Usually I only focus on Rob’s performance, but some of the reviews are outstanding for the film, but don’t mention Rob. If that is the case then I will add to this list, but c’mon people surely you have some opinion of the co-star. *Updates added to end of each post under dates*
THE GOOD
18 May 2025
Matt Neglia (Next Best Picture): Pattinson, meanwhile, plays a man watching the person he loves disappear before his eyes, powerless to do anything to stop it. His Jackson is not weak in the sense of his devotion towards her but impotent in the face of Grace’s collapse. Despite the emotional and physical toll, his commitment to her is both noble and tragic, leading the film to be quite moving and showcasing how far one’s partner will go for the person they love despite all evidence saying otherwise.
Richard Lawson (Vanity Fair): She has strong chemistry with Pattinson—who is limber and natural in his role—and an even more powerful connection with Sissy Spacek, who plays Jackson’s grieving mother, Pam, with a heartbreaking mix of cluelessness and concern.
Screen Daily: Pattinson plays off his costar superbly, giving us an inattentive husband who comes to realise how little he understands about his wife.
Ryan Lattanzio (IndieWire): As undeveloped as Pattinson’s Jackson is, you want to hand it to him while also wanting to slap that very hand across his face: Wake up, dude. But there’s something strangely romantic about this pairing, which Ramsay drills home in the final coda. They need each other, and maybe all Grace had to know was confirmation of Jackson’s own need, too.
Charles Hutchinson (The Wrap): Both Pattinson and Lawrence are outstanding in their roles — the latter becomes a protagonist of sorts while the other is a pseudo-antagonist. We can see the anger, fear and isolation in their every move, with the vacancy that exists behind their eyes proving to be the most chilling part of the whole affair.
Sophie Monks-Kaufman (The Independent): MVP here is Robert Pattinson, whose layered performance contains both the man that Grace cannot abide and the one who is worried about his wife.
Peter Bradshaw (The Guardian): Die My Love is another film to remind you that Ramsay believes you should make movies the way VS Naipaul believed you should write books: from a position of strength. There is, simply, overwhelming muscular strength in this picture: in her direction, in Paul Davies’s sound design, in the saturated colour of Seamus McGarvey’s cinematography, and of course in the performances themselves. [My emphasis]
Damon Wise (Deadline): Pattinson generously lets her get on with it, being our avatar as his wife self-immolates in a way that becomes quite perversely romantic.
Emma Kiely (Collider): They fight with vitriol dripping from their lips as they tell each to fuck off and scream into their faces. Pattinson makes Jackson into something more than a lazy father, but a man just as lost in early parenthood, unaware of the privilege he has by being able to walk away. [Emphasis in original]
Nicholas Barber (BBC.com): Jennifer Lawrence is better than ever as Grace, an aspiring writer who moves from New York to the countryside with her partner Jackson, played by Robert Pattinson with a similar level of vanity-free gusto. (3 stars)
Time Out: All the cast feel totally ingrained in Ramsay’s storytelling, but it’s Lawrence who’s wildly impressive.
Nicholas Bell (Ion Cinema): Pattinson is frustratingly harried, and plays the denial of Jackson with aplomb.
David Rooney (The Hollywood Reporter): It’s easier to feel something for Jackson, played by Pattinson with sensitivity and a touching spirit of forgiveness as he slides into despair.
20 May 2025
The Film Verdict: That Pattinson would be willing to commit to such a world and performance is no surprise: ever since he was finally able to put the Twilight franchise behind him, he has steadfastly embraced the freedom that playing Edward Cullen gave him in terms of choosing whatever project he wants to do for the rest of his life (and even when he concedes to the mainstream, as with The Batman, it’s on his terms as to the type of character he wants to embody). Much like in Mickey 17, he admirably puts himself in the director’s hands and emerges with a fully formed, layered, not particularly likeable character.
Eye for Film: Ramsay deliberately time-shifts the narrative and chronology which leads to further confusion in the frenetic free-for-all. Her style takes no prisoners: you either get it or you don’t.
Gazettely: Robert Pattinson’s Jackson feels less like a passive NPC and more like the player character drawn into a support role he never signed up for. His attempts to anchor Grace—offering coffee at dawn, touching her shoulder with hesitancy—echo quest markers in a cooperative game mode. Yet his guilt at failing her, his growing helplessness, show an evolution from confident partner to someone stumbling through an emotional labyrinth.
South Morning China Post: Yet Ramsay never chooses the obvious route for her characters. Scenes like the one in which Grace and Jackson sing David Bowie’s “Kooks” remain surprisingly effective in this depiction of a couple struggling with themselves and each other.
The Indian Express: Pattinson offers well-judged support: in his callow ways, the pressures of parenting overwhelm him too.
Vogue: Spacek is an entertaining presence, too, and Pattinson is wholly committed, but both, like Lawrence, are let down by a script …
Roger Ebert: Pattinson is typically great as the kind of guy who just looks with confusion at a woman that he no longer recognizes but doesn’t have the character to do much about it.
The Standard: Whilst Pattinson offers excellent support as the often absent, frequently useless but ultimately committed husband, this is really Lawrence’s film.
Little White Lies: She’s never been better, vulnerable and terrible and totally unpredictable, matched gamely by the always compelling Robert Pattinson, utilised as a wet, sweaty, semi-useless man completely ill-suited for Grace’s needs.
THE BAD
18 May 2025
Owen Gleiberman (Variety): Pattinson, in a rare bad performance, just plays him as an unpleasant clueless bro. “Die My Love” presents us with a case of the blind leading the damned.
Daily Beast: (Pattinson gets the eye-rolling demeanor of an ineffectual husband even though I have a hard time believing him as a country boy.)
The Film Stage: Their scenes are amongst the best Die My Love has to offer, but their comfortable rapport only accentuates the strange lack of chemistry whenever Lawrence and Pattinson exchange dialogue.
The Times: … the actress’s movie about a new mother having a psychotic breakdown leaves both her and co-star Robert Pattinson devoid of their usual charisma.
