“In spite of ourselves, we’ll end up a-sittin’ on a rainbow. Against all odds, honey, we’re the big door prize.” These lyrics to John Prine’s song, In Spite of Ourselves, speak volumes of irony for the two lead characters in director Lynn Ramsay’s latest, the emotionally intense “Die My Love.”

In her fifth film, Ramsey continues to make challenging, adult-themed pictures that are rich in brutal and honest emotion. With each project, the director chooses her actors carefully and is not influenced by popularity or personality. Ramsay finds performers who are willing to fully immerse themselves in their characters, leaving behind ego and peeling away every bit of their real selves. The filmmaker has continuously crafted films that require full-on fearless abandon from her cast. Case in point, “Die My Love” is the showcase of a brutally raw, real, and career-best performance from Jennifer Lawrence.

Grace (Lawrence) and Jackson (Robert Pattinson) are a couple who may not be in love, but are drawn to one another by an emotional intensity; each one feeding on the need to be together. “Die My Love” opens with a masterful shot that speaks to the essence of Grace and Jackson’s coupling. The camera is still, looking into the kitchen of a home that definitely needs repair. We see the pair pull up outside, exit their car, and cautiously walk into the home. As they begin to wander through the run-down rooms, Grace and Jackson discuss whether they should make this their forever home. Jackson has inherited the property from his uncle (Nick Nolte), who committed suicide. In this moment, these are just two beings who have (as witnessed by an impromptu sex session) an animalistic attraction to one another. Grace is not yet a mother, and the two eventually move into the house, seemingly making a life based around a constant sexual heat. Grace and Jackson know the house has bad juju, but assume they can clean it up and make something sustainable. 

Grace is the broken, bad memory-infested house to Jackson’s overly optimistic attitude towards making things work while knowing they never will.

A former writer, Grace is the living, breathing manifestation of multi-level frustrations. She claims to have no inspiration to resume her writing, but the film hints at the fact that she has lost interest in anything that constitutes living. Ramsay visualizes Grace’s duality in many interesting ways. One of the most strikingly potent is when, after Grace becomes a mother, she drips her breast milk onto ink; mixing and blurring the line between her past and present. This is an abstract film that uses many metaphors (some successfully) to explore maternity, postpartum depression, and the cracking of one’s psyche. Lynn Ramsay’s filmmaking is direct and pulls no punches. This isn’t the type of sanitized look at being a mommy seen in many Hollywood movies. Based on Ariana Harwicz’s novel, Ramsay and Enda Walsh’s screenplay for “Die My Love” is infused with a punk-rock sensibility that walks hand in hand with a striking honesty.

Robert Pattinson’s Jackson is far from a pure soul, and Grace discovers his adulterous ways time and time again. There are no confrontations, just a question from the wife to her husband, who answers with a lie he knows is obvious. Not fully understanding what is happening with Grace, Jackson is overwhelmed with the pressures of marriage and parenting. This is another terrific performance from Pattinson, who completely absorbs his character’s minimalist dialogue, giving Jackson a quiet representation of pain and emotional struggle.

Sissy Spacek is as good as ever, portraying Jackson’s mother into a scarred (but not broken) woman who wants the best for her son, daughter-in-law, and grandchild. Nick Nolte has a couple of good moments as Jackson’s Uncle, but not enough is done with such a tremendous actor.

The same can be said for LaKeith Stanfield, who plays a character who may be past or present. This particular abstract design hurts the screenplay, as it is left unfinished.

Jennifer Lawrence is as free as she has ever been on screen. As Grace falls into an uncontrollable madness that kills the family unit (notice the lack of a comma in the film’s title), the actress morphs into a woman who is becoming animalistic in her desires; not just for sex, but in the need to walk away from this life. Grace cares for her baby, but there is no connection, no love. The same goes for her feelings towards Jackson, although she probably never actually loved him.

“Die My Love” burns with Lawrence’s performance; a character that is the actress’s “A Woman Under the Influence.” Like Gena Rowlands in that film, Grace is built of contradictions and madness. She is a mother and wife, while her mind constantly keeps her humanity off-balance. It is tremendous work from the best actor of her generation.

While the film falters now and again and cannot escape the simplicity of its finale, Lynne Ramsay has directed a unique film that will elicit different emotions from different viewers.

“Die My Love” is a striking, yet flawed, work. For a good deal of its running time, the film burns as hot as the flames of Grace’s desires.