2025 Top Ten List #2 Die My Love

 

Director Lynne Ramsay

Ramsay on the set with Jennifer Lawrence

Jennifer Lawrence

Lawrence, Ramsay, and Robert Pattinson

Lawrence and Pattinson 

Cannes press conference

novelist Ariana Harwicz

DIE MY LOVE          A                                                                                                            Great Britain  USA  Canada  (118 mi)  2025  d: Lynne Ramsay

I’m stuck between wanting to do something, and not wanting to do anything at all.                    —Grace (Jennifer Lawrence)

This film was a fuckin’ monster, and could certainly leave viewers perplexed, receiving mixed scores at Cannes when it premiered (Cannes Film Festival 2025 jury grid), perhaps coming as no surprise that its arthouse darkness has divided audiences, though this is an extensively re-edited version than what played at Cannes, where she only had 5 days to edit before the festival screening.  Nobody makes movies like this anymore, as no one else seems to have the guts to try, having nothing in common with what you see in mainstream movie theaters, where all you see in theaters today, on streaming platforms, or even at film festivals is relatively generic filmmaking, yet this is as bold, abstract, and ferociously artistic as they come, made by the reassuring hand of a filmmaker who literally inhabits the fractured, psychological mindset of an alienated female character likely suffering from postpartum depression following childbirth (a phrase never mentioned in the film), revealing just how suffocating her life and marriage become after childbirth.  Much like the character, viewers have no chance to escape, yet that’s simply the backdrop for what is ultimately an off-the-rails crazy love story, taking us along for a wild ride, where we feel like we’ve been on an epic adventure, like Odysseus in The Odyssey, where there’s nothing sugar coated about it.  This is a film that invites us to walk in her shoes, not diagnose her problem, or figure out a cure, just identify with the unknown mystery within.  Impossible to believe any man on the planet could make this film, though the closest may be John Cassavetes exploring the emotionally exhaustive mood swings of Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence (1974), or Ingmar Bergman writing for Liv Ullman, who was pregnant in real-life with the director’s child in Persona (1966), with actress Jennifer Lawrence offering a raw and explosive performance that defies belief, claiming women directors aren’t over-controlling and don’t “overdirect” like male directors typically do (Jennifer Lawrence Says Female Directors Don't ...), suggesting Lynne Ramsay was the opposite of that, describing her as an instinctual director, working without an ego, acutely observational, using music on the set, and “very emotionally led.”  Can’t really say this is better than RATCATCHER (1999) and MORVERN CALLAR (2002), two of her best, but its sprawling canvas is equally as impressive in its fiercely original style of filmmaking.  Putting this in context, Ramsay’s other works are short films Small Deaths (Lynne Ramsay, 1996) - YouTube (11:13) and GASMAN (1997), Lynne Ramsay's 1970s Christmas in Scotland - YouTube (14:18), along with features We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), and 2018 Top Ten List #2 You Were Never Really Here (2017), where every one is extraordinary, but this one contains a relentlessly bold spirit that dares viewers to come along for an intentionally disorienting journey, literally imposing a woman’s troubling mindset into the theater, where it’s hard not to be affected by the frontal assault to the senses.  This is liberated filmmaking, actually filmed in Calgary, Canada, about as out of the way a place for a Scottish filmmaker to go, sadly losing her mother just days before the Cannes screening (her 8th visit!), whose works are marked by a fascination with children, young people and mothers, and a loss of innocence, as well as the recurring themes of alienation, grief, guilt, death, and its aftermath, with Ramsay collaborating with British guitarist and songwriter George Vjestica (a member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) to provide the musical score.  The film is marked by long periods of tedium where nothing much happens, followed by moments of unanticipated intensity that literally shock viewers into seeing and experiencing something they’d never imagine on their own, which is the beauty of Ramsay’s filmmaking, as it continually lives on the edge, typically eliciting career-best performances out of her actors (think Samantha Morton, Tilda Swinton, Joaquin Phoenix, and now Jennifer Lawrence).  By the way, this film would drastically lose much of its combustible power if seen on a smaller screen, as this is designed with a theater experience in mind.   

