Sissy Spacek

Die, My Love

16/11/25

Filmhouse, Edinburgh

Die, My Love, based on Ariana Harwicz’s acclaimed novel, is another irresistible movie from Scottish director, Lynne Ramsay. With a script by Ramsay, Enda Walsh and Alice Birch, this unflinching study of a woman’s postpartum psychological breakdown is as compelling as it is harrowing – and Jennifer Lawrence is frankly wonderful in the lead role.

Grace (Lawrence) and Jackson (Robert Pattinson) are expecting their first baby and, in preparation for this new chapter of their lives, they move into Jackson’s deceased uncle’s house. They’re not fazed by the piles of leaves in every room, the old-fashioned decor or even a minor rat infestation: they’re young, excited and in love. They’ll make it work.

But once Grace gives birth to Harry, the spark between her and Jackson dies. She’s stuck at home: bored, resentful and unable to cope. Jackson’s job means that he can escape from the oppressive confines of their isolated house, but Grace’s work is writing; it doesn’t get her out and she can’t focus on it anyway. “I don’t do that any more,” she says.

She loves her baby but she feels trapped and abandoned. Jackson never wants to have sex with her any more, although the box of condoms in his car seems to be getting lighter by the week. She refuses to be just Harry’s mother: why can’t she also still be Grace-the-writer, Grace-and-Jackson, Grace-the-wild, the-impulsive, the-let’s-have-fun? With only Jackson’s bereaved mother, Pam (the fabulous Sissy Spacek), for company, Grace’s mental health begins to deteriorate, her behaviour becoming ever more erratic and dangerous.

Ramsay’s film is undoubtedly dark, but it’s bleakly funny too. Grace’s blunt responses to the platitudes she’s offered often fall into the “things-we-all-wish-we-could-say-but-can’t” category, and – if it weren’t for all the damage they cause – her devil-may-care actions are almost inspirational. I feel sorry for both Grace and Jackson, a couple trapped in a relationship that no longer works, dragging each other down in their attempts to meet society’s expectations of them. “Let’s get married,” says Jackson in desperation. Maybe a wedding is the glue they need to stick them back together?

Or maybe not…

More than anything, this movie reminds me of Charlotte Perkins-Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper; indeed, there are several overt references here to the 19th century short story, not least in Grace’s frantic stripping of the heavily-patterned wallpaper with her fingernails, or her crawling through the long grass just like Perkin-Gilman’s “creeping woman”. It’s not just the remote house and the remote husband, nor even the medicalisation of female emotions or the retreat into a fantasy world. More than any of that, it’s the mind-numbing boredom of the protagonist’s existence, and her refusal to accept this as her lot.

A real contender for my film of the year, Die, My Love is a bravura piece of movie-making: stark, beautiful and as uncompromising as its heroine.

5 stars

Susan Singfield

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere

29/10/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Many people who, like me, purchased Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska on its release in 1982, must have experienced the same bewilderment as I did. How had the Boss gone from the stirring, upbeat anthems of Thunder Road and Hungry Heart to this bleak, introspective slice of Americana? And, perhaps more importantly, why? Okay, after a few listens, a couple of those ballads did eventually get their hooks into me but, as a career move, it seemed a spectacularly ill-judged decision.

Scott Cooper’s film, based on Warren Zane’s book, sets out to explain exactly what happened and, in choosing to concentrate on that difficult album, runs the risk of alienating itself from those fans who were anticipating an upbeat celebration of the great musician’s life and work (much like the record itself). True, when we first see Bruce (Jeremy Allen White) onscreen, he’s powering through a blistering performance of Born to Run. Coming off stage, he’s informed by his manager and close friend, Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong), that, with his latest album (The River) at number one in the charts, he is standing on the edge of superstardom.

But in the following break from touring, Bruce appears to be heading into a depression. He happens to catch a glimpse of Terence Malik’s 1973 film, Badlands, on TV, featuring newcomers Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek – and in that moment a spark is ignited. Pretty soon, he’s reading up on Charles Starkweather and the killing spree he and his teenage girlfriend, Caril Anne Fugate, embarked on back in 1958. Bruce starts to write the lyrics of what will become Nebraska’s title track.

He’s driven by powerful memories of his own childhood, the issues he experienced with his abusive father, Douglas, played in flashback by Stephen Graham, who gives a brooding, mostly silent performance opposite an intense turn from Matthew Antony Pelicano Jnr as Young Bruce. Something that happened between father and son in those formative years is clearly behind Bruce’s current malaise.

Back in the present, he enlists the help of recording technician Mike Batlan (Paul Walter Hauser) to capture the new songs as they emerge on a simple 4-track deck at home. But, as his obsession with the new project steadily grows – and his record label continually pester him for new product – so he becomes increasingly determined that the resulting album must be as stripped-back as the songs on the ‘demo’ cassette he’s already recorded…

Deliver Me from Nowhere is essentially about a kind of exorcism, an artist’s attempt to cleanse himself of the emotional baggage he’s carried around since childhood. While the story offers an interesting angle on a lesser-known aspect of Springsteen’s career, it’s not the kind of material that biopics are traditionally built upon. Several viewers at the screening I attend decide to vote with their feet around an hour in. While I’m engaged enough to stay in my seat till the closing credits, I have to admit that overall the film is a mixture of the good, the bad and the downright puzzling.

Jeremy Allen White, it must be said, doesn’t look an awful lot like Springsteen, but still manages to portray the man with absolute conviction and, perhaps more importantly, he captures the Boss’s distinctive voice with evident skill. Strong is an exceptional performer and makes the softly-spoken, nurturing approach of Landau interesting to observe. The man clearly had the patience of a saint.

But the female performers are less well-served. Gaby Hoffman, as Bruce’s mum, Adele, and Grace Gummer as Landau’s wife, Barbara, are granted barely enough dialogue to justify their presence. Elsewhere, we witness Bruce’s on-off romance with waitress Faye Romano (Odessa Young), a fictional character who is a composite of several girlfriends he had around this time. Young does her best with what’s she given which is, to be honest, nowhere near enough.

There’s a frankly exasperating moment where Bruce is finally about to unburden himself to a psychiatrist, to explain exactly what’s been haunting him all these years… only for the camera to suddenly cut away, leaving the audience literally in the dark. On the plus side, there are a couple of upbeat scenes set in New Jersey club, The Stone Pony, that celebrate the energy and excitement of the early 80s rock scene. And a recreation of the original recording session for the song Born in the USA, is a definite high point.

But too often, Deliver Me From Nowhere struggles to justify its considerable running time. Hardcore Springsteen fans will find enough elements here to pique their interest but those with only a passing knowledge of the man and his work may soon start running out of patience.

3.4 stars

Philip Caveney