Die My Love

Eight years after her previous film, the grisly crime drama YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE (2017), director Lynne Ramsay takes on a different state of psychological collapse. Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) is a young mother in the grips of postpartum depression—an affliction exacerbated by her intense isolation after she and her comically aloof husband (Robert Pattinson) move to his childhood home in rural Montana. Though such mood disorders affect a startling number of women, Ramsay’s depiction of Grace’s unravelling is anything but commonplace, employing a fragmented editing style, woozy, psychedelic imagery and erratic soundscapes to blur the boundaries between fantasy and reality. Adapted from Ariana Harwicz’s 2012 novel, DIE MY LOVE straddles horror and comedy, plunging us so deeply into Grace’s mental inferno that it’s hard not to break down and laugh. After all, Grace—thanks to Lawrence’s daring performance—is a flurry of unhinged physicality, at one point crawling on all fours like some feral animal. Eccentric supporting characters played by Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte only add to the chaos, but Lawrence commands the show, evoking the canonical madwomen of films like ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968) and POSSESSION (1981). (Beatrice Loayza)

Lynne Ramsay: SMALL DEATHS (1996, K), KILL THE DAY (1997), GASMAN (1998), RATCATCHER (1999), MORVERN CALLAR (2002), WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (2021), SWIMMER (2012, K), YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE (2017), BRIGITTE (2019, K)