The film is an adaptation by Irish playwright Enda Walsh, British playwright Alice Birch, and Scottish filmmaker Ramsay of the eponymous 120-page novel Matate, Amor by Argentinian author Ariana Harwicz, one of the most radical figures in contemporary Argentinian literature, first published in 2012, using a surrealist, stream-of-consciousness format following a woman in rural France who experiences a mental breakdown after having a child, struggling with isolation, motherhood, and intense emotions, described as a “powerful mosaic of the mind.”  It's impossible to come out unscathed from this film, never explaining the state of emergency of its protagonist, where a woman is battling her demons, embracing exclusion yet wanting to belong, craving freedom while feeling trapped, yearning for family life but wanting to burn the entire house down, feeling ever more stifled and repressed, always on the verge of madness, at one point jumping into a pool filled with children in just her underwear, where it’s as if she experiences over-stimulation from the surrounding environment, with the director using visceral cinematic language to express the crushing reality of domestic life through the use of close-ups, fractured scenes, sensory imagery, and an overly intrusive sound design, such as the baby's cry, the world’s most annoying dog barking relentlessly, or sex and silence bleeding into one another.  Blurring the lines between reality and sensory overload, where it’s impossible to know how much of this is real and how much exists only in the imagination, yet that’s the real beauty of this particular film, as there are flashbacks and hallucinations, with an erratic, stream-of-consciousness narrative providing a window into her crumbling state of mind, always teetering on the edge of reality, reminiscent of Catherine Deneuve in Roman Polanski’s mind-altering REPULSION (1965), occasionally lashing out violently, where you often suspect it’s imagined, but the cuts on her face afterwards tell us all we need to know.  Bruising and confrontational, yet anchored in an unapologetic beauty and lyricism, Ramsay has crafted a unique sensory experience that may take some viewers by surprise, especially considering a familiarity with this actress, as Jennifer Lawrence is someone we’ve grown up with, breaking onto the scene in Debra Granik’s 2010 Top Ten Films of the Year: #3 Winter's Bone (2010), followed by David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook (2012), where she won a Best Actress Oscar when she was just 22 years of age, famously tripping going up the stairs to the stage to accept her award, American Hustle (2013), and Joy (2015), as well as Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! (2017), where she has literally stolen our hearts with the exceptional nature of her performances.  But this is something else altogether, a blatant protest against conventionality that can be disorienting and brutal, as one moment she’s lucid and calm, while the next is sheer chaos and confusion, moving effortlessly between banality and eruptions of extreme explosiveness that seemingly come out of nowhere, where this is a director that refuses to pander to the audience, beginning as a painter, and then a photographer, described by British film critic Mark Kermode as “combining the visual poetry of Robert Bresson with the down-to-earth grit of Ken Loach, and the ecstasy of pure cinema.”  Jennifer Lawrence revealed she was about four months pregnant when shooting began, adding an unfiltered layer of rawness and emotional authenticity to her performance, with Stephanie Zacharek from Time magazine aptly describing it as “the kind of performance you go to the movies for.”

