Jennifer Lawrence may have taken a brief break from stardom in the aftermath of the phenomenon that was The Hunger Games, but she’s launched herself back into the awards race with an astounding performance in the latest psychological drama from Lynne Ramsay. Die My Love is a captivating, disturbing, and ultimately rewarding deconstruction of postpartum depression that is anchored by brilliant work from both Lawrence and Robert Pattinson. Although Die My Love is based on a novel of the same name that was written by Ariana Harwicz, it also bears some striking similarities to mother!, the controversial horror film by Darren Aronofsky that Lawrence starred in nearly a decade ago. With the benefit of working with a female filmmaker, Lawrence brings nuance and compassion to her role in Die My Love that was denied to her in mother!

Aronofsky is a gifted filmmaker, but the issue with mother! is that its premise is completely metaphorical. While an analysis of the relationship between a monotheistic deity and Mother Earth is compelling, mother! is only able to depict this dynamic through the prism of an abusive relationship between a young bride and her artist husband. Die My Love allows Lawrence to play a deeply wounded character who isn’t defined by either her suffering or her marriage, as she has the freedom to give a grounded performance within a film that still reaches some surrealist places. Not only is Die My Love a deeper and more thought-provoking exercise than Mother!, but a greater opportunity for Lawrence to bring dimensionality to a character who is allowed to be flawed.

‘Die My Love’ Is a Brilliant Examination of Maternal Anxiety

Die My Love and mother! are oddly similar in that they are both about the marriage between a young mother played by Lawrence and her husband, a writer, as they move to a remote home in the middle of the woods. While Lawrence’s character in Mother! is only obliquely referred to as an unnamed muse to a brilliant creator (Javier Bardem), Die My Love casts her as the spunky woman Grace, who has begun to show doubts about moving to the countryside with her husband Jackson, who is played by Pattinson. There’s a dimensionality to the marriage in Die My Love that is absent in mother! because Ramsay interweaves flashbacks that show how quickly Grace’s idealism has faded. While it’s shown that she was filled with hope and creativity at the time when she was first married to Jackson, she has been weighed down by being subservient to the needs of her child.

Although both films examine a woman who is overwhelmed by the pressures of parenthood, Die My Love is more nuanced in examining the internal dilemmas that Grace faces. mother! implies that the process of giving birth and raising a child is not the danger that Lawrence’s character faces, as all her trauma results from the unwanted attention that her husband introduces when connecting with his fans. Comparatively, Die My Love shows that Grace has faced existential questions about her purpose when she is left alone by Jackson, who leaves for extended periods of time to work. Despite being told that the opportunity to remain with her child would be rewarding, Grace struggles to feel sexually adequate amidst her muted intimacies with Jackson. Rather than commanding that the audience feel disturbed in the way that Aronofsky did, Ramsay allowed Lawrence to be emotionally ambiguous; the frantic scenes in which Grace dances and sings alone in her empty house in Die My Love are somehow hilarious, disturbing, and emotionally affecting all at once.

‘Die My Love’ Gives Jennifer Lawrence More Autonomy Than ‘Mother!’ Did

Die My Love and mother! are both deeply artistic works that incorporate strange and disturbing imagery, but Ramsay’s film ties the surrealist elements directly to Grace’s state of being. While mother! is burdened by a series of sophomoric allusions to various Biblical stories, Die My Love examines the trickiness of Grace’s memory as she becomes untethered from her reality. Lawrence excels in these moments because her emotions are well-realized, and the film has time to explain her complicated feelings about living in a home that was once owned by Jackson’s uncle, who died by suicide. The lingering effects of mental illness are conveyed through scenes in which Grace feels equally overwhelmed by the seemingly open-ended nothingness of her surroundings and unfettered by the violent, cryptic thoughts in her head. The emphasis on psychological torment makes it clear that Die My Love is a feminist film, as it examines how women aren’t given the freedom to express complex emotions.

The narrative arc in Die My Love is also more compelling because of the fluctuations within Grace’s life, as her attempts to rehabilitate herself feature many ups and downs. The marriage in Die My Love is realistic because there is legitimate chemistry between Lawrence and Pattinson; even if Jackson is depicted as being emotionally aloof and unavailable at points, it’s also made clear that he does care about Grace and isn’t sure about the best way to help her. Lawrence has always been a great actress who is more discerning in her selection of roles than she’s given credit for, and it’s exciting to see her work with another brilliant female director fifteen years after she collaborated with Debra Granik, Jodie Foster, Susanne Bier, and Lila Neugebauer.mother! may have been an opportunity for her to show that she could transcend flawed material, but Die My Love is a worthwhile endeavor that gives her one of her greatest roles ever.