Die My Love Review: Jennifer Lawrence Gives A Career-Best Performance In Lynne Ramsay's Domestic Nightmare

If Darren Aronofsky's misunderstood "mother!" and John Cassavetes' brilliant "A Woman Under the Influence" got married and had a baby with severe emotional problems, that baby might be "Die My Love," Lynne Ramsay's darkly funny, highly disturbing psychological domestic freakout. Jennifer Lawrence (who was also the aforementioned "mother!") returns to the screen after a brief hiatus, and what a treat it is to have her back. Lawrence has been making the publicity rounds for "Die My Love" and chalking her time away from the screen up to charming self-deprecation.

To paraphrase her words, the talented performer just kind of got sick of seeing herself everywhere. I'm not sure if anyone else agrees with that assessment, but I'll say I've never grown weary of Lawrence (ditto Anne Hathaway, who seemed to face a similar audience backlash because she's ... good at her job? And takes it seriously?). I haven't enjoyed all her films, but Lawrence is a consistently skilled actor, and "Die My Love" has her delivering arguably a career-best performance.

What Lawrence does here is feral and primal — a raw, hilarious, unsettling performance that recalls Gena Rowlands' game-changing turn in "A Woman Under the Influence." That's not to say what Lawrence and Ramsay are doing is derivative, but rather that the film exists on a similar wavelength. There's also a horror movie quality at work here, as characters move into a crumbling old house that was the sight of suicide. Is the house haunted? Maybe not by traditional movie ghosts, but the characters are just as tormented.

Lawrence is Grace, a young woman who moves to a secluded house in the woods with her partner Jackson, played by Robert Pattinson (big blockbuster YA adaptations were a big part of Lawrence and Pattinson's early careers so it's somewhat wild to have them together in a film like this). The couple is young and seemingly happy (and horny!) for each other, although they also are as driftless as many people their age — Grace wants to write a book, Jackson wants to be a rock star, neither of them seem to actually do much in terms of creating.

Everything changes after Grace gives birth to a son. Ostensibly, "Die My Love" could be considered a film about postpartum depression. But Ramsay, adapting the novel by Ariana Harwicz, isn't interested in something so easily classifiable. Instead, she's conjuring up a film that feels elemental and otherworldly, anchored by Lawrence's go-for-broke performance. Grace is frequently seen masturbating, or crawling through the grass on all fours like a beast, or brandishing a butcher knife. She seems completely unmoored from reality and sanity, and it doesn't help matters that Jackson — who is gone for long periods of time for work — is completely clueless as to how to help her.

Is Jackson a bad partner? Opinions may differ, but Pattinson, one of our best weirdo actors, plays him as well-meaning but aloof. Grace accuses him of sleeping around on more than one occasion, but it's not clear if that's an accurate assessment. But while Jackson may not be malevolent he is completely oblivious — at one point, he brings home a dog that will not stop barking, even though such a demanding pet is the last thing the unstable Grace needs in her life.

Ramsay keeps everything slightly off-kilter, making it intentionally hard to know when something is really happening and when something is part of a dream, or a memory, or something altogether unexplainable. The past and the present drift in and out of the narrative — at one point, Jackson's aging father (a quietly devastating Nick Nolte) is alive, and the next, he's gone, only to return again. Jackson's mother, played with weary warmth by Sissy Spacek, is spotted wandering down a dirt road at night cackling while clutching a shotgun at one point — something that's never brought up again.

Meanwhile, Grace keeps noticing a mysterious, silent man (LaKeith Stanfield) riding around at night on a motorcycle. Is he real? Most likely, since Grace bumps into him later in a grocery store parking lot. But is the look he gives her a knowing look — or one of confusion? Does he recognize her from a previous encounter, or is she a complete stranger? I don't want to imply "Die My Love" is some sort of mystery puzzle movie that needs to be solved. It's not interested in those things. Instead, it's taking us into Grace's fractured headspace as she hurls herself through glass windows and into swimming pools. At one point, she says: "I'm right here, but you can't see me," and it sums everything up perfectly.

This is disturbing, bleak subject matter, and to be sure, "Die My Love" is consistently unnerving (the opening title card appears over a forest on fire to hammer home the intensity). And yet, I think it would be fair to classify parts of the movie as dark comedy. Lawrence has a natural comedic timing (her first straightforward comedy, "No Hard Feelings," is underrated in my opinion), and she manages to find humor in the horror. It makes the film overly enjoyable even when the story is growing harrowing.

"Die My Love" features dreamy direction, sharp editing (via Toni Froschhammer), and a host of strong supporting performances. But the film lives and dies with Lawrence, who's fearless performance here reminds us why she became so acclaimed to begin with. Let's hope we start seeing more of her again now that she's back.

/Film Rating: 8 out of 10

"Die My Love" opens in theaters on November 7, 2025.