

-Lydia