Director: Lynne Ramsay

Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, LaKeith Stanfield, Sissy Spacek, Nick Nolte

Based on the novel by Argentine writer Ariana Harwicz, Lynne Ramsay’s latest film is a relentlessly intense depiction of postpartum psychosis. Jennifer Lawrence is Grace, a young woman about to have her first child. She and her partner Jackson (Pattinson) have just moved from New York to a ramshackle house in rural Montana, evidently Jackson’s idea, as his family come from there, and so they can, he says, blast music as loud as they want. They both have voracious sexual appetites, but after the baby, a boy, is born, Jackson is uninterested. Grace becomes frustrated, restless and convinced that Jackson, who frequently works away, is having an affair. Jackson’s addition to the household, a yappy dog, only exacerbates a fraught situation. Grace’s behaviour gets increasingly more erratic, as she is rude to shop staff and strips off to her underwear at a party. The picture often feels more like an audio-visual assault with harsh, clattering sound design, giddy camerawork, and self-consciously cool needle drops. There are some bravura moments of filmmaking here, but overall, this feels disjointed and sporadic, which arguably mirrors Grace’s state of mind. Lawrence is fearlessly committed but spending two hours with her character, boxed in a 4:3 aspect ratio by cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, is a claustrophobic and wearying experience.

David Willoughby

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