DIE MY LOVE (2025) review
written by: Enda Walsh, Lynne Ramsay, and Alice Birch
produced by: Martin Scorsese, Jennifer Lawrence, Justine Ciarrocchi, Molly Smith, Thad Luckinbill, Trent Luckinbill & Andrea Calderwood
directed by: Lynne Ramsay
rated: R (for sexual content, graphic nudity, language, and some violent content)
runtime: 118 min.
U.S. release date: November 7, 2025
At first, I thought “Die My Love” would be about Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson in a tumultuous relationship, possibly even one where they tried to kill each other. That’s not quite right, but it sounds good. The fact that these two stars have teamed up with the bold Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay, who has a penchant for telling surreal stories in artful ways, is a draw in itself. Ramsay is a director who doesn’t make many films; her last one was 2017’s “You Were Never Really Here,” a riveting crime thriller.
With her fifth feature, she explores the confounding nature of postpartum depression, adapting Ariana Harwicz’s 2012 award-winning novel of the same name with fellow screenwriters Enda Walsh and Alice Birch, taking us on an overwhelming and confusing stage in a young mother’s life as she battles with her mind and body. At times, the project feels a bit drawn out, but Jennifer Lawrence is fearless and bold, conveying an eruptive force building within a woman dealing with newfound instability.
The film begins with Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) and her husband, Jackson (Robert Pattinson), who have relocated from New York City to rural Montana after Jackson inherits a home left to him by his late uncle, Frank. It’s nearly dilapidated and it has a rat problem, “We’ll have to get a cat,” Grace says, as if to reassure herself. Indeed, their goal is to renovate the place and start a life together here. It doesn’t take long before the days of impromptu passionate sex are behind them with the arrival of their baby. The newborn complicates their relationship, becoming the main priority for the couple as months slowly turn into a grind. The two get into a routine involving Jackson being away for work for extended periods, leaving Grace to become the primary caretaker for the child.
Grace is given to turbulent feelings and moody behaviors, while an unsure Jackson tries to keep things together, yet is totally at a loss as to how to interact with his newly feral wife. If she’s not walking on her hands and knees with a kitchen knife in her hand, then she’s lying around with her hand down her underwear trying to feel something, anything. It doesn’t help that he brings home a yipping dog that won’t shut up, leaving Grace to deal with it.
Grace was once a writer, and Jackson was a musician. They hoped a new environment would stoke creative fires within each of them, but the addition of a baby brings more changes than expected. Motivations and responsibilities shift as well. With Jackson gone most of the time, Grace is left with a newborn and herself. Loneliness, boredom, and uselessness kick in, with Grace prone to hallucinogenic visions and dreamscape journeys that stem from something deep within her. Sometimes there are visits from Jackson’s mother, Pam (Sissy Spacek), who may be the only one who notices what’s going on with Grace, and her husband, Harry (Nick Nolte), who’s fading from dementia. But those visits are usually only when Jackson is back in town.
Besides a wandering horse that she encounters, the only other being Grace sees is an enigmatic motorcyclist who rides near her property. He could be stalking her, and she could very well be enjoying such attention. Standing topless at her front window as he rides by shows some proof of that. She could be imagining having sexual encounters late at night with Karl (LaKeith Stanfield), but it’s not clear if Grace is fantasizing or if the biker is also desiring a carnal escape from his life. Either way, not satisfying her sexual appetite leads Grace to blur the lines between reality and fantasy.
Obviously, something is happening to Grace, and it’s something she can’t ignore, nor can she stop and examine it. These overwhelming thoughts and feelings hit her in waves, and she’s compelled to act upon them – whether it’s jumping through a glass window or destroying a bathroom. Frustrations and desires mount, and engagement with others is testing her last frayed nerve. Is she a danger to their newborn? No, at least not yet. She’s actually like a fierce mama bear with her baby. It’s everything else around her she can’t tolerate, especially friendly chit-chat or small talk with other local mothers. She’s absolutely having none of it.
Ramsay’s approach to the material is to produce a pressurized atmosphere for Lawrence’s Grace and the viewers of “Die My Love.” This can be seen in the things unsaid between a young married couple that breed contempt, as well as scenes where Lawrence literally claws at the walls of her home like a trapped animal. An atmosphere is created to simulate visual disorientation from Grace’s perspective, with Ramsay determined not to spoon-feed the audience, but rather to enrapture them in Grace’s wild and extreme behavior.
While Lawrence and Pattinson have great chemistry together, and both are outstanding in their roles, they are believable as a young married couple. Still, “Die My Love” belongs to Lawrence and Ramsay. In a career marked by some fantastic performances, this is a tour de force work from Lawrence. She is all-in on the material, at times intentionally comical, but mostly delivering a raw and impulsive performance that is absolutely mesmerizing as a new mother desperate to escape banality. There are times when it seems like Pattinson is just as mesmerized by Lawrence as we are. This is especially true in the film’s banger of an ending, which crescendos into an unforgettable path we can’t look away from.
RATING: ***
