Die My Love had its world premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on May 17, 2025, where it was nominated for the Palme d'Or. It was theatrically released in the United States by Mubi on November 7 and received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise for Lawrence's performance and Ramsey's directing. It has grossed $7 million at the box office worldwide so far.
Plot
Jackson's uncle leaves his Montana home to him after his death. Jackson decides to move there from New York with his pregnant girlfriend, Grace. Soon after the couple moves in, Grace gives birth to a baby boy.
While initially happy and playful in their rural abode, Grace and Jackson begin to have problems, not long after the baby's birth. He is away at work for long periods, while she feels stuck at home; her feelings of boredom, loneliness, and abandonment worsen when she realizes that Jackson is sleeping with other women while he is on the road for work. Sexually and emotionally frustrated, Grace masturbates at home and in the woods surrounding her house.
It is revealed that in the months leading up to the baby's birth, Jackson's father Harry passed away. Grace visits Jackson's mother, Pam, now a widow, seeking company and support. The two women talk over iced tea about the challenges Pam has faced, navigating the world without Harry, but when the conversation turns to Grace's mood swings and trouble coping with her current circumstances, Grace leaves. Grace is also disturbed to learn from Pam that Jackson's uncle who died and left them the house had committed suicide inside of it by shooting himself up his rectum.
Jackson brings home a dog without checking in with Grace, but she does not welcome this new addition, especially as it constantly barks and cannot be calmed. One night, after the dog is injured in a car accident, she demands that Jackson shoot it, asserting, "Something you love is suffering. Put it out of its misery." When Jackson refuses to shoot the dog, saying he will take it to the vet the next day, Grace shoots it herself.
As time goes on, Grace's behavior grows increasingly erratic. She walks around with knives, begins an affair with a stranger who drives by the house on a motorcycle, and on one occasion throws herself through a glass door when particularly upset. In the midst of all this, Grace and Jackson fight continuously, leading Grace to spin out and react more and more intensely.
Despite their constant fighting, Jackson asks Grace to marry him one afternoon when the two are playing in the grass as they used to. The wedding and reception start off well, but by the end of the night, Jackson rebuffs Grace when she continues to ask him repeatedly to kiss her, and leaves her to dance on her own. She eventually heads to the bridal suite alone.
Waiting for Jackson, Grace asks the receptionist to bring her ice for a bottle of champagne; when the receptionist refuses, it is implied that she asks him to come sing for her in her hotel room. She dances to the music, and suddenly, bashes her head into a mirror, drawing blood. Grace returns home on foot with the baby in a stroller, and along the way, is spotted by Jackson, who silently admonishes her and guides mother and child into the car.
Jackson commits Grace to a psychiatric institution. Here, a psychiatrist talks to her about her relationship with her parents and suggests that she has abandonment issues that stem from their death when she was a child. When Grace is released, she seems to be doing better, but her world has changed markedly during her brief time in the hospital. Jackson has bought a new car, and cleaned, remodeled, and repainted the house in her absence.
When the family hosts a welcome-back party for Grace, she snaps after hearing how "healthy" and "well" she looks, and tries to leave. Jackson takes her on a drive, during which she expresses that she does not want to go back, and that he does not see her. When they reach a stopping point, they sit in silence for some time, before Grace kisses Jackson and says, "Enough," walking into the nearby forest.
Jackson continues to smoke a cigarette pensively while Grace sets fire to the journal she kept in the psychiatric ward. She leaves the journal to burn while she removes her dress. Jackson realizes that something is wrong and runs into the forest just in time to see Grace walk into the rapidly spreading fire.