Part dark psychological thriller and part black comedy, the storyline is simple and ambiguously understated, turning uniquely complex, accentuated by the power of the performances.  Beautifully shot on 35mm by Irish cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, who the director has worked with before, emphasizing color and texture, and produced by Martin Scorsese, who brought the book to the attention of Jennifer Lawrence’s company Excellent Cadaver, who in turn brought it to Lynne Ramsay.  At the outset of the film we see a New York City couple arriving to a remote location in rural Montana, entering an empty dilapidated home filled with old wallpaper, with Jennifer Lawrence as Grace, a writer meant to be working on a book, accompanying her musician wannabe partner Jackson (Robert Pattinson), both free spirits exhibiting an unleashed animalistic energy between them, like the erotically charged wrestling scene in the Lindsay Anderson drama IF (1968), doing plenty of drinking and dancing, having plenty of uninhibited sex, where this was his childhood home, vacated by a deceased relative who shot himself, though still filled with haunting memories.  This family home provides the foundation for the narrative, surrounded by forests and grasslands, as it’s a world where nature continually intrudes, much like Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), where the mysterious allure of beauty also eludes to signs of impending danger, like being stuck in the Overlook Hotel of Stephen King’s The Shining.  That unrestrained lifestyle all changes with the birth of a child, as their lives start falling apart.  While there are surreal family scenes in their new home that are mysteriously strange, with Sissy Spacek from Robert Altman’s equally unfathomable 3 Women (1977) as Jackson’s mother Pam, who sleeps with a loaded rifle after the death of her husband (an equally traumatic event), and informs Grace “Everybody goes a little loopy the first year,” DIE MY LOVE | Official Clip #3 | In Theaters November | With ... YouTube (1:30), and Nick Nolte as Jackson’s eccentric, dementia-suffering father Harry (before his passing), who wants everybody cleared out of his brother’s house, thinking he’s still living there, eliciting a claustrophobic feeling of being trapped, as if the world is closing in on them.  Yet there’s also a prevalent use of symbolism, as outside, for instance, horses run free, a poetic sign of transcendence in Tarkovsky’s ANDREI RUBLEV (1966), and a connection to the primal instincts of the natural world, where one of the most powerful scenes has the couple arguing in the car while riding through the forest and unexpectedly crashing into one of those beautiful animals, with the soundtrack cutting to 60’s rock supergroup Cream singing a live version of “Crossroads” CREAM Crossroads 1968 YouTube (4:48) in the immediate aftermath, a song choice that targets people of a certain age, where it’s like an anthem to lost youth, now living only in our memories.  Yet one thing is clear, violence, the imagining of it, the physical infliction of it, and its effect on the psyche, is what dominates this film.  After childbirth, something is not right with Grace, seeing everything that is normal as imprisoning, making her feel like a caged animal, where the only place she can feel free is in the forest next to her house, often retreating there in unexpected moments, even going on long walks with the baby carriage, where it’s not the baby that she feels disconnected to, it’s everything else.  Where once she had a healthy sexual appetite, now their sex life is almost nonexistent, an essential part of her life that is lost after the baby is born, and while Jackson is sympathetic, he doesn’t really understand what she’s going through and his despair is evident, becoming aloof and distant, not around when she needs him, often away on the road for work, leaving her to contend with her own demons, with growing suspicions that he’s cheating on her, DIE MY LOVE | Official Clip | In Theaters November | With ...  YouTube (2:06).

