Die, My Love Review:
Jennifer Lawrence is Electric
in Sweltering Postpartum Psychodrama
CANNES FILM FESTIVAL - IN COMPETITION
Words by Alex Secilmis 18 May 2025
Jennifer Lawrence is Electric
in Sweltering Postpartum Psychodrama
CANNES FILM FESTIVAL - IN COMPETITION
Words by Alex Secilmis 18 May 2025
A good opening scene is a baseline measurement of what’s to come, and the fifth film from acclaimed Scottish director Lynne Ramsay sets that bar at a dizzying height. Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson walk into a remote rural home with filthy floors. Naturally, to a ferocious rock soundtrack, they strip, play-fight, and fuck like animals. Splice those carnal pleasures with a camera sprinting through a burning forest, and we’re off to some raucous races.
Adapted from the novel by Ariana Harwicz, Die, My Love follows a mother’s (Lawrence) postpartum descent into psychosis and her disintegrating relationship with her partner (Pattinson). Grace, a writer, and Jackson, a musician with an unspecified day job, have just moved into his late uncle’s prairie house. In a post-coital montage with Grace now pregnant, the couple settle into the house, their relationship defined by an almost violent intimacy. As Ramsay’s script and Toni Froschammer’s editing toggle us back and forth in time, the intensity of their love is matched by the vehemence of its decay.
Infinitely more interested in emotion than traditional narrative, Die, My Love is driven by both its heightened atmosphere and Lawrence’s visceral performance. With a claustrophobic 4:3 aspect ratio, forceful sound design (most scenes are soundtracked by buzzing flies), and an arresting 35mm colour palette defined by seedy shades of green, the film is a gorgeously realised pastoral nightmare. It may not be a horror movie, but it carries the eerie ambience of the genre’s best offerings. DP Seamus McGarvey channels Rosemary’s Baby while Paul Davies’ sound design invokes The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Lawrence plays every side of Grace’s fractured self with blistering commitment. Amidst a waning sex life and alleged infidelity, she slowly unravels in the oppressive heat, barking with dogs and prowling on all fours with a knife in her hand. Even when things escalate to their most bizarre, the actress is never anything less than tragically believable.
Sure to figure in next year’s Best Actress race, Lawrence is well-matched by an erratic Pattinson. Their fierce yet grounded performances clash with the film’s surrealist tendencies in a fascinating tug of war between insanity and reality. The chaos is worth watching for their dynamic alone: a face-off between two actors with the swagger to carry a franchise and the bravery to go for broke in unflattering character studies.
Just acquired by MUBI, Ramsay’s latest effort is set to be one of the year’s defining films. Thanks to a harrowing subject and an unconventional structure even for a psychological thriller, Die, My Love is uneasy—but essential—viewing.
Adapted from the novel by Ariana Harwicz, Die, My Love follows a mother’s (Lawrence) postpartum descent into psychosis and her disintegrating relationship with her partner (Pattinson). Grace, a writer, and Jackson, a musician with an unspecified day job, have just moved into his late uncle’s prairie house. In a post-coital montage with Grace now pregnant, the couple settle into the house, their relationship defined by an almost violent intimacy. As Ramsay’s script and Toni Froschammer’s editing toggle us back and forth in time, the intensity of their love is matched by the vehemence of its decay.
Infinitely more interested in emotion than traditional narrative, Die, My Love is driven by both its heightened atmosphere and Lawrence’s visceral performance. With a claustrophobic 4:3 aspect ratio, forceful sound design (most scenes are soundtracked by buzzing flies), and an arresting 35mm colour palette defined by seedy shades of green, the film is a gorgeously realised pastoral nightmare. It may not be a horror movie, but it carries the eerie ambience of the genre’s best offerings. DP Seamus McGarvey channels Rosemary’s Baby while Paul Davies’ sound design invokes The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Lawrence plays every side of Grace’s fractured self with blistering commitment. Amidst a waning sex life and alleged infidelity, she slowly unravels in the oppressive heat, barking with dogs and prowling on all fours with a knife in her hand. Even when things escalate to their most bizarre, the actress is never anything less than tragically believable.
Sure to figure in next year’s Best Actress race, Lawrence is well-matched by an erratic Pattinson. Their fierce yet grounded performances clash with the film’s surrealist tendencies in a fascinating tug of war between insanity and reality. The chaos is worth watching for their dynamic alone: a face-off between two actors with the swagger to carry a franchise and the bravery to go for broke in unflattering character studies.
Just acquired by MUBI, Ramsay’s latest effort is set to be one of the year’s defining films. Thanks to a harrowing subject and an unconventional structure even for a psychological thriller, Die, My Love is uneasy—but essential—viewing.