In their new thriller Die, My Love, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson play new parents grappling with Lawrence’s character’s severe postpartum depression and psychosis (a rare and very serious condition that can come on suddenly, but is reversible with treatment). At the film’s premiere at Cannes, Lawrence opened up about the strange and destabilizing realities of the postpartum experience.
“As a mother, it was really hard to separate what I would do as opposed to what [the character] would do. It was just heartbreaking.” Lawrence said at a press conference, per TheWrap. “There’s not anything like postpartum. It’s extremely isolating.”
In the film, directed by Lynne Ramsay and based on the novel by Ariana Harwicz, the family moves to a remote cabin, but this is an externalization of the mother’s issues, not the cause of it. “Extreme anxiety and extreme depression [are] isolating no matter where you are. You feel like an alien,” said Lawrence, who is receiving rave reviews for her performance in the film, which garnered a standing ovation after its screening.