The film is an adaptation of Ariana Harwicz's 2012 novel Die, My Love, titled Matate, amor in the original Spanish. In 2022, Martin Scorsese sent the novel to Excellent Cadaver (run by Jennifer Lawrence and Justine Ciarrochi) after reading it in his book club with other filmmakers, envisioning an adaptation with Lawrence in the lead role.[3][4] Scorsese and Lawrence had previously been in discussion in adapting Kate Chopin's 1899 novel, The Awakening, but eventually decided on doing Die My Love together, seeing it as a more challenging role.[4] In November 2022, Lawrence confirmed she would star in the film, which Lynne Ramsay was co-writing with playwright Enda Walsh.[5] Ramsay became involved as director after Lawrence sent her the book.[6] Ramsay was initially going to pass on the project as she had already done similar postpartum themes with We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) and offered another project to Lawrence. Lawrence declined the other project, insisting on working on Die My Love together, to which Ramsay eventually agreed to when she decided to focus on it being a "bonkers, crazy love story," rather than about postpartum depression.[7][8]
Her first film since You Were Never Really Here (2017), Ramsay approached Walsh to write the first draft of the script and agreed to write the second and final draft.[9][10]Alice Birch also took part in co-writing the script.[10] In the script, the location was changed to the United States, whereas in the book it was set in rural France.[6] By April 2024, Ramsay and George Vjestica were writing music for Lawrence to record.[11]
In July 2024, Robert Pattinson was in talks to join the film, produced by Scorsese and Andrea Calderwood alongside the Excellent Cadaver team of Lawrence and Ciarrocchi.[12] Lawrence offered Pattinson the role after another project the two were discussing each other with fell through.[13] In August, LaKeith Stanfield, Sissy Spacek, and Nick Nolte joined the cast.[14][15] The film is a thriller,[16] while Ramsay and Pattinson have also described it as a dark comedy, with Ramsay saying "it's my kind of comedy and love story, so it's going to be dark and fucked-up" and the latter calling it "hilarious".[6][17][18]
Pattinson related an anecdote about being extremely nervous for a dance sequence and being unable to convince Ramsay and Lawrence to cut or choreograph the scene.[23] He took dancing classes for the role.[18] He later spoke further about the environment on set, specifically dialogue changes: "It is just quite an unusual environment… Some of the stuff we’re doing… there’s one scene where there were three or four pages of dialogue, and we turn up and Lynne says, 'I think I’m just going to do it with no dialogue.' It’s kind of scary, but it’s very, very exciting. It makes you feel very alive."[24]
On the experience of dealing with the darker material while being four-and-a-half months pregnant at the beginning of filming, Lawrence said that what her character "[goes] through is the hormonal imbalance that comes from postpartum. [...] I had "great hormones! I was feeling great, which is the only way I would be able to dip into this emotion." However, while reading the book, Lawrence spoke of it being hard to separate what she would do differently from Grace, the character, and called it "heartbreaking."[24] She related with the identity crisis her character went through as a mother and that, despite having a "great postpartum with [her] first" child when she read Harwicz' book, she experienced "a really hard postpartum" period following the birth of her second. Lawrence felt that watching the movie in retrospect of experiencing postpartum depression was "really bizarre [...] after feeling like I've been through that forest."[25]:0:07:37
In April 2025, the film secured a spot at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. It premiered at the festival, in competition for the Palme d'Or, on May 17.[26] The recently launched 193 handled distribution sales.[10] Shortly after its Cannes premiere, Mubi acquired distribution rights to the film in North and Latin America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, the Benelux, Turkey, India, Australia and New Zealand for $24 million, their largest acquisition to date, committing to a theatrical release for 45 days on 1,500 screens across the United States. It was released in the United States on November 7, 2025.[27]
As of November 19, 2025, Die My Love has grossed $5 million in the United States and Canada, and $2 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $7 million.[1]
Die My Love made $2.6-2.8 million across 1,983 theaters opening weekend, opening at #8 at the domestic box office.[33][2] In the same weekend, the film became Lynne Ramsay's highest grossing film in the United States.[33][2][34][35][36][37] In its second weekend, it grossed approximately 977k across 1,437 locations, bringing the domestic total to $4.7M.[38]
Critical response
The work of Jennifer Lawrence (left) and director Lynne Ramsay received critical acclaim, with many citing the former as having given the best performance of her career.
Die My Love received generally positive reviews from critics following its premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, with particular acclaim for Jennifer Lawrence's intense portrayal of postpartum psychosis and Lynne Ramsay's stylistic direction, albeit audience responses were more polarized. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 74% of 216 critics' reviews are positive.The website's consensus reads: "A frenzied depiction of a common but oft-ignored experience, Die My Love might be too stylistically mannered to fully connect but gifts Jennifer Lawrence with one of her most vivid roles yet."[39]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 72 out of 100, based on 51 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[40] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D+" on its A+ to F scale.[41]
Many critics singled out Lawrence's performance, which Deadline Hollywood described as deserving of an Academy Award, and Ramsay's direction for praise.[42] Tim Grierson of Screen International declared Lawrence "the match that lights Lynne Ramsay's gripping, slow-burn fifth feature," highlighting its layered examination of mental health and volatile relationships.[43] Nicholas Barber of BBC wrote that Lawrence "is better than ever."[44]
Rafa Sales Ross of The Playlist called Lawrence the "undeniable propulsive force" of the film, noting her "rare ability to swing from effortless charm... straight into the dark abyss."[45]Stephanie Zacharek of Time raved that it's "the kind of performance you go to the movies for, one that connects so sympathetically with... human suffering that it scares you a little."[46]
Dave Calhoun of Time Out labeled it a "deeply raw and honest film" with a "musical, black-comic, big-hearted spirit that pulls you through the despair."[47] However, Owen Gleiberman of Variety viewed it as "reckless on the surface but overdetermined," critiquing its thesis-like approach to motherhood's burdens.[48] In a review for The Washington Post, Sonia Rao awarded the film 2.5 stars, praising Lawrence as "brilliant" but faulting the lack of postpartum exploration as "baffling at best and exploitative at worst."[49]
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