Die My Love

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? 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).

"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.

This is a very good move. It's also an awful movie. Jennifer Lawrence acts the heck out of it - seriously good work. It's a huge rule that could have been cartoonish but she gives it nuance and depth. Robert Pattinson isn't quite as good but he holds his own.

Postpartum depression is not a topic I've seen done before, surely because it makes us confront uncomfortable things about mothers, who we'd rather idealize. So I give the producers a lot of credit for tackling the subject.

But it's about an unlikable woman going through miserable times, causing havoc in her wake. Of course people aren't going to like that.

My only possible criticism is that the portrayal of mental illness didn't seem fully authentic to me. But I say "possible" because I'm not a mental health professional and obviously I have not had postpartum depression.

But, the protagonists problems weren't only postpartum depression but that pushes her over the edge. I'll guess that's how it usually works.

Its truly a sad story about postpartum. Its something that isn't talked about enough and does happen. This was on the deep end of the pool in my opinion and the whole movie is just weird, depression or not. Too much went into the shots that it kinda took away from the story a bit in my opinion. Thats weird for me to say because I normally love that. Throwing in the dog and the disrespect from the husband didn't help add to her postpartum depression, of course she was. Why was that never focused on? Overall this sad movie was good catching emotions and the pain. It just wasn't for me and the movie felt long.

Watched at AMC with Heather on 11-9-2025.