Lynne Ramsay admits she’s not sure if the ending of her most recent film, “Die My Love,” was the right one, and might change it many months after its theatrical release last November.
Speaking to an audience at the Glasgow Film Festival on Friday (via Deadline), the Scottish filmmaker stated that her Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson-starring film was “rushed” for Cannes, and that she might re-edit the film with a new ending—one which she actually shot during production.
Ramsay’s adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s novel kept the book’s ending, which has — SPOILERS — Lawrence’s character, Grace, setting fire to a nearby wood. Ramsay confirmed at Glasgow that she filmed two different endings and had a version in which Grace saves Jackson (Pattinson) from the forest.
Maybe one of these days I’ll get to that ending and I’ll change it and she will save him from the burning forest.
“Die My Love” premiered at Cannes last year to somewhat positive reviews, and MUBI ended up acquiring the film in a massive $24M deal. Ramsay admits that she wanted to change the ending before its release, but the MUBI sale prevented her from doing so.
“Cannes wanted it, but it wasn’t ready,” Ramsay says. “But then when it was bought in Cannes there was all this pressure. It was bought for $24M and I was like, ‘Shit, I can’t change this… I’ve never been in that position before.’”
She added: “If you buy something for that amount of money, you kind of want it to be what you bought, right?”
This situation is total déjà vu for Ramsay, as her previous film, “You Were Never Really Here,” was also a late submission at Cannes 2017. It even ended up screening without any end credits at Cannes, but still managed to garner great reviews at the fest. The version I saw many months after that Cannes premiere was noticeably different, with the shape and tone of the film having been altered.
At Cannes, some believed Lawrence’s performance deserved an awards season push, which led MUBI to acquire the film for a whopping $24M. They ended up losing millions on “Die My Love,” which grossed only $12M worldwide and was completely shut out of Oscar nominations.
I can confirm that Joel Coen’s “Jack of Spades” is based on Frances Frederica Montrésor’s 1901 novel “The Alien: A Story of Middle Age.” It’s a ghost story. A gothic mystery.