Grace, a writer and young mother, is slowly slipping into madness. Locked away in an old house in and around Montana, we see her acting increasingly agitated and erratic, leaving her companion, Jackson, increasingly worried and helpless.

From its first frames, Die My Love refuses to sugarcoat a thing. Ramsay goes straight for the nerves, and her no-holds-barred approach to emotional chaos hits like a slap. Isolation, malaise, and the crushing hollowness of postpartum depression erupt violently into Grace and Jackson’s lives, and Ramsay captures it with a disturbingly intimate eye. The film shifts between modes effortlessly, at times feeling like a real-time psychological documentary, at others dissolving into dreamy, ethereal unreality, before tearing violently into jagged, manic madness. There’s no safe harbour here. Ramsay keeps her audience perched on the edge of a razor, and she never lets them lean back, not even for a second.

Her command of the extremities of human feeling is unflinching. This is a film about the dangerous corners of motherhood, the guilt, the rage, the hopelessness, the self-harm impulses, and Ramsay refuses to blink. It’s harrowing. It’s confrontational. But my god, it’s honest. And in that brutal clarity, the film finds its greatest power.

At the centre of this storm is Jennifer Lawrence in what is unequivocally the most fearless, most devastating performance of her career. As Grace, she removes every barrier between herself and the audience. There’s no vanity, no star aura, no protective layer, just raw nerve, exposed emotion, and the cold, unforgiving truth. Lawrence embodies a portrait of motherhood that strips away every cinematic comfort. She plays Grace as restless, volatile, yearning, furious, and heartbreakingly fragile, and as the character’s hormones, boredom, shame, and unrelenting depression drag her deeper into darkness, Lawrence commits to every moment with staggering bravery.

What makes her work so affecting is that we do see glimmers of joy, fleeting but real moments where Grace brushes against happiness, touches light, even sparkles. But Ramsay ensures they don’t last, and when the chaos swallows them, the heartbreak hits twice as hard. These scenes of collapse; messy, painful, impossible to watch without wincing are where Lawrence’s genius is at its sharpest. She doesn’t act the pain; she inhabits it. And the result is a performance that demands to be recognised and remembered.

Sharing the screen with Lawrence, and giving the story its unsettling counterpoint, is Robert Pattinson as Jackson. At first glance he’s got the cowboy charm, the grin, the easygoing banter. But Jackson is a hollow man: a smooth-talking shell filled with jealousy, dishonesty, irresponsibility and a gnawing sense of inadequacy he never quite faces. Pattinson sinks his teeth into this with a wicked sense of purpose. He plays Jackson as a man pretending to be “the man”: flirty, needy, petty, and completely out of his depth. It’s a clever, slippery performance, and the frayed, volatile chemistry between him and Lawrence gives the film its most combustible scenes. Their marriage is a slow-motion car crash you can’t tear your eyes from.

Visually, Die My Love is a knockout; a haunting, Americana-inflected fever dream that belongs on the biggest screen you can find. Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey crafts some of his most dazzling work here, leaning into extremes of colour and saturation that heighten both the beauty and the terror of Grace’s unraveling. The Montana landscapes feel mythic and merciless; the interiors claustrophobic and airless. McGarvey builds a world that mirrors Grace’s psyche; achingly beautiful one moment, sickeningly distorted the next.

Layered over this is a soundtrack that hits like a pulse: cool, unsettling, propulsive. It becomes an emotional undercurrent, winding itself into the film’s DNA and amplifying every moment of dread, desire, and descent.

Die My Love is not a comfortable film. It’s not meant to be. It is provocative, scorching, deeply disturbing, and built on pure, unrelenting artistic integrity. Ramsay isn’t interested in comforting audiences, she wants to confront them. To challenge them. To force them to sit in the mess of human emotion that most films are too scared to touch.
And in doing so, she has crafted something extraordinary.

Jennifer Lawrence delivers a career-high performance; bold, brutal, unguarded. Robert Pattinson, meanwhile, dismantles the myth of the rugged western man with sly precision. And Ramsay orchestrates it all with the precision of a master whose vision burns brighter and more ferociously than ever.

You don’t walk away from Die My Love untouched. It lingers. It gnaws. It unsettles. Days later you’ll still be thinking about it—about Grace, about Jackson, about the rawness of what you witnessed, and you’ll feel that eerie pull to revisit it, to re-examine it, to confront it again. Die My Love is not just a film. It’s an experience. A challenge. And one of the defining cinematic gut-punches of 2025.

