“We all go a little loopy the first year.” It’s an assertion meant to reassure Grace (Jennifer Lawrence), the protagonist of Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love, who is more than going through the motions of postpartum existence. Yet it’s a wild understatement in a film that attempts to manically burrow into the psyche of a woman who, after entering motherhood, feels like an empty, liminal vessel lost in a blazing house fire.

Forgoing plot for a more free-flowing stream of consciousness, Die My Love manifests as an unfurled canvas of raw, unfiltered emotion. Both deeply abrasive and intimate, Ramsay’s film traverses every spectrum of sentiment and feeling, delving deep into the pits of uncontrolled rage, unrequited desire, and unmitigated despair.

Feral in form, feel, and structure, Die My Love might as well be shot on frayed, tattered celluloid, having more in common with a gonzo home movie than anything made for the silver screen. Though in manically unveiling its heroine’s tortured state of mind, it taps into an honest and authentic portrait of female burden. One that feels as heightened as a fever dream and as painful as real life.

Adapted from Ariana Harwicz’s novel of the same name, the film centres on writer Grace, as she and her husband, Jackson (Robert Pattinson), move into his rural childhood home in Montana. Their blissful marital life is threatened after the birth of their son, as Grace struggles with isolation, ennui, and unfulfillment—especially as her basest, carnal desires are continually put on hold by her absent and aloof husband. With her mental state quickly deteriorating, their marriage dives headfirst into troubling and volatile territory, posing brutal questions and even more brutal answers.

Ramsay’s dynamic directorial touch revels in spellbinding lens flares and harsh, ethereal editing, seamlessly crystallizing a mindscape defined by wild emotional swings. For as coarse and far-fetched as Die My Love becomes, it remains as atmospheric and enveloping in its quietest moments. Yet, for all its visual and thematic strengths, Ramsay’s film often succumbs to tonal stagnation and repetition, making its central point early and doubling down on it for the rest of the runtime.

While that keeps the film from true greatness, it’s the performances that keep us hooked to its dreamlike high. Pattinson’s melancholic turn would be the highlight of most movies, but it’s Lawrence’s wild spirit that practically claws through and inhabits the frame. For as volatile and violent as she becomes, she remains palpably authentic, reveling in profound tragedy and gut-busting humour.

Though there remains a tighter, more focused version of this film, it would defeat the purpose. Ramsay’s film exists in a realm beyond reason and sense, and, by defiantly eschewing logic, earnestly captures the erratic, helpless task of navigating the female conundrum.

Die My Love is now streaming exclusively on MUBI.

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