Movie Review: Die My Love
Screened at Stockholm International Film Festival 2025
One-liner: A star-studded cast lean full tilt into this alienating, challenging and often grating psychological drama thriller.
Die My Love is a psychological drama thriller and character portrait directed by Lynne Ramsay, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Sissy Spacek and Robert Pattinson. Set in the countryside, this adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s book grapples with the difficulties experienced by a new mother struggling with postpartum psychosis. Die My Love starts with a frenzied opening sequence that immediately sets its abrasive, erratic and emotionally-charged tone.
While provocative and poetic, the overall feeling is undeniably challenging. The main attraction is the unusual but sensible pairing of Hollywood stars, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson. Die My Love is built around Lawrence’s compelling to cloying performance. While she surrenders herself completely, there’s no time for connection and empathy, leaving audiences at a safe distance. Lawrence continues a new, fearless phase in her career, completely losing herself in the central character of Grace. Driven by her primal nature and uninhibited behavior, she acts with reckless abandon, compelled by urges to overcome boredom and isolation, and doing things deemed inappropriate by societal convention.
She struggles to make sense of her new circumstances, playing opposite Pattinson as Jackson, who is purposefully overshadowed. He takes on an obscured supporting role, though he occasionally matches Lawrence’s raw energy. While both high-profile stars deliver performances that veer dangerously close toward over-the-top, Sissy Spacek serves as a vital anchor, grounding the film with the most stabilizing and normal performance, providing a necessary balance.
Spacek’s role mirrors the film’s need for stability, as the rest of the elements feel quite unhinged. There’s a fractious quality to Die My Love that is consistent with its title and subject matter. It’s vivid and far from boring, but the in-your-face nature of the raw performances, emotional storytelling and stylistic treatment has a way of getting under your skin.
“We could be in love like Romeo & Juliet…”
Unfortunately, this effect leans more toward annoying than genuinely challenging, creating an unintended alienation from the characters and a rather jagged feeling toward the world itself. This overstimulation and “look-at-me” energy does dissipate somewhat by the third act, but by the time the film flattens out, an irreconcilable distance has been created, making it difficult to care for any of the characters. This arm’s-length numbness, anxious undertone and overcooked experimentation become quite trying. Moments involving the treatment of animals exacerbate this growing distance even further – perhaps conveying the psychological torment of the lead accurately, but at the cost of connecting with the audience.
As an artwork, this expressive, bold and wild psychological drama thriller is comparable to Natural Born Killers in its frenzied devil-may-care approach. The poetry and bravery of this adaptation are admirable, containing truly powerful moments. Unfortunately, as a piece of entertainment, this disconnected quality, discordant performances and prickly disposition actively push audiences away. It dulls empathy and makes it very difficult to relate, as this wild ride seems intent on forging ahead with the same reckless attitude as its main character, Grace. Ultimately, while you can appreciate the artistry, the abrasive tone and nature of Die My Love make it difficult to enjoy, in spite of the quality of its ingredients.
The bottom line: Disconnected
