Coming Soon: Die, My Love (2025) by Lynne Ramsay: Postpartum Madness in a Mountained Psyche

A Mother Unravels in the Wilds of Montana

Die, My Love centers on Grace, a new mother who, along with her husband Jackson, relocates from New York City to rural Montana in search of peace. But solace quickly becomes torment. Grace’s mental health deteriorates — entangled in postpartum psychosis, bipolar symptoms, creative paralysis, and marital breakdown, her descent is frenetic and visceral. The film unfolds as a dark comedy, a thriller of the psyche, blending grim humor with haunting metaphor.

The film stars Jennifer Lawrence as Grace and Robert Pattinson as Jackson. The ensemble includes LaKeith Stanfield, Sissy Spacek, and Nick Nolte. Co-written by Ramsay with Enda Walsh and Alice Birch, the film adapts from Ariana Harwicz’s intense novel. Cinematography by Seamus McGarvey captures 35 mm, Academy-ratio visuals inspired by Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby, deepening the claustrophobic and surreal atmosphere.

Why to Recommend This Film: A Bold, Unsettling Triumph

Why to watch this movie:

• Jennifer Lawrence at her fiercest — Critics called her performance “mesmerizing,” “fearless,” and “better than ever.”

• Lynne Ramsay’s unique vision — Balances horror, dark humor, and emotional truth with striking sensory style.

• Psychological intensity — Tackles maternal mental health with poetic visuals and raw honesty, skipping easy answers.

• Festival prestige — Premiered in Cannes’ main competition, earning a six-minute standing ovation — Ramsay’s impact echoes her earlier successes.

• High-profile production — Produced by Martin Scorsese, Jennifer Lawrence’s company, and others, with Mubi acquiring major distribution rights globally.

What is the Trend Followed: Poetic Psychological Realism

• Genre-bending maternal horror — Continues cinema’s trend of exploring motherhood’s dark terrains through psychological horror and black comedy.

• Auteur-driven sensory storytelling — Ramsay’s abstract, image-led approach contrasts sharply with plot-driven dramas.

• Festival-driven art cinema — Offers personal, risky filmmaking that thrives in festival contexts and critical discussions.

Director’s Vision: Image as Emotion

• Sensory metaphors of breakdown — Sound, image, and ratio serve as emotional currents, not exposition.

• Unresolved pain — The film avoids tidy explanations, instead immersing us inside Grace’s collapsing world.

• Material and embodied intensity — Shooting on film and using 1.33:1 ratio amplifies Grace’s mental confinement and distortion.

Themes: Motherhood, Identity, and Loss of Self

• Motherhood as psychosis — Painting postpartum not as cliché but as existential collapse in extreme isolation.

• Alienation in domestic paradise — Grace’s isolation is as much about place as mind, with Montana’s rural vastness amplifying her breakdown.

• Creativity blocked by trauma — The desire to create is strangled by grief, guilt, and physical exhaustion.

• Dark humor as survival — Moments of black comedy punctuate the despair, revealing how laughter and terror coexist.

Key Success Factors: Performance, Atmosphere, and Cinematic Style

• Lawrence’s tour-de-force lead — Her intensity anchors the film, embodying its emotional extremes.

• Visual and sonic immersion — The film’s disjointed grammar and sensory assaults envelop the viewer in Grace’s unraveling.

• Bold adaptation — Ramsay, Walsh, and Birch reinvent Harwicz’s novel for the screen with audacity and fidelity to emotional truth.

• Prestige and platform — Cannes launch, strong advocates, and widespread acquisition drive anticipation and legitimacy.

Awards & Recognition

• World premiere: 2025 Cannes Film Festival, competing for Palme d’Or.

• Garnered critical recognition, with Lawrence’s performance widely touted as Oscar-worthy.

• Mubi's $24 million global acquisition marks it as a major art-house event.

Critics Reception: A Haunting Ballet of Breakdown

• The Guardian praised its “visceral and emotionally intense” portrayal, driven by “saturated cinematography,” bold sound, and hallucinatory narrative.

• Vanity Fair lauded it as “hauntingly powerful,” praising its “dreamlike, disjointed film grammar” and Lawrence's emotional breadth.

• Sight & Sound emphasized the raw, possibly cursed nature of the adaptation.

• Audiences on letterboxd called it "incendiary" — a festival standout.

• On Reddit, viewers noted Ramsay's signature focus on human destructiveness — it’s powerful without descending into bleakness.

Reviews: Terrifying, Poetic, and Beautifully Unsettling

• Strengths: Unflinching central performance, sensory filmmaking, and courageous storytelling.

• Weaknesses: Its intensity and ambiguity may alienate mainstream audiences; it’s more experience than narrative.

• Consensus: A radical film that stages mental collapse through cinematic poetry — unforgettable and disquieting.

Release Timeline

• Festival premieres: Cannes (May 17, 2025), followed by appearances at film series like San Sebastián and Vienna.

• Theatrical release: November 7, 2025 in the U.S., Canada, and multiple international territories via Mubi.

• Home strategy: Likely digital release to follow theatrical window, aligning with Mubi’s art-house platform.

Movie Trend: Maternal Nightmares in Cinematic Form

Die, My Love is emblematic of a wave of films mining the horror and complexity of motherhood — deep, personal stories that resist tidy redemption, using psychological fragmentation to speak to modern anxieties.

Social Trend: Raising Awareness of Postpartum Reality

Contributes to a broader cultural shift—bringing trauma, postpartum depression, and maternal identity into the cinematic center, challenging taboos through the lens of auteur filmmaking.

Final Verdict: A Beautiful Collapse

Die, My Love is brutal, fractured, and breathtaking. Lynne Ramsay and Jennifer Lawrence deliver a deeply unsettling drama that transcends genre — a sensory exploration of motherhood on the brink. For its daring execution and emotional bravery, it’s not just a film you see — it’s one you survive.