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I don’t know how to sell this film to you, but I want to. I want you to see it, I want to tell everyone person I meet about its power and artistry, I want to shout about it, to get it out there and have it recognised as the blisteringly brilliant piece of art that it is. 

Here’s the thing though; Die My Love is about woman who suffers from postpartum depression. After the set up that sees the passionate central couple move into a new home in an isolated town, it then just follows lead Jennifer Lawrence as she slowly has a catastrophic breakdown. Avatar 3 came out this weekend and there’s a new Knives Out thriller playing on Netflix but hey, who fancies watching this? 

I’m not going to lie to you, this is a tough watch. It will stay with you though and you will engage with it, and admire and appreciate it. It will educate and impress you and you will wonder at the way director Lynne Ramsey handles the sensitive material while crafting a genius piece of cinematic storytelling, and Jennifer Lawrence is just mesmerising. 

I do not think that this is its primary purpose but the movie does highlight what a lot of women go through after childbirth as well and that gives it further value. Lawrence’s Grace suffers a more extreme level of this but it is not instant and there will be stages that she goes through that will give voice to the experience of many people around a not often discussed condition. That said, the Amy Adams film Night Bitch covered similar areas last year but while this features comparable ideas about connecting with nature and animalistic regression, and it also has some fantasy elements, it plays out with a different honesty and a simultaneously strong but quiet energy. 

It some respects this is a good companion piece to Ramsey’s We Need To Talk About Kevin from 2011. It reunites her with cinematographer Seamus McGarvey and the two have a sensibility when working together that brings an uncomfortable yet essential intimacy with their subject (something McGarvey did not get to show as much in The Accountant 2, The Greatest Showman or Godzilla). It is also a rare look at a fractured psyche, and while the consequences of the breakdowns are very different in these two movies, and this carries much greater sympathy for the person at the centre, it examines the fragility of the mind in a relatable way. 

For clear reasons We Need To Talk About Kevin focussed more on a family member on the periphery, and this film has that too in Robert Pattinson’s partner, but this stays more with Grace. In doing so it genuinely provides an appreciation of what she is going through. Depression is so hard to understand if you’ve not experienced it but here you can see why it is happening and it makes sense. Pattinson is strong, and Sissy Spacek also excels in a key supporting role, but there is no question that from the point of view of the performances this is Lawrence’s movie. 

Jennifer Lawrence has long been seen as one of the most skilled actors working in Hollywood today but this is undoubtedly the best she has been. Despite some big moments there is no showboating here and she keeps you with her the whole time. I spoke of sympathy earlier but there is no pity in what she does in this film. It is easy to talk about loss of control in cases like this but Grace keeps her agency and never shows weakness. This film is most certainly full on and Ramsey is not holding back but there is a magnificent subtly to both the acting and the direction that feels exceptional. 

So I don’t know if I have convinced you to sit down with this or not but I feel hugely rewarded for having done so. Die My Love is a brilliant film; it has some essential things to say about a distinctly female experience and it shows an actor and a director working together in astonishing harmony. I was blown away.

I’ve probably bigged it up now.