What the new movie is about
Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson may be the faces of two major franchises, but their first film together tells a much smaller story that packs an emotional punch. That’s at least how it appears from the first trailer for Die My Love, which shows both actors navigating a marriage that’s unraveling by the moment alongside Lawrence’s character’s sanity.
The film, which is helmed by You Were Never Really Here director Lynne Ramsay, is based on Argentine author Ariana Harwicz’s 2012 novel of the same name. In it, Lawrence’s character Grace moves with husband, Jackson (Pattinson), to rural Montana. In addition to writer’s block, Grace is struggling with postpartum depression, which soon turns to psychosis. The film explores the impact of Grace’s mental illness on her relationship with Jackson — with hints that their marriage may end violently. LaKeith Stanfield, Nick Nolte and Sissy Spacek also appear in the movie.
In the trailer, Grace’s lack of inspiration is a main pain point. As she tells a new neighbor who asks about her career: “I’m stuck between wanting to do something and not wanting to do anything at all.” Later on, when Jackson taunts Grace about how her new book is going, Grace retorts, “The main character is about to batter her husband to death with a hammer.”
The film, which was produced by Martin Scorsese, premiered this year at the Cannes Film Festival. Speaking at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in September, Lawrence spoke candidly about her own personal experience suffering from “really hard postpartum” after the birth of her second child with husband, gallerist Cooke Maroney. She also spoke of how she and Ramsay connected to make the film.
“I’ve been a huge fan of her for so long,” Lawrence said of the director, who previously explored complicated feelings about parenthood and mental health in 2011’s We Need to Talk About Kevin. “It was a lot of discussion about the head space. Neither of us are very technical people or artists. It was very conversational and emotionally led.”
Following a September screening of the movie in Paris, Lawrence said that she and Pattinson were in “similar places” in their lives when they took on these roles, as he’d just welcomed his first baby with fiancée Suki Waterhouse. “He had just had a baby and I had a baby and was pregnant and so we were in this similar place in our lives where all we wanted to talk about was our kids, which is great and easy,” the Hunger Games alum said. “I mean, he’s a very easy person to get along with. He’s so sweet. And he’s also immensely talented.”
Die, My Love hits theaters Nov. 7.