Bleak and unflinching, an extended meditation on life and death that seem to endlessly torment this woman, it walks the line between the interior and the exterior, bringing the viewer inside a mind spiraling out of control, taking us to some dark places, offering a kind of voyeuristic filmmaking, as the viewer watches Grace from the outside, unable to penetrate her troubled mind, creating an unsettling sense of intimacy and distance, Die, My Love clip official from Cannes Film Festival 2025 YouTube (1:43).  LaKeith Stanfield as Karl plays an interesting role as a largely unseen neighbor who constantly rides by the house on his motorcycle, feeling completely imaginary, like a character seen from a distance luridly playing out in her head, coming across like Heathcliff in Emily Brontë’s mid-19th century novel Wuthering Heights (Arnold) (2011), having a sexual affair, part of the unrestrained demons screaming for freedom inside, an example of how she bottles up pressure and frustration.  For instance, Lawrence has a lot of nudity in this film, but very little sexual release, just another part of a woman’s overall frustration, finding it impossible to blend in with the world around her, where she’s not afraid to be unlikable, or to shed her inhibitions, yet she remains off-limits, positively refusing help from others, as they remain outside her personal orbit, DIE MY LOVE | Official Clip #2 | In Theaters November | With ... YouTube (1:37).  There’s a positively brilliant use of the John Prine song sung with Iris DeMent, “In Spite of Ourselves,” John Prine and Iris DeMent - In Spite of Ourselves (Live From ... YouTube (5:04), which was heard recently in Celine Song’s Materialists (2025), but this one beautifully accentuates the deeply flawed and exposed vulnerabilities of the dysfunctional romantic couple besieged by a neverending series of problems, where at least for this one tender musical moment, it’s easy to feel sympathetic for them both.  Perhaps the most common element in all of Ramsay’s films is the extraordinary use of music, especially her song choices, which are completely in sync with what she’s psychologically trying to say with her visual style, exhibiting a superlative gift of composition, where her innovative cinema is like an impressionistic collage of submerged emotions bursting through the surface, where you never know what’s going to happen, and you may take issue with how she does it, jumping around in time using a non-linear narrative, yet the result is a striking, if not shattering, exploration of the darkest corners of the human psyche.  Refusing to see what his wife is struggling with, late in the film Grace turns to her husband and says, “I’m right here, you just can’t see me.”  That invisibility may be what this fever dream of a film is all about, recalling the words of playwright Arthur Miller in Death of a Salesman, with a frustrated wife passionately defending her long-neglected husband by reminding us, “Attention must be paid.”  The apocalyptic finale, seemingly right out of Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice (Offret) (1986), or Michael Haneke’s Time of the Wolf (Le Temps du Loup) (2003), is just extraordinary, especially considering the volatile moments that led us there, where you see an entire forest catching fire within seconds, images of extraordinary intensity that we also see briefly over the opening credits, becoming a spectacular composition of her inner spirit bursting into flames, audaciously heading butt naked into the eye of the storm, where she couldn’t be more exposed and vulnerable.  Yet there is no hesitation, which may as well be the mindset of the director, as this couldn’t be a more fearlessly liberating style of cinema, using catastrophic imagery on the screen to delineate the catastrophe happening within, with the voice of an unaccompanied Ramsay (recorded on an iPhone) heard quietly singing the post-punk Joy Division song “Love Will Tear Us Apart” Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart, 1995 Remastered ... YouTube (3:38) over the end credits, a band whose lead singer, Ian Curtis, also battled depression, beautifully expressing the brash, in-your-face punkish style of this rare and exceptional director. 

Mother!

Javier Bardem (left to right), Jennifer Lawrence, and Michelle Pfeiffer in Venice

Jennifer Lawrence

MOTHER!                  B                                            

USA  (121 mi)  2017  ‘Scope  d:  Darren Aronofsky         Official Site [France]

