‘Die My Love’ review: Rupture in romance

By no means an easy watch, Die My Love sees Jennifer Lawrence lead a challenging exercise in grasping at an often-abstract psychological profile.

Die My Love is what you get if you make Nightbitch without worrying about being approachable. Along with If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, add this adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s 2012 novel to the list of 2025 films that capture the complicated and distressing experience of motherhood and marriage. Plus, there’s the further impact on women’s mental health with postpartum depression in the driver’s seat amplifying any preexisting condition.

Writer Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) and her partner, aspiring musician Jackson (Robert Pattinson), are back in his home state of rural Montana from New York. The couple are in physical and explosive lust with each other before the film jumps to them not changing much, except there’s a six-month-old baby chilling on the porch. Meanwhile, mom is in the distance stalking the high grass with a knife like she’s doing an impression of a sexy lion looking for prey in the Serengeti, then masturbating while Jackson gets a beer and plays music loud. There’s not much dialogue between the two because he goes on the road for work with the only car, and the closest neighbors are miles away. With Grace acting more erratically than when they had an empty nest, the alarm bells ring.

More than meets the eye.

Photo Credit: Kimberly French/Mubi

Director and co-writer Lynne Ramsay firmly puts her artsy-fartsy cap on and yells at the audience to buckle-up buttercup, because this car is speeding down the road and she cut the brakes. There’s a theory that all art covers one of three topics: heaven, hell, or Eden and post-fall. Die My Love belongs in the latter category. Some scenes feel surreal as if they are not really happening, like a horse suddenly appearing in the backyard or a motorcyclist (LaKeith Stanfield) randomly appearing to have intense, near-silent sultry glares. With an image that could be straight out of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, Jackson’s mom Pam (Sissy Spacek), clutches her husband’s shotgun like a teddy bear and tends to sleepwalk while holding it laughing hysterically. If madness is common, why do some people get psychoanalyzed while others do not, even when all the behaviors are harmful?

Ramsay gives a glimpse of how Jackson’s family handles psychological distress. Jackson’s father, Harry (Nick Nolte), suffers from a form of dementia and is either struggling to tie shoelaces or exploding, but always ignored. Grace dives in and engages with him wordlessly more than any of the normies, while Jackson stays in the other room. Once the prior house owner’s history is revealed, it’s obvious that this family is not ready to wade in deep waters and come out the other side unscathed. Their best shot at coming to terms with real problems is Grace, but she’s the one in distress. Even though Grace loves her baby, it still brings a flood of stress. What she doesn’t love is insipid conversation, meeting demands of normal behavior and lack of attention, especially from Jackson.

A woman at a party says, “Babies are hard. I don’t think anybody talks about it enough.” Grace interjects, “It’s all anyone talks about.” Somehow there’s a lot about babies and how hard it is to be a parent in Die My Love, but not about the internal changes and hijacking of identity on a cellular level. Grace may be the wildest in the bunch but isn’t alone, just with the narrowest margin of error before deemed mad. Is it the nature of human existence or stress, the environment or a Grace thing? The movie jumps around the timeline to fill in context about the couple’s life before the baby, which was more crowded in the past. Because all the characters suffer from a degree of madness, there’s no one to hold on to. With an unreliable protagonist, the moviegoer is like Grace: lost, uncomfortable, over and under stimulated.

Oh, my love.

Photo Credit: Seamus McGarvey/Mubi

Lawrence used to be everywhere, and she has not been on the big screen in two years, but she’s back in a performance that is more Elizabeth Taylor than Gena Rowlands. Though she’s no chameleon, because Lawrence is not the kind of actor who disappears into her roles, she gets there with sheer force of will and physical commitment. Her unselfconscious commitment to bringing the page to life is something to marvel at. Ramsay often crafts rigorous, nuanced character studies, so to get a job on one of her films is an honor akin to getting an Oscar. The best scene is how Grace just casually has break downs then snaps back as if everything was normal and soothes her husband having a panic attack as if she’s the only adult in the room.

Pattinson’s work as Jackson is solid: energetically complimentary with Lawrence’s work without overshadowing, yet still doing justice to his character. For what appears to be a classic American cowboy look, Jackson keeps flunking the tests that life gives him without being a manipulative, conscious villain. He makes the lesson that even if you meet the most stable and wonderful woman, don’t take her out of the environment that she’s accustomed to. If you move to another space that has more allegiance to you and adore your partner, then get her pregnant, it is not a formula for a happy, long-lasting family.

Spacek does some good work here alternating between concern and judgment to joining in the rebellion. The transition between states is unclear because of Ramsay’s creative choices. Ramsay wants the audience to be as off-kilter and discombobulated as Grace. When Jackson brings a dog into the house (which is every new mother’s nightmare come true) the dog’s natural state is nonstop barking. Without any obvious indicators, it becomes a sign of illness. It’s an audible metaphor for Grace’s mental state; One minute, people are delighted with her…then a line is crossed.

The bottom line.

If you see Die My Love with no idea what you’re getting into, be warned. It’s a powerhouse film that is not for everyone. If you’re up for a challenge and strengthening your film analysis muscle, cut your teeth on this one and keep going back to it until you can wrap your head around it.

Die My Love is now playing in select theaters. Watch the trailer here.

Images courtesy of Seamus McGarvey/Kimberly French/Mubi. Read more articles by Sarah G. Vincent here. 

Sarah G. Vincent

Originally from NYC, freelance writer Sarah G. Vincent arrived in Cambridge in 1993 and was introduced to the world of repertory cinema while working at the Harvard Film Archives. Her work has appeared in Cambridge Day, newspapers, law journals, review websites and her blog, sarahgvincentviews.com.