Die My Love (2025)- BFI London Film Festival 2025

Review

118min

Genre:       Drama, Thriller

Director:    Lynne Ramsay

Cast:         Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, Sissy Spacek…and more

Writers:     Lynne Ramsay, Enda Walsh, Ariana Harwicz and Alice Birch

-Synopsis-

In rural contemporary America, the seemingly idyllic life of a wife and new mom in the remote countryside begins to fall apart when her behaviour becomes increasingly erratic and her sanity slips, fighting to manage contradictory thoughts of freedom and entrapment, motherhood and womanhood in the midst of an identity crisis, while her frustrated husband and the people around her struggle to hold things together before they lead to tragedy in this arresting portrait of post-partum psychosis from the writer/director of ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’.

Eight years after her last striking exploration of trauma and the turbulent human mind with 2017’s ‘You Were Never Really Here’, and after leaving fans in anticipation with a career averaging one feature film about every seven to eight years, Scottish writer/director Lynne Ramsay returns and teams up with her star/producer Jennifer Lawrence to adapt Ariana Harwicz’s 2012 novel and deliver yet another bold and unflinching cinematic look at domestic drama and the fractured human psyche.

Lawrence herself stars as ‘Grace’, a writer turned young housewife and new mother, recently moved with her husband ‘Jackson’ (Robert Pattinson) from the urban East coast to his family’s old house in rural Montana where they raise their infant son, closer to the care of his mother ‘Pam’ (Sissy Spacek) and ailing father ‘Harry’ (Nick Nolte). But when waves of increasing paranoia, frustration and resentment wash over her with greater frequency, and her grip on reality begins to slip, Grace’s behaviour becomes more impulsive and volatile, soon crossing the line into risky and dangerous for herself and those around her, while her increasingly embittered and despondent husband and stoic concerned mother-in-law are left to deal with the fallout while they still can.

As any fan of Lynne Ramsay may know, the British filmmaker has a penchant for exploring the murky corners of the American cultural psyche and no fear of delving into its dark depths, and while it may not prove as morbid or brutal as her two previous cinematic excursion to the land of the free, ‘Die My Love’ is no less intense, moody, sometimes hypnotic and occasionally foreboding, keeping the audience guessing and on tenterhooks with the unpredictable story and the troubled mind at its heart. She also personally sets the tone by teaming up with musicians Raife Burchell and George Vjestica to create the film’s atmospheric and sombre score, which is juxtaposed with a constant rolling soundtrack of everything from classic rock to country & western and folk— including the film’s charming unofficial theme song John E. Prine’s “In Spite Of Ourselves”—plus some more whimsical seasonal choral pieces.

In what is an adaptation of a French tale and Harwicz’s 2012 novel, Ramsay transports the story to modern day modern America, with picturesque areas in and around Calgary in the Canadian province of Alberta where it was shot seamlessly doubling for rural Montana, brightly and naturally shot in style but with a hazy otherworldly quality by Irish cinematographer Seamus McGarvey (We Need to Talk About Kevin, Atonement), as they opt for an ultra-narrow oldschool academy ratio for full audience intimacy with the characters . . . at times deliberately too close for comfort.

If there was any doubt left about Ramsay’s fascination with human psychology and troubled broken people, ‘Die My Love’ leaves no question about her cinematic preoccupation, but rather than showcasing a mania born of psychopathy, trauma or abandonment as in her previous films, here it comes from what should be one of the most beautiful and natural of things—becoming a mom. As she and her co-screenwriters Alice Birch and Enda Walsh are uncompromising in exploring the dark and often unexposed recesses of new motherhood, putting forth sombre and confronting thoughts which are often avoided in polite conversation, like paranoia, loss of autonomy and purpose, and feelings of anger and resentment, plus the hopelessness of postpartum depression. But true to the director’s form she takes it to the extreme by filtering it all through the prism of post-partum psychosis, and a woman slowly losing her grip on reality and in need of desperate help. It’s perhaps unsurprising then that a two-hour Hollywood drama falls short of a nuanced and comprehensive depiction of what is a severe and rare mental illness, a point of contention and criticism which the film won’t be able to avoid.

Yet despite the sobering themes and heavy subject matter, indeed perhaps because of them, Ramsay injects a surprising amount of earthy situational and observational humour into the narrative, not quite enough to classify the film as even a black comedy but sufficient to make it a more honest and rounded human experience.

No doubt ‘Die My Love’ is a stylish and moody proposition but at its core is a bold character drama which relies on the efforts of stars, who luckily deliver by carrying the heavy emotional load on their shoulders, led by Lawrence who leans on her personal recent experience of new motherhood to give her best performance in years. A brave and daring turn laid physically and emotionally bare, fully committed to the surprising amount of nudity and sex in the film, as is her principal co-star Robert Pattinson who proves a solid scene partner throughout with his performance as a frustrated and slightly absent yet devoted husband, with his own demons and at his wits’ end.

But ultimately this is the Jennifer Lawrence show as the Hollywood superstar admirably manages the responsibility of being one of the film’s principal producers and its star while still dealing with lingering post-partum depression from the birth her first child, and pregnant with her second at the time of filming, leaning into the pressure and stress of it all to deliver a raw and intense yet restrained turn, and her most notable performance in recent years.

All her efforts effectively bring to the screen a character in deep crisis, whose feelings and thoughts of self-doubt, inadequacy, sexual frustration, anger and resentment soon escalate to paranoia and detachment from reality, as she becomes increasingly disinterested in social norms and keeping up appearances while her behaviour becomes more impulsive and unpredictable, at times regressing to a more infantile and even animalistic state where she has little regard for her own wellbeing. Sending her on escapist expeditions at the drop of a hat and without notice away from home—often alone but occasionally with her infant son, although she never crosses the line to harm him and remains a devoted mother at least—drawn away by a mysterious stranger biker figure played by an enigmatic LaKeith Stanfield, as the lines between fantasy, reality, and her mental breaks become blurred.

The sum of all the efforts here may not be as bold, visceral or memorable as Ramsay’s two previous efforts, and it may not quite sear itself into our consciousness or prove as hard to shake off, but ‘Die My Love’ still soars as an adaptation of Harwicz’s novel. Triumphing as a raw and mesmerising domestic drama and appropriately messy portrait of post-partum plight, taking its star back to the top of the Hollywood ladder and reminding us why we wish its director would be more prolific.

The Bottom Line…

A dark, moody, arresting and occasionally hypnotic cinematic portrait of a mental and existential decline, and a visual metaphor for those who burn bright and wild, ‘Die My Love’ leans on the committed talents of its star/producer to deliver a gripping and compelling psychological drama with strong thriller credentials, underlining Lynne Ramsay’s reputation as one of Britains boldest filmmakers and reinforcing the notion that her next film is always worth the wait . . . although here’s hoping the following interlude is shorter.

‘Die My Love’ is out in UK and US cinemas on the 7th of November.

Similar films you may like (Home Video)

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

Worried about the increasingly strange behaviour of her elder son, an American mother struggles to manage the peculiarities and increasingly worrying thoughts of her teenager, only to be confronted by the atrocities of his final monstrous act and finding the strength to carry on whilst becoming a pariah in her community, in this unsettling adaptation of the bestselling Lionel Shriver novel.

Directed by Lynne Ramsay and starring Tilda Swinton, Ezra Miller and John C. Reilly among others.

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