Image: MadMan Entertainment

The post ‘Die My Love’ – Review appeared first on SpicyPulp.

Watch the full trailer for No Hard Feelings below:

Here’s the official synopsis:

Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence), a young woman working as an Uber driver who is facing bankruptcy after her car is repossessed, accepts an unusual Craigslist posting. Her new employers are parents who have noticed that their introverted 19-year-old son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) shows no interest in dating or having sex. In exchange for a Buick Regal, she agrees to become their son’s “girlfriend”, to “date his brains out”, and help him to join adult life.

It’s been sometime since audiences have been given a proper ‘sex comedy’ in the vein of American Pie or There’s Something About Mary, and Lawrence dives headfirst into a film that takes aim at a generation who seem to have more interest in their mobile phones than trying to ‘get it on’. While theirs plenty of comic elements present in the new trailer, No Hard Feelings addresses its subject matter with a serious satirical edge and pokes fun at how Gen-Z’s seem to have zero interest in real relationships and that’s where the central story of the film falls.

While this new trailer for No Hard Feelings does set up the film’s wild concept, it also feels like Lawrence is trying to make a point about the state of modern relationships, and while it is played for laughs it does seem like they’ll be a sense of real love and companionship that ultimately results from this film’s crazy story.

Ready yourself for all kinds of laughs when No Hard Feelings arrives in cinemas on June 22.

The post Jennifer Lawrence brings the hilarity in new trailer for ‘No Hard Feelings’ appeared first on SpicyPulp.

Dominika Egorov (Lawrence) is a Russian Spy trained as a ‘sparrow’ or an operative who has been taught to use her femininity as a weapon. But after she is initially charged to seduce CIA case officer Nathanial Nash (Joel Edgerton), Dominika begins to fall in love with him and considers becoming a double agent.

Director Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Constantine) takes audiences inside a dark and dangerous landscape of political intrigue and vicious spy action with Red Sparrow. Adapted from the best-selling novel by Justin Matthews, Red Sparrow is a gripping portrayal of current-day espionage. Lawrence doesn’t shy away from any of it, and captures the murky waters that these operatives and operations are carried out in. While some will find it uncomfortable to watch, it’s one of the more realistic portrayal of professional espionage ever captured on screen and he also brings his unique eye for design and a good dose of Russian cultural appropriation into the film as well.

Jennifer Lawrence has long been lauded as one of the best young actresses working today. She’s never been afraid of a challenge, but her role as Dominika Egorov is her most grown-up role to date. In Red Sparrow hers is the almost anti-coming-of-age story as very early on her world shatters and she is forced to accept a new one. It’s in these early moments that we also see Dominika’s true character. She’s a survivor, a calculating machine and a person who is prone to certain psychopathic tendencies. While there is a definite innocence to her character do not be fooled….she knows the game that she’s playing. Lawrence again gives herself completely to her character and engages in some pretty intense behaviour on-screen. She pushes herself both physically and mentally with this role and it really shows through.

Standing next to her is Joel Edgerton as Nathaniel ‘Nate’ Nash, an American CIA case officer who blows a big operation and is given one last chance to make contact with his source. His is a fascinating character as he is viewed as a degenerate with a passion for liquor and fast woman, but his actions instead show a man who is incredibly smart and calculating in his approach to his work. It’s in Nate’s character that we see one of the film’s most recurring themes: No one is who they appear to be. Everyone is playing everyone and this is exactly what we see with Nate. Edgerton also shares a great chemistry with Lawrence and it’s a romance that sizzles with a strong sexual undercurrent and almost a test of their skills between one another. They make a great match on screen together and I’d love to see them work together again.

I can’t also look past Matthias Schoenaerts as the incredibly creepy Ivan Egorov, Dominika’s uncle who places her in the Sparrow School and moulds her into a lethal operative. There’s a calm sense of sadism about Ivan. While he might have the behaviour and courtesy of a politician he is also a man who is willing to eliminate any problem that he deems unacceptable, and in the most brutal way possible. His interactions with Lawrence are a source of interest and I was very pleased with what he did with the role.

Red Sparrow also has considerable style. It’s cinematography, costuming and musical score imply great elegance and evoke the classic noir style of filmmaking that we have long aligned with the work of the spy genre. Cinematographer Jo Willems captures the considerable dark beauty of the former Eastern Bloc in considerable style and incorporates a pallette of slate greys, crisp blacks and bold crimson red into his design aesthetic. Then there’s costume designer Trish Summerville who really gets to do something special with the film, especially Dominka’s vast wardrobe changes as she walks through the world as a sparrow.

