Many fans of the Hunger Games and Twilight franchises are excited that Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson are starring together in a movie that just hit the 2025 movie calendar. However, before anyone starts expecting Katniss Everdeen and Edward Cullen fanfic, perhaps you should take a look at what critics are saying about Die My Love, because Lynne Ramsay’s newest project tackles some heavy material.
Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson star in Die My Love as Grace and Jackson, who move from New York City to rural Montana and have a baby. Grace begins to struggle with loneliness and postpartum depression, leading to what looks like some intense and disturbing moments in the trailer. According to Sheila O’Malley of RogerEbert.com, Lynne Ramsay has created an “unrelenting fever dream” for us to experience what Lawrence’s character is going through. The critic rates the movie 3.5 out of 4 stars, writing:
Lawrence is an unruly presence, and her impulsiveness here (which serves her so well as a comedienne) makes her seem dangerous and reckless. Die My Love, like its source material, is close first-person. We never get a break from Grace’s perspective. None of this is easy, and not much of it is fun. But Die My Love is a wild and worthwhile ride.
Iana Murray of Empire gives Die My Love — a book-to-screen adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s 2012 novel — 4 stars out of 5, saying it reaffirms Lynne Ramsay as one of our foremost observers of humanity. The film exudes a “feral energy,” Murray writes, elevated by Jennifer Lawrence’s no-holds-barred performance. The critic says:
The actor takes on a carnal physicality unlike anything she’s embodied before, and it doesn’t feel as if she’s acting so much as allowing the character’s spirit to take hold of her. Pattinson, who’s no stranger to exploring the farthest extremes of himself on screen, is right there with her as Grace’s increasingly distant husband. But this film belongs to Lawrence, devoting every inch of her body to a bold, unrelenting and invigorating study of just how unforgiving motherhood can be.
Alissa Wilkinson of the New York Times warns that Die My Love is polarizing and some will find it infuriating. This critic, however, loves it (moreso, even, on repeat viewings) and calls it “career-defining” for Jennifer Lawrence. To see an actor take such a big swing and connect, Wilkinson writes, is the reason she goes to the movies. She continues:
Die My Love is linear yet allusive; sometimes you’re not sure how much time has passed, and sometimes it passes in a blink. Submerged in Grace’s overheated, claustrophobic, tedious, maddening reality, we are drowning, just like her. It is full-body immersion cinema. Its story may revolve around Grace, but Die My Love revolves around Jennifer Lawrence, for whom this feels like a career-defining role — not that she really required one.
Peter Travers of The Travers Take rates it 3 out of 4 stars, noting that while Lynne Ramsay lives to push boundaries, this one may push audiences too far. Still, despite the angst and the noise, Travers says this is a movie that needs to be seen, as Jennifer Lawrence takes huge risks and achieves “hallucinatory brilliance.” In other words:
Jennifer Lawrence doesn’t play it safe as an actress. And her gift for walking the highwire pays off big time in Die My Love, where you won’t know what hit you. And even if you feel wrung out like a rag at the end or the middle or, hell, right from the beginning, don’t discourage Lawrence. Risk becomes her.
Not everybody is going to be on board with Die My Love, and NPR’s Aisha Harris falls in that category. She praises Jennifer Lawrence and Sissy Spacek — who other critics also complimented — but feels the movie doesn’t give the audience enough to hold onto and that other films have handled similar topics more successfully. In Harris’ words:
Lawrence is a compelling presence and more than game to go through the pangs the part calls for, and she shares some strong scenes with Sissy Spacek, playing Jackson's empathetic mother Pam. But the storytelling is too abstract and at a remove to fully lock in emotionally, and as Grace's descent takes unsurprising turns, I was reminded of other, more successful works conveying this delicate subject matter.
This movie definitely sounds intense, and more than one critic mentions 2017’s Mother! in describing how Jennifer Lawrence’s character is driven to psychosis. For being what critics described as “polarizing,” and not easy or fun, Die My Love is getting a mostly positive response from critics, earning a Certified Fresh score of 77% on Rotten Tomatoes.
If this nightmare is one you want to climb into, Die My Love is in theaters now, as of Friday, November 7.
