Jennifer Lawrence is getting a megaton of Oscar buzz at Cannes

Yahoo

23-05-2025

CANNES, France — The moment it crystalizes that Jennifer Lawrence is giving the most surprising, uninhibited performance of her career — the likes of which even her diehards may not have guessed she could deliver — comes quite early in Lynne Ramsay's absolutely punk-rock trip through one woman's psyche, 'Die, My Love,' which premiered Saturday night at the Cannes Film Festival.
Lawrence plays an aspiring writer named Grace who has just moved to a rural fixer-upper with her husband, Jackson (Robert Pattinson). Late at night, she steps out of the room where she has been breastfeeding their newborn and sways down the hallway, with one breast still popping out of her nursing bra.
She is purposeful in her dancelike movements. We assume she is headed to Jackson, with whom she seems to be animalistically attached. But Grace veers into another room, and stands alone, before pulling a fountain pen from a jar and splattering its ink on a piece of paper. What is she doing? Even she doesn't seem to know. She leans forward. Drops of milk leak from her breast and mix in with the black. A mother's Jackson Pollock.
This is the first sign of Grace's postpartum depression, an affliction that is never named in Ramsay's psychological drama, which also features LaKeith Stanfield, Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte. Lawrence erupts into unfiltered, often quite funny outbursts of rage — and keeps audiences guessing just how much of a danger she is to herself and others.
The response at Cannes, where the movie debuted to a big standing ovation (yes, they all get standing ovations), has been fiercely divided. There is no indifference to this movie. You adore it or you despise it.
'Jennifer Lawrence bombs in a maternal splatterfest,' screamed the headline for Kevin Maher's review in the Times of London. Owen Gleiberman of Variety praised Lawrence's 'explosive' performance but called the movie a 'showy mess.'
In general, though, the Oscar talk has been pervasive. Even critics who didn't like the movie agree that Lawrence is incredible. IndieWire's Ryan Lattanzio wrote that 'you haven't lived' until you've watched the actress go 'full feral,' while Esther Zuckerman of the Daily Beast declared that the role cements Lawrence's status as one of the best actresses of her generation.
Lawrence is 'astonishing' and 'mesmerizing' at channeling the pitch-black humor of a woman who has lost control of her existence and seems both scared and liberated by the experience, Richard Lawson writes in Vanity Fair. 'It's quite something to behold: a comedic performance that manages convincing notes of devastation, or a dramatic turn that is also screamingly funny,' he writes. 'What a thrill to see Lawrence expanding her artistry like this, a movie star reclaiming the talent that her celebrity once nearly obscured.'
But how realistic is this Oscar talk?
No other performance at this festival, and perhaps in theaters so far this year, comes close to being this combustible — although don't forget Rose Byrne as a mother who is being unraveled by her daughter's illness in 'If I Had Legs I'd Kick You,' an A24 sensation out of Sundance.
Lawrence's is the harder movie to watch, testing patience at every turn with Ramsay's lyrical, nonlinear approach. And it'll be a challenge, I suspect, for many Oscar voters to want to sit through it — even with the new rules that they have to watch every film if they want to be allowed to vote. Is there room in this year's best-actress race for two revelatory, barn-burner portrayals of the psychosis of motherhood? One can only hope so.
We'll all get a chance to make up our own minds soon enough, because Mubi just bought 'Die, My Love' in the biggest sale of the festival, for a reported $24 million, and will be bringing it to theaters in the United States, Britain and other major markets around the world.
If anyone can make a difficult movie an awards contender, it is the company that turned Demi Moore and 'The Substance' into legitimate threats in the 2024 Oscars race.
Also, keep an eye on the beloved Spacek for supporting actress for her turn as Grace's empathetic mother-in-law, Pam, who is grieving the death of her husband (played by Nolte) and is the only person who can see what is happening to Lawrence's character. Pattinson is also quite good as the perplexed spouse, whose flaws get magnified as Grace's madness deepens — but this is Lawrence's movie, and his Oscar fortunes will depend on how much voters like the movie overall.
What can't be underestimated in Lawrence's case is the clear desire among just about everyone to see her back on that Oscar stage. She has often seemed reluctant to be a movie star, despite how naturally good she is at it — and has been in only three other movies in the past few years, none of them Oscar-ready. This slowdown coincided with her marriage to art gallery director Cooke Maroney and the birth of their two children.
Lawrence is a producer of 'Die, My Love,' based on Ariana Harwicz's short first-person novel of the same name, and she suggested during the news conference that her passion for making this movie was personal: She had read Harwicz's book right after having her first child. 'There's not really anything like postpartum,' Lawrence said. 'Extreme anxiety and extreme depression is isolating. … You feel like an alien.' In the film, Grace is in Montana without any friends or community of her own, but Lawrence said that postpartum is isolating 'no matter where you are.'
Lawrence had wanted to work with Scottish auteur Ramsay ever since seeing her 1999 film, 'Ratcatcher,' and was the one to approach the director.
Ramsay previously showed 2011's 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' and 2017's 'You Were Never Really Here' at Cannes. She has a Scorsese-like penchant for propulsive needle drops and a knack for empathetically probing human psychology. 'I was just like, 'There's no way,'' Lawrence said. 'But we took a chance and we sent it to her, and I just really cannot believe that I'm here with you [at Cannes] and this happened.'
In what should bode well for an Oscars run, Lawrence was strikingly candid about motherhood — and the trade reporters near me were furiously writing up her every word. She was several months into her pregnancy with her second child while shooting the movie, which she said was her biggest asset. 'I had great hormones,' Lawrence said. 'You know, I was feeling great, which is really kind of the only way I would be able to dip into some of this visceral emotion.'
The men on the panel, meanwhile, said making 'Die, My Love' helped them understand what the women in their lives had gone through. Stanfield said the movie helped him understand not only his wife's postpartum experience but also 'how it felt to be all the way alive … and a creator.' He said he just had to be a part of it, even though he has almost no dialogue in the movie. Pattinson said his own experience becoming a father had energized him creatively, but he laughed as he went on. 'This question is impossible for a guy to answer correctly.'
As for Lawrence, she said that having children had changed her whole life. Parenthood is 'brutal and intense,' but 'in the best way.' Her children figure into every decision she makes, whether she is working or not. But they also opened her up as an artist. 'I didn't know that I could feel so much, and my job has a lot to do with emotion,' she said. 'I highly recommend having kids if you want to be an actor.'