‘Die, My Love’ review: Jennifer Lawrence sparks Lynne Ramsay’s portrait of a troubled marriage

Dir: Lynne Ramsay. Canada. 2025. 119mins

As a brand new mom unravelling in terrifying style, Jennifer Lawrence is the match that lights Lynne Ramsay’s gripping, slow-burn fifth characteristic. Die, My Love begins as a narrative of postpartum melancholy, however this adaptation of the Ariana Harwicz novel shortly reveals new layers, analyzing psychological well being and the passionate bond between risky lovers that’s so feverish it could actually generally make them really feel like they’re shedding their minds.

Jennifer Lawrence is the match that lights Lynne Ramsay’s gripping, slow-burn fifth characteristic

Ramsay’s third straight Cannes Competitors entry — following We Want To Discuss About Kevin (2011) and You Had been By no means Actually Right here (2017) — needs to be a high-profile arthouse merchandise because of its stars Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, who play a flamable married couple. The challenges of motherhood have been on show in current movies resembling Nightbitch and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (which received its star Rose Byrne one of the best main efficiency award in Berlin), however the best way by which Ramsay and Lawrence interrogate these traumas give this psychological drama its personal unnerving rhythms.

Grace (Lawrence) and Jackson (Pattinson) have simply moved into Jackson’s late uncle’s dwelling in forested upstate New York, and are prepared to begin a household. Quickly, Grace offers delivery to a son however, within the subsequent months, she begins exhibiting unusual behaviour – like crawling on her fingers and knees exterior the property, a carving knife in her hand. Initially these round her — together with Jackson’s mom Pam (Sissy Spacek) — insist that it’s frequent for a brand new mom to really feel slightly “crazy” however as Grace’s actuality offers option to wild fantasies, it turns into obvious that one thing extra troubling is happening.

Die, My Love finds Ramsay returning to thematic and tonal terrain she’s masterfully tackled in earlier movies. If Ratcatcher and You Had been By no means Actually Right here took audiences into the worldview of characters with fracturing psyches, We Want To Discuss About Kevin handled the potential hell of motherhood in a frank method. However whereas her new movie recollects previous triumphs, it additionally delivers a fragile love story like nothing she’s tried earlier than.

Lawrence has beforehand gone for broke as an embattled mom in 2017’s frenzied horror Mom!, however in Die, My Love, she offers a efficiency that’s way more naturalistic, which makes Grace’s sudden erratic actions all of the extra inexplicable and alarming. Whether or not dragging her nails throughout the toilet wall, leaving her fingers bloody, or having sexual ideas a couple of random motorcyclist (LaKeith Stanfield), who might be a figment of her creativeness, Grace is a worst-case situation for all ladies who’ve skilled postpartum melancholy, virtually turning feral as she navigates her uncontrollable impulses.

Because the movie grows more and more discomfiting, editor Toni Froschhammer skilfully blends previous and current, what’s actual and what’s not, in such a method that audiences could not all the time be capable to distinguish. It makes for enthralling viewing, particularly as Ramsay refuses to pin Grace’s points to anyone supply. Sure, maybe postpartum melancholy is an element, however Die, My Love reveals simply sufficient of Grace and Jackson’s backstory to supply clues into what has all the time been a tempestuous relationship. Slyly, the movie argues that, even when postpartum melancholy is a subject we don’t speak about sufficient, to easily slap that label on Grace could be to disregard different warning indicators that have been there lengthy earlier than. It’s an indication of the movie’s disorienting energy that solely on the finish can we really study the infant’s identify — a element, like so many others, that has fallen by the wayside as Grace struggles to keep up her sanity.

Whereas it could be inaccurate to name Die, My Love a darkish comedy, Lawrence’s underrated comedic presents turn out to be useful as Grace (metaphorically) units hearth to the banal home trappings she resents round her. The Oscar-winning actress offers a volcanic efficiency that’s nonetheless very managed, avoiding melodramatic theatrics. Pattinson performs off his costar fantastically, giving us an inattentive husband who comes to understand how little he understands about his spouse.