Let’s also make the distinction that Red Sparrow is not a PG film and that it is a very intense watch. A dangerous sexuality runs through it as Dominika is subject to a world of powerful men who can take anything from a woman they want. Dominika falls into this world, and while initially victimized by it, draws on her sexuality as a weapon and soon becomes a master seducer who can take what she wants from any man. While these moments are certainly shocking to watch, and can at times be extremely uncomfortable, they are in keeping with the spirit and energy of the film. Red Sparrow also gets extremely violent at times, especially it’s brutal interrogation scenes, but again this is in keeping with the film’s elevated and dangerous espionage world.

The twists are also worth praising and I could count at least five times when I jumped out of my seat in shock. While jump scares get me every time it has been a long time since a thriller made me jump. Lawrence knows how to calculate pressure and intensity in his film and you’re guaranteed to never see the ending coming. It took me completely by surprise and is a real fitting end to this intense cinematic experience.

Red Sparrow is one of the more shocking and intense spy films that I’ve seen in a while and it’s definitely Jennifer Lawrence’s most adult performance to date. For the right audience, who are not afraid of a bit of grit and are looking for something a little bit more shocking, it’s a thriller that definitely delivers.

Image: 20th Century Fox

The post ‘Red Sparrow’ – Review appeared first on SpicyPulp.

Check it out below:

Here’s the synopsis:

Dominika Egorov (Lawrence) is a Russian Spy trained as a ‘sparrow’ or an operative who has been taught to use her femininity as a weapon. But after she is initially charged to seduce CIA case officer Nathanial Nash (Joel Edgerton), Dominika begins to fall in love with him and considers becoming a double agent. 

The new trailer throws audiences right into the thick of the action, as Lawrence’s Dominika is transformed from innocent ingenue to that of a master seductress and merciless assassin. Lawrence looks particularly intense in the film and her gradual lack of emotion as it is stripped away by her brutal training regime really shows up in the footage.

It’s also pretty damn clear that Red Sparrow is going to get damn messy! Director Francis Lawrence is not shying away from the film’s brutal aspects, including the merciless training ground known as the Sparrow School! Here violence is a way of life, and it’s clear that Dominika will have to utilise all of her considerable willpower to survive both it and the dark intentions of her Government handlers.

Joel Edgerton makes a great match alongside Lawrence as the intelligent and suave Nathanial Nash, an American CIA officer who is trying to turn defectors within Russia, and who quickly falls for Dominika and her charms and seeks to help her find a way out.

Then there’s the sinister and dark presence of Matthias Schoenaerts as Ivan Dimitrevich Egorov, Dominika’s uncle who inducts her into the Sparrow School, and who is willing to do unthinkable things to her in order to make her his perfect assassin.

Check out my thoughts below on the new trailer and what Red Sparrow has me excited to see:

Red Sparrow is an absolute must watch and will be released in cinemas on March 1.

The post Jennifer Lawrence is a dangerous creature in ‘Red Sparrow’ appeared first on SpicyPulp.

Check it out below:

Here’s the synopsis:

Dominika Egorov (Lawrence) is a Russian Spy trained as a ‘sparrow’ or an operative who has been taught to use her femininity as a weapon. But after she is initially charged to seduce CIA case officer Nathanial Nash (Joel Edgerton), Dominika begins to fall in love with him and considers becoming a double agent. 

Adapted from the bestseller by former CIA operative Jason Matthews, director Francis Lawrence appears to have crafted a dangerous and high stakes thriller. Both Lawrence and Egerton are two of the best stars working in Hollywood today and together on screen they make for a very intriguing couple.

Lawrence looks incredibly intense as the beautiful, but dangerous Dominika Egorov, who understands how to get inside a man’s head and use him to her own advantage. While the hot and steamy subject matter will surely see Lawrence show some skin, she’ll also carve her way through a bunch of bad guys with a very solid spy skill set.

Red Sparrow is one thriller to definitely keep an eye on and will be released in cinemas March 1, 2018 in New Zealand and Australia and on March 2, 2018 in the US and UK.

The post Jennifer Lawrence is seductively deadly in ‘Red Sparrow’ appeared first on SpicyPulp.