Die My Love: Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson in challenging film that is sure to divide audiences

If you try your darndest to make sense of Die My Love, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

There are some things in the movie you could take literally, some you can’t, and some you just don’t know which way it falls.

All that you know is that Die My Love is a challenging experience that pokes and prods, makes you unsettled, gives you few answers and lets you languish in the discomfort. It’s a weird one.

If that’s your bag, if you’re not looking to be coddled by a film, then Die My Love has much to recommend it, but this is very much a “depends on your bandwidth” kind of deal.

After all, the film is directed by Lynne Ramsey, who helmed the equally churny We Need to Talk About Kevin and You Were Never Really Here. Ramsey really knows how to build dread, and there’s plenty of that in Die My Love, constantly hanging over every scene, and not just the ones where characters are being super casual with sharp knives.

The film is based on a book by Argentinian author Ariana Harwicz and was discovered by Martin Scorsese who sent it to Jennifer Lawrence, who in turn, through her production company, tapped Ramsay.

The lead character is Grace (who was unnamed in the book), a young woman who moves with her husband Jackson (Robert Pattinson) to an isolated house in a rural location far from the action and buzz of New York City.

The house used to belong to Jackson’s uncle, who died there not long before they move in and make it their own. But what at first seems idyllic – gorgeous wildflowers, passionate, unencumbered sex – becomes suffocating loneliness.

After the pregnant Grace gives birth, and Jackson is out all day at work, she feels unmoored with her seclusion greatly impacting her mental health. She becomes unpredictable, and her behaviour worries Jackson and his mother Pam (Sissy Spacek).

Odd encounters with a mysterious motorcycle rider (LaKeith Stanfield) could be imagined or half-imagined or entirely real. Just as her mental health starts to untether, so does the audience’s hold on what is and isn’t happening. It can be, at times, quite surrealist.

It’s a punchy portrayal of mental deterioration, and it doesn’t take the expected route of “Oh, well, this is clearly post-partum depression” because it’s also not clear that’s exactly what it is, or at least that’s all that it is. Grace loves her baby, it’s the only thing that is certain.

But motherhood, and all the external and internal pressures heaped upon women when they assume the “state”, is part of what Die My Love is exploring, along with bipolar and the crippling truth about loneliness.

Grace is a challenging character who, on the surface, can seem to be hard to relate to, but if we’re really honest, who hasn’t just wanted to have a feral moment, and confound everyone.

Lawrence, still the second youngest best actress Oscar winner, is superb in that she can hold you in Grace’s space despite everything the character does to repel you. You can’t stop watching her.

Pattinson too flits in and out of the story in the same way Jackson flits in and out of Grace’s presence, but when he’s there, you want more of him.

Ramsay knows how to sustain tension, always pushing audiences to their squirmiest without pushing them over the edge.

Well, not everyone. There will be plenty of people who will hate Die My Love. It is, undoubtedly, not for all. But if you’re keyed into this particular vibe, there’s much to take in and remember, because it will stick with you, even if you’re not quite sure what to make of it.

Rating: 3/5

Die My Love is in cinemas on Thursday, November 6