The trailer for Jennifer Lawrence’s new psychological thriller Die My Love has been released, giving audiences their first substantial glimpse at a performance dubbed “astonishing” by critics at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Lawrence stars alongside Robert Pattinson, Sissy Spacek and LaKeith Stanfield in a movie about a new mother plunged into psychosis in the months following the birth of her son. It marks the fifth feature directed by the celebrated Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay, whose previous credits include the disconcerting psycho-drama Morvern Callar, starring Samantha Morton, and the acclaimed Joaquin Phoenix thriller You Were Never Really Here.
In the trailer, Lawrence’s character is seen clawing at her bathroom walls and careening her vehicle off the road. She and Pattinson can also be glimpsed having volatile arguments in their new kitchen. At one point Lawrence – playing a blocked writer – is asked whether she has picked up writing since the birth of her son, to which she replies: “I’m stuck between wanting to do something and not wanting to do anything at all.”
Lawrence’s performance drew raves upon its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May, with Time magazine’s Stephanie Zacharek calling it career-best work. “It’s the kind of performance you go to the movies for, one that connects so sympathetically with the bare idea of human suffering that it scares you a little,” she wrote.
Writing in Vanity Fair, the critic Richard Lawson added: “[Lawrence is] quite something to behold: a comedic performance that manages convincing notes of devastation, or a dramatic turn that is also screamingly funny. What a thrill to see Lawrence expanding her artistry like this, a movie star reclaiming the talent that her celebrity once nearly obscured.”
In May, Lawrence’s production partner Justine Ciarocchi said that it was Die My Love’s producer Martin Scorsese who was “adamant” Lawrence play the film’s central role, having read the novel by Ariana Harwicz that inspired the movie.
While discussing the film at Cannes, Lawrence said that she brought her own experiences of “isolating” postpartum to the role. She was in the early stages of pregnancy while shooting the film. Lawrence now has two children, a three-year-old son named Cy and a second child whose name and gender has not been publicly revealed, with her husband, the art dealer Cooke Maroney.
Die My Love is released in US cinemas on 7 November, and UK and Irish cinemas on 14 November.
