The adage that we're all in the great war of our lives is starkly brought home in the new film from director Lynne Ramsay (Morvern Callar, We Need to Talk About Kevin, You Were Never Really Here), a study of postpartum psychosis that takes another bulldozer to performative social media depictions of family life. Die My Love will undoubtedly help someone somewhere.
Jennifer Lawrence plays Grace, a new mother who finds her grip on reality sliding as one endless day rolls into the next in rural Montana. She has moved there from New York City with partner Jackson (Robert Pattinson), and while it's a homecoming for the manchild, it's another planet for her.
From scene to scene, you honestly have no idea what's going to happen next.
Based on the Ariana Harwicz book of the same name, and with a script co-written by Irish playwright and screenwriter Enda Walsh, Die My Love is one of Lawrence's best performances and may well result in an Oscar nomination. Having pivoted from forget-it fare like Passengers, Red Sparrow, and Dark Phoenix, Lawrence's CV from 2021 onwards has been enhanced by the doomsday satire Don't Look Up, war veteran drama Causeway, zero-you-know-whats comedy No Hard Feelings, and now Die My Love, which she has also produced. Here, she uses all the colours to bring to life a character for whom you want the best but fear the worst. Truly, Lawrence can go anywhere from here. The same was said after 2017's Mother! - but you're convinced now that she's older, wiser, and braver about the stuff she wants to make.
This is a film that will be frustratingly episodic, too long, and just too out-there for many - it could play in a gallery as easily as a cinema - but it would be a shame if Lawrence's work was only seen by the arthouse faithful.
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