Well there’s at least one man that would love to see a return of Roman Polanski to the United States, and that would be director Darren Aronofsky, as he seems to worship at the feet of this noted Polish director, as while watching this film, other films that come to mind are Roman Polanski's REPULSION (1965), Rosemary's Baby (1968), and THE NINTH GATE (1999), where the mood and tone are similar, creating a central character where the world is pushing back at them from all sides, forcing them to carry immense weight, which becomes too much of a psychological burden, eventually breaking under the pressure, creating cataclysmic fissures in the way they perceive the world around them, turning luridly offensive and grotesque, as if caught in a nightmarish dream world.  Just a coincidence?  Probably not. While what distinguishes this film, which has instantly become an incendiary talking point on social media, is that it is like nothing else, mindboggling and disturbing, yet two other films come to mind that also deserve mention.  The granddaddy of all religious satire belongs to Luis Buñuel, particularly an infamous “Last Supper” sequence in VIRIDIANA (1961) where all hell breaks loose, literally, set to the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah.  This film borrows liberally from that original idea and expands on it in new ways, creating a world of horrifying monstrosity, where there’s just no stopping the evil ways of mankind.  And finally someone must mention the Epilogue in Fassbinder’s mammoth epic BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ (1980), at 15 and a half-hours, still considered the longest narrative film ever made, ending with a two-hour fantasy sequence that breaks with the unprecedented realism in the preceding 13-hours, becoming a series of fragmented, illusory imaginings from the deteriorating mind of the central character, suddenly exploding into a minefield of phantasmagorical images of carnage and human wreckage.  These previous cinematic conceptions lay a groundwork for this film, which attempts to take you where no one else has gone.  While that’s debatable, it’s clear this is a highly toxic yet visionary work that fuels cinematic debates concerning what it’s about, while also reminding us that once a film is released, the director no longer controls the process, as it’s in the hands of audiences that might have their own ideas about what they’ve just witnessed.  That is the power of art, that it’s highly subjective, where each work’s place in history is as volatile as the shifting winds of time, as many films considered out of favor in one period have been elevated to masterworks in other time periods.  And while DVD’s and streaming networks allow films greater access, there are simply some films that defy commercialization, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s A City of Sadness (Bei qing cheng shi) (1989), for instance, which still has no version with English subtitles, or the Beatles’ LET IT BE (1970), Dennis Hopper’s THE LAST MOVIE (1971), John Sayles’ CITY OF HOPE (1991), Raul Peck’s The Man On the Shore (L’Homme sur les quais), Naomi Kawazi’s SUZAKU (1997), Pascale Breton’s ILLUMINATION (2004), along with a slew of Valerio Zurlini and Jacques Rivette films, or even the chronologically edited GODFATHER series that curiously did screen on television once in 2012 in a high-definition version, for instance (and there are so many others), that have simply never been released on DVD, so their place in the pantheon of cinema history remains an open question, as they haven’t been scrutinized by a wider audience.

It should be stated that much of this is drop dead hilarious, despite the severity of the subject matter, where this is truly a divine comedy, where it would not be surprising if in some future millennium this film might be chosen as a visionary work, lightyears ahead of its time, but beaten down and fallen prey to a drumbeat of critics that either want to condemn it as worthless, sheer lunacy, or ostracize it altogether as an off-the-fringe outlier that fails to benefit the public in any recognizable way.  While some films will always deserve this kind of critical purgatory, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978) anyone?, this is not one of them, as it’s ambitious as hell, layered with an extraordinary amount of ambiguity, while the story itself and the way it’s expressed defies anything else coming out of Hollywood, where it has such an edge and attitude about it that you have to wonder how this ever made it through?  The film is a cosmic expression of humanity as an Edenesque Lost Paradise given a Sisyphean tone of futility, showing how we inevitably lose our way, despite the presence of the church, and more specifically, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, rules supposedly handed down by God to help guide us on a path of righteousness, yet we continually get sidetracked, developing an obsession with false prophets, often deluding ourselves, where our destructive capacity apparently has no bounds, with plenty of saber rattling and war mongering officials leading the charge.  In the Biblical stories of Sodom and Gomorrah, God was so angered that He destroyed the world, sending massive floods, allowing the world to begin anew, starting fresh.  But if history has told us anything, it is that those who don’t learn from the past are destined to repeat the same mistakes.  Despite our capacity for knowledge and systematic education, including a stunning curiosity for planetary explorations and other scientific missions heading into dark space beyond our solar system, we remain inhibited by our basic instincts, as we still commit crimes, fly into a rage, and brutally suppress others, often resorting to atrocities as a means to an end, thinking only of ourselves and what we want to accomplish, using money and power to obtain even more power, becoming insatiated by it, paying too little attention to the needs of others.  Sheer chaos and anarchy is what the world would look like without order, and this film offers a before and after view, where the results are startling.  Aronofsky seems to specialize in a cinema of discomfort, where the last 15-minutes of REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000), for instance, one of his most highly acclaimed movies, is nearly unwatchable due to the intensity of the nightmarish experience he realizes onscreen, where it closely resembles a bad acid trip, listed at #9 in this unique poll, 9. Requiem for a Dream (2000) - The 50 Most Disturbing Movies of All ....  Despite one’s reservation with the raw and graphic horror of drug addiction, the film has redeeming qualities, with the lead actress nominated for an Academy Award.  Despite the popularity of Jennifer Lawrence, the lead actress and director’s current girlfriend, she’s not likely to earn similar honors, though she risks plenty with this performance, even breaking an arm during the filming.  By paying so much attention to a dark and ugly side of humanity, few will actually “like” this film, though audiences can appreciate it in much the same way as people today praise Pasolini’s SALÒ (1976), as they are gutsy attempts to expose our darkest impulses by graphically exposing an inherent barbarism that normally never sees the light of day.  

