Die My Love

I knew this type of movie would be for me, but I also understand it's a very niche genre. I think to some level, you have to understand what she's going through to appreciate it. I didn't suffer PPD, but my husband and I were in a car accident that almost killed me and took the life of our 19yr old daughter. We had only just moved to a new state for a fresh start 2mos prior. The year after the accident, I became isolated, depressed, and started to lose it, much in the same as she did. My husband still had to work and provide for me and our other children since I was injured and broken mentally. She literally was living out my intrusive thoughts in the movie. Maybe my situation made it hit close to home and appreciate seeing that on the screen. It also made me feel for my husband who had the weight of the world on his shoulders while grieving and losing me at the same time. My husband and I have been separated for awhile and I don't blame him. The story plays out much like a fractured mind, it's all over the place, but that's the most honest way to depict the story. Despite some negative reviews, I loved it and am glad this movie exists. The performances were amazing, especially Jennifer's. I hope she gets another Oscar for this.

I just couldn't enjoy this film. I found the flick to be pretentious and the story jumps the gun far too often for the plot to hold any weight from the message being conveyed.

Yes, the film has some gorgeous cinematography and the acting is great, but that is about where the good stops for this one. The story goes absolutely nowhere. In about the last quarter of the film, I had felt like I finally got a grip on what Jennifer Lawrence's character was going through and why she kept doing these crazy things to herself, and I had thought, what a perfect way to end this film. Then it continued for another 25 minutes and lost me again with the meaning behind the film. It was as frustrating as seeing Lawrence's pregnant belly shrink and unshrink throughout the film, at intervals that make no sense.

The best part of the film is easily Jennifer Lawrence's acting. She was what made the film, at least somewhat, entertaining. Not a whole lot of a transformation for herself, she is doing a lot of what she did in 'Mother!' here as well, but it works in the film's favor. The actor who should not have been in this is Robert Pattinson. Very miscast role. It's not that he's a bad actor, it's that his acting is dry and emotionless. This role required someone with a more tender screen presence. Had they stuck with the idea I had thought they were going with, he would've been just fine, but, again, then the movie went on for another 25 minutes, making you feel bad for his character, and obliterated that idea out of my head.

Overall, I couldn't recommend it. The meaning and emotion that could have been are all lost in this messy soup of a film. The acting is great and the cinematography is a stand out, but the lack of a cohesive plotline, an ending that dragged on and on, and the very miscast husband pushed this film all the way to the ground by the end of it. A shame, a daring and provocative performance just wasted because of somebody's idea of 'avent garde elevated cinema'.

2 dead loves out of 5.

Despite its committed performances, occasionally intriguing choices and generally quite gorgeous - and delightfully textured - cinematography, very little about Lynne Ramsay's 'Die My Love (2025)' worked for me, and I'm not sure why. It's definitely well-crafted in almost every area, and it knows what it's doing and does it exactly how it wants to, but it's honestly pretty boring. It says everything it's going to say by the halfway point, and it just keeps going. It's the kind of film that I feel as though I should've liked, especially since my brother - whose taste in cinema is almost identical to mine - genuinely enjoyed it, but I just don't and I can't lie about it. It doesn't move me, it doesn't work its way under my skin, it doesn't excite or delight or even frustrate me. It just plays out in front of me. I can tell it's quite good in its own way, but it simply doesn't connect with me and I'm pretty sure it's not just because I don't have first-hand experience of the subject matter. There have been plenty of movies about people and places and feelings and actions entirely unfamiliar to me, and many of them have found their way into my heart and touched me on a deep level. I'm aware that this kind of reads more as an apology than a review, but I simply can't quite put my finger on why I don't like this feature and therefore don't feel comfortable completely condemning it. It's exactly what it wants and needs to be, but it isn't for me. Sometimes, that's just the way it is I suppose.

"Die My Love" follows young couple Grace and Jackson (Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson), who relocate to Jackson's rural hometown in Montana for a new start. The couple soon welcome the birth of a son, but their relationship splinters as Grace descends into severe mental illness, while an often emotionally-absent Jackson falters in supporting her.

This emotionally exhausting film by Lynne Ramsay (no stranger to darkness) is a psychological rollercoaster that, despite lacking in some exposition, is no less an effective, turbulent, and abstract journey into one individual's mental decline. Many have characterized this film as one about postpartum depression, but I believe this is both an oversimplification and a mischaracterization. As someone whose lifelong best friend has suffered from inconsistently-medicated bipolar disorder for decades, I found that this film succinctly illustrated exactly what this disorder looks like to a level that is uncanny. Grace's temperament and actions throughout reminded me so much of my friend that I found the film at times extremely difficult to watch.

In terms of story, "Die My Love" is fairly sparse. The film mostly consists of a push-and-pull, a chaotic dance between Grace and Jackson that is both exasperating and occasionally touching. There remains a clear sense that, despite their respective flaws and problems, the two deeply care for each other; however, there is a vortex in the room consuming Grace that goes unchecked for far too long. Grace's reality is entirely obfuscated by her illness, while a distracted Jackson is ill-equipped to be a source of legitimate support. His mother, Pam (Sissy Spacek), who is experiencing her own grief, seems to intuitively recognize the emotional forces that are consuming Grace, but her efforts also remain limited due to a number of interpersonal family dynamics.

The storytelling here employs nonlinear and abstract tactics that are, for the most part, effective. I do think it suffers from a lack of exposition, as the audience gets no real sense of who these people were before Grace's decline. Instead, we are dropped into their lives at the precipice of all this turmoil. A few details about Grace's past eventually emerge near the film's conclusion, but it feels like a case of "too little, too late." Perhaps this was done intentionally so as to mimic the unpredictable, hard-and-fast progression of some mental illnesses, but I still felt as though there was an undergirding to the two leads characters that was sorely missed. Despite this, both Lawrence and Pattinson's performances are outstanding, and Spacek serves as a warm (albeit often helpless) maternal figure between the two.

There is a repetitive nature to the events that unfold as the film hurls toward its conclusion which some may find a slog to get through (and I do think it could have benefitted from some slight editing), but I mainly found it a slog because it was a painful and dispiriting viewing experience. Given my experiences with Ramsay's other films, I expected this, but it hit me harder because it brought up many personal memories. Despite what flaws it may have, as an emotional portrait, it is a real gut-punch of a film. 7/10.

Die, My Love? More like Day, For Night.

I'll give it this. The film taps into something authentic when it comes to looking at the impulsiveness that comes with depression. When it's jarring by showing something destructive happening, you feel it, and it feels real. Also, Jennifer Lawrence is very good, even though she doesn't really have an actual film to work with.

This thing is abysmally written and paced. A good performance and a certain honesty about mental illness - and how it feels - can only take this so far. There are parts of this film where it was almost like someone was trying to kneecap those somewhat redeeming qualities. You can have a film that's unpredictable and that shows a sense of psychological deterioration, but you still need pacing or a sense of momentum/escalation.

Die My Love has none of that, and whatever it's trying to be beyond a depiction of depression (and it is trying to be other things; it has to, with a runtime of about two hours), it fails. There's a randomness that doesn't feel clever or particularly purposeful; more just lazy. But I also thought Lynne Ramsay's previous film, You Were Never Really Here, was smug and kind of frustrating, so take my take with a decent amount of salt (We Need to Talk About Kevin was good, though).