Die My Love isn’t just a movie. It’s an emotional blow to sanity delivered with arthouse precision, a fever-dream character study that grabs you by the collar, tightens its grip, and refuses to let you breathe for two solid hours. And honestly? We kind of love it for that. Lynne Ramsay, the reigning queen of cinematic psychological excavation – I still shiver thinking about We Need to Talk About Kevin, returns to the screen with a film so raw, so jagged, and so ferociously well-acted that it feels like she’s daring you not to look away. You won’t. You can’t.
At the center of this beautifully disorienting cyclone of a film is Jennifer Lawrence, giving what might be — deep breath — her best performance to date. And yes, that’s really saying something for an actress who already has an Oscar, several Academy Award nominations, and a resume of performances that could fuel an acting masterclass.
But as Grace, a woman suffering from post-partum depression and slowly slipping through the cracks of new motherhood, creative pressure, and isolation, Lawrence is blisteringly good. She’s magnetic, messy, erratic, strangely funny, occasionally terrifying, and heartbreakingly human. You don’t so much watch her unravel as feel it vibrating through your own bones.
Grace and her partner Jackson (Robert Pattinson, leaning into his role with a weary chaos) have moved to an old fixer-upper buried somewhere deep in the Midwest countryside where Wi-Fi signals go to die. He’s absent more than he’s home, she’s a writer trying to peck out the next Great American Novel, and the two of them appear to have about as much grasp on early adulthood as a pair of hungry raccoons fumbling through a recycling bin.
They love each other, they try, they fail, often quite spectacularly. And yet while watching them, we are hypnotized, because they’re flawed in ways that feel alarmingly familiar. Ramsay isn’t judging them. Nope. She’s observing, probing, peeling back layers until what’s left is something alarmingly tender.
Sissy Spacek shows up with her signature calm-but-slightly-haunted energy, LaKeith Stanfield brings a mysterious, yet grounded presence that feels like a life raft the movie refuses to let us grab, and Nick Nolte pops in with that gravelly authenticity only Nick Nolte can summon. But make no mistake: this is totally Lawrence’s show, supported by Ramsay’s uncompromising vision.
Adapted by Enda Walsh, Ramsay herself, and Alice Birch from Ariana Harwicz’s novel, the screenplay has no interest in coddling anyone. It’s bristly yet intimate, sometimes funny in the way only extreme discomfort can be, and the fractured narrative structure makes you feel as though you’re experiencing Grace’s slipping reality right alongside her.
Ramsey used similar tactics in 2011’s We Need to Talk About Kevin, but here she pushes even deeper into emotional upheaval - not sure how that was even possible. It shouldn’t work. And for audiences seeking tidy narratives, it probably won’t. But that’s the film’s secret weapon: its refusal to flatten these characters into likable shapes. After all, isn’t life truly messy?
And you know what? That honesty becomes strangely endearing. Lawrence’s performance is so painful, and so alive that, despite everything Grace destroys (relationships, rooms, her own mental stability)s you find yourself rooting for her, or at least wanting desperately for her to catch her breath. Her young son, the one presence that anchors her in the lightest, most fragile way, surprisingly becomes the film’s heartbeat.
Die My Love may unsettle, bewilder, and occasionally frustrate, but it is never less than gripping. Ramsay and Lawrence make one hell of a team, delivering a film that’s bleak, beautiful, and impossible to shake. In a cinematic world often cluttered with safe choices, Die My Love is a fearless, exhilarating plunge into the abyss. And somehow, amid all the darkness, we walk away feeling boldly, bizarrely invigorated.
MPAA Rating: R.
Runtime: 119 mins
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Writer: Enda Walsh; Lynne Ramsay; Alice Birch
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence; Robert Pattinson; Sissy Spacek
Genre: Drama
Tagline:
Memorable Movie Quote: "I hate guitars."
Distributor: MUBI
Official Site:
Release Date: November 14, 2025
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
Synopsis: Grace, a writer and young mother, is slowly slipping into madness. Locked away in an old house in and around Montana, we see her acting increasingly agitated and erratic, leaving her companion, Jackson, increasingly worried and helpless.
