2025 seems to be the year of devastating motherly trauma as in the matter of weeks we’ve had two separate (and frankly incredible and remarkable) movies about motherhood and the trauma of motherhood with brilliant performances but that focus on different aspects of motherhood and issues. First we have Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Leg’s I’d Kick You (which we didn’t review but go see that as well) and then we have Lynne Ramsay’s quintessentially perfect look into the hellscape that is becoming a parent, and one that is suffering from post-natal depression which creates a disturbing picture for the audience that balances surrealism and terror making this tense drama a hybrid horror movie that very few movies can do, and even less that can do it well.
While Lynne Ramsay was behind the camera, she was also behind the pen along with Edna Walsh and Alice Birch based on Ariana Harwicz’s book, Birch co-writing Lady Macbeth and Edna Walsh co-wrote Hunger which explains why Die My Love is one of the most provocative enduring and downright disturbing movies of the year. Die My Love, focuses on Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) who is a writer and new young mother, who is struggling to write, and has her world slowly starting to dissipate and disappear from her grasp. Her partner, father of the child – Jackson (Robert Pattinson) moved them to an old family house in the middle of Montana, where Grace is left alone for extended periods of time with their newborn baby and her mind slowly starts to dissipate. The audience is stuck in a trance as we follow Grace, not knowing what is real and what is not trying to decipher everything that happens and being sucked into this surrealistic world inside of her mind trying to navigate the new world of motherhood. It is simply horrifying, traumatic, and inescapable and all of it is grounded by an outstanding performance that will quite literally leave you speechless as the credits start to roll.
Both Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson may have become household names due to their respective roles in teen franchises, but since leaving their respective franchises they’ve continued to define themselves as more than just wanting to do the less daring and more engaging movies. This isn’t a knock on either franchise – but they were hardly regarded as higher calibre adventures, regardless their proof to their craft is noted ten times over in their recent works, and Lawrence especially here delivers on a level we haven’t seen yet – at least not to this extent. Imagine her performance in Aronofsky’s Mother! but dialed to 11, there is something just so visceral and grounded while being so out of body that Lawrence delivers here that makes Die My Love one of the years most horrifying and transcendent watches. As a male who never wishes to have children, the sheer reality that this is something that can happen after childbirth reinforces the idea I never want to possibly inflict that kind of harm onto another person by having children – granted it’s not something that happens in every case nor is it something you can control but the possibility and the reality of the situation is terrifying. Pattinson as well, who is playing second fiddle here is great in his role, but similarly to Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte who play his parents respectfully, they’re not the focus or even really supporting here as they’re too limited in their roles as it is Lawrence’s vehicle to drive fully but no one faulters here.
Lynne Ramsay may be known for We Need to Talk About Kevin and You Were Never Really Here, but with Die My Love it seems to be safe to say this will be the deciding factor to prove if you’re a fan of her provocative and disturbing films she makes. Die My Love is not an easy watch by any means, it can even be considering messy at times, but that goes with the territory that she is exploring here and with the tour de force performance from Lawrence it truly is one of the best movies of the year that simply cannot be missed, even if it makes you squirm a little.
