This afternoon, I went for a walk along the canal in Hackney Wick, and as I watched the autumn light flicker on the water, the memory of last night’s film drifted back into my consciousness and took over my thoughts. The film was Die, My Love, directed by Lynne Ramsay and produced by the legendary Martin Scorsese — a haunting, unsettling story that stayed with me long after I left the cinema. I had watched it at the new Everyman in Stratford, a beautifully designed space that felt almost like a private screening room, the kind that reminded me why I first fell in love with film and moved to Los Angeles to go to film school 35 years ago. The sound was immersive, the lighting subtle, and the chairs very comfortable: the perfect setting for a movie experience.
As both a filmmaker and a psychotherapist, I often watch films the way some people read dreams. The images, the editing, the tone — they revealed what the story couldn’t say outright. Die, My Love was one of those films that lingered long after the credits rolled.
Jennifer Lawrence’s performance was raw, feral, and painfully human. Robert Pattinson played her husband with the kind of quiet ambiguity that kept me wondering what was real.
On the surface, it was the story of a woman living in the countryside with her husband and baby, slowly losing her mind. The camera lingered on her with unsettling intimacy — a kitchen knife next to the child, a face too close to the edge of coherence. But beneath that, I sensed another story: a woman whose world was quietly collapsing as the man who was meant to protect her betrayed her. The clues were subtle — a packet of condoms, avoidance of intimacy, late-night absences, the quiet erosion of trust. Not much was said, but every woman with some life experience would recognise it.
What I saw wasn’t madness, but betrayal. When a woman has given her body, her future, and her trust to a man — when she’s home raising his infant — and he steps outside that sacred bond, something deep within her breaks. The nervous system recognises danger. Safety disappears. And when safety vanishes, the mind begins to fracture in its search for coherence.
What struck me most was Ramsay’s refusal to make the husband the obvious villain. She did what great female directors often do — complicated empathy. The woman appeared unhinged, yet she was also the most loving and perceptive person in the room. The film never told the audience what was real or imagined, and that was its brilliance. Because that’s how it feels inside a nervous system on the brink: everything is real and unreal at the same time.
In my practice, I have seen that dynamic many times — women who have been told they were “crazy” and “paranoid” for noticing lies, women who began to doubt their own perception because someone they loved had quietly rewritten reality. It wasn’t just emotional abuse — it was disorientation. And disorientation, I came to realise, during these sessions was one of the most effective tools of control.
From a cinematic perspective, Ramsay’s courage impressed me. The close-ups, the silences, the slow pacing — they forced the viewer to stay with the unbearable. There was moral honesty in that. It echoed what I taught in therapy: healing begins by tolerating what we most want to avoid.
The scene with the barking puppy captured this perfectly. The husband’s “kind” gesture of bringing home a dog became another burden for his wife, another layer of noise and guilt. When she was the one who had to deal with the consequences, her isolation became complete. He performed normality; she carried the truth.
I left the theatre both devastated and grateful. Grateful that such films existed — that women directors were finally being trusted with budgets and distribution, that actresses like Jennifer Lawrence were using their power to tell uncomfortable truths. And devastated, because beneath the artistry was a mirror: it showed what happens when love becomes unsafe, when protection turns to betrayal, and when a woman’s sanity becomes the collateral damage of someone else’s denial.
Most critics called Die, My Love a study of mental illness. I saw it as a study of relational collapse — of how the nervous system interprets abandonment as danger and danger as madness. It wasn’t about a woman losing her mind; it was about a world that convinces women that their pain is pathology.
As I walked along the canal, I thought of the women I had treated who had lived this story in real life — women whose partners withheld love, loyalty, or truth, and then told them they were “jealous”, “controlling”, and “crazy”. Healing began for these women the moment they understood they weren’t crazy at all. They were simply waking up from someone else’s lies.
Die, My Love wasn’t an easy film to watch, but it was a necessary one. Madness, in women, is often the visible face of an invisible betrayal.
About Isobel Gardner
Isobel Gardner is a UK licensed and charted Clinical and Counselling Psychologist and a US (California) Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT), dedicated to empowering her clients to navigate life’s challenges, including stress, toxic relationships, anxiety, trauma, and more. Isobel seamlessly integrates evidence-based tools such as Mindfulness, EMDR, and non-judgmental humanistic talk therapy to facilitate healing and growth. With compassion and expertise, she helps clients overcome some of life’s most difficult challenges, guiding them on their path to self-discovery, healing, and transformation. Read more about Isobel.
One response to “A Therapist Reflection on the film: Die, My Love”
Beautifully observed and anylyzed I feel your take on the film is much closer to the essence of it, than most critics who only sees “the mental illness” as the subject..