Perhaps the film this comes closest to is the director’s own THE FOUNTAIN (2006), where a prominent theme is “Death, as an act of creation,” while also showcasing his girlfriend at the time, Rachel Weisz, as his muse, playing a character of eternal light while her overly grim husband, whose single-minded purpose makes him completely oblivious to others, is absorbed with the constant presence of death, searching for a scientific cure that never comes.  In much the same way, Jennifer Lawrence plays a Madonna figure, defined by her innocence and eternal love, while her husband, known as Poet (Javier Bardem), is a failing writer consumed in the bitterness of his own shortcomings, while also professing eternal love, though he fails to live up to it.  At least initially it’s beautifully written, where a series of characters knock at the door and suddenly take over her house and home, first Ed Harris, followed by an utterly sublime performance by Michelle Pfeiffer (where have you been?), which is only a warm up for what’s to follow.  Yet the internalized friction and overt antagonism caused by the guest’s total disdain in following normal guest protocol is overwhelming, reaching states of delirium, where they actually seem to be taunting her, like Rosemary's Baby, treating her with blatant disregard.  When their kids show up, a Cain and Abel tag team of fighters, all hell breaks loose, breaking furniture and whatever else stands in their way, altering the mood to such an extent that it initially seems humorous, but that is quickly remedied when one of them murders the other, bringing the house to a sense of calm only after they’ve left for a hospital, as at that point he’s only bleeding to death.  The Poet goes with them, allowing the film to completely embrace Lawrence’s character, where strange things start to happen, as reality is altered and distorted by her elevated paranoia and fears, embracing Catherine Deneuve in REPULSION.  By the time the family returns, this time filling the home with unwanted guests attending the wake, she’s already on the edge, but is pushed to the limit, as people intentionally disobey her instructions, literally wrecking the plumbing, as an exploding water leak drives the crowd away.  Get it?  The flood.  In the midst of an ensuing argument about how he abandoned her, the couple engages in sex on the staircase, continuing into their bedroom, where she awakens fully cognizant she is pregnant, where the couple gets a new start.  Almost simultaneously, this breaks his writer’s block, suddenly an unstoppable force, and within minutes, amusingly, he’s a published author, with first Kristen Wiig arriving at their door as his publisher, somehow showing knowledge of personal intimacy between them, then heaps more disdain on his now visibly pregnant wife, as crowds suddenly arrive at the door, unstoppable and unending, showing mad devotion to her husband, as if he’s a cult savant, eventually breaking into the house and taking whatever they want, reiterating his verse, share and share alike, claiming it all belongs to them, not her, basically stealing them out of house and home, where they can’t find a single solitary space that hasn’t been invaded by the mob, with people breaking through windows and Wiig absurdly leading a military assassination team, leaving plenty of dead bodies in her wake.  This heinous attack causes panic and mass confusion, ideal conditions for the birth.  From there things only deteriorate further, growing more and more feverish, where the Poet clearly loves the attention and can’t separate himself from his adoring fans, even when it’s destroying whatever beating pulse is left in his wife, attacked and disfigured, clawing her way over people, fighting for her life, but all for naught, eventually exploding into an apocalyptic fire and brimstone spectacle, suddenly turning into a Twilight Zone episode where it mysteriously rewinds and plays out all over again.  Breaking all rules, making no capitulation whatsoever for commercialism, this film is well worth the experience, as it’s an artist’s dream, even if it never rises to levels of transcendence.