Die My Love
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Writer: Enda Walsh, Lynne Ramsay, Alice Birch
Based on: Ariana Harwicz‘ novel Die, My Love
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, Sissy Spacek, Nick Nolte, LaKeith Stanfield
Seen on: 28.11.2025

Content Note: suicide

Plot:
Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) and Jackson (Robert Pattinson) are happy. They are moving into the house that Jackson inherited from his uncle in the countryside, but more importantly: they are expecting a baby. Grace is a writer who is imagining calmness in the remoteness of their home and Jackson is excited about their new chapter together. But once the baby is here, everything is different. Grace is different and behaves increasingly erratic.

Die My Love is a tense and impressive depiction of postpartum psychosis as we have rarely seen it (although it is far from uncommon). Unfortunately, though, the film leaves little room for hope.

Usually when we talk about postpartum mental illness (at all, one has to say), it focuses on the depression part: the non-feeling of grayness, the lack of energy, the anxiety, the barely being able to get out of bed. It is a terrible state to be in as anybody who has ever come into contact with (clinical) depression knows, made worse by the fact that everybody expects you to be happy and that there is a small person who is entirely dependent on you. But there is also postpartum psychosis and that is what Grace struggles with in the film. Though it can include depression as a symptom, it is accompanied by the affected losing touch with reality, becoming paranoid and there is a high risk of self-harm or of harming the baby.

Lawrence and Ramsay take us on quite a ride here, I have to say. Lawrence’ performance is furious and fierce, a return to form that has been long overdue. She finds room for Grace’s kindness, her rawness and the despair that lurks underneath her theatrical behavior. Ramsay keeps us close to her, so close that we, too, start wondering whether some things are actually happening. Maybe they are purely Grace’s imagination?

I had two issues with the film, though. The biggest was the ending. It takes Grace’s environment a long time to actually get her some help, and that is a tragedy in its own right. But she does get help in the end, and while I am not saying that this makes everything okay at the snap of a finger, it would have been nice if the help, you know, had actually helped. People do get better. Not Grace, though, not really, and that ending just sucked.

The second thing was the way the film treats Grace sexuality. Grace and Jackson are always very physical with each other, and there is intimate sexual scenes between them before Grace gets ill. But once she is ill, her sexuality and her sex drive seem to become part of her symptoms. And while that is not completely uncalled for – of course, mental illness will also affect that part of a person – Ramsay didn’t quite manage to show that it is not the sex drive per se that is unhealthy.

So, the film does have flaws, but it is also a vivid portrayal of an underexplored mental health issue – and that to me makes it worth seeing.

Summarizing: watch for Lawrence, ignore the ending.