Indie distributor MUBI is said to have paid upwards of $20m for Lynne Ramsay’s drama Die, My Love, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson.
Following its premiere at Cannes over the weekend, director Lynne Ramsay’s intense-sounding drama Die, My Love has picked up strong reviews and, it turns out, one of the festival’s biggest deals so far. Various outlets, including The Hollywood Reporter, have shared the news that MUBI has signed an eight-figure contract to distribute Ramsay’s film in multiple territories; how much the deal is worth varies slightly, but most agree that the price tag is around the $24m mark.
Based on Ariana Harwicz’s novel, Die, My Love stars Jennifer Lawrence as a mother battling post-partum depression; Robert Pattinson plays the husband, while Sissy Spacek, Nick Nolte and LaKeith Stansfield all co-star. Reviews have been positive so far, with Lawrence’s raw portrayal of depression commonly singled out for praise.
Ramsay doesn’t make movies that often – mostly for reasons beyond her control, it seems – but her films reliably land their punches.
You Were Never Really Here, released in 2017, was a brutally effective combination of noir thriller and interior character study. We Need To Talk About Kevin was as much a parental horror film as it was a drama, with Tilda Swinton playing a guilt-stricken mother picking up the remains of her shattered family.
Ratcatcher (1999) and Morvern Callar (2002), both shot in Ramsay’s home of Scotland, were both bleakly poetic accounts about young outsiders.
Between those films, there were the productions that never quite happened. Ramsay walked away from The Lovely Bones, which ended up being adapted by Peter Jackson instead. Western Jane Got A Gun was also marred by reported of creative differences; it was eventually directed by Gavin O’Connor.
Over the past year or so, Ramsay has a number of other potential films in various stages of development, including Stone Mattress, an adaptation of a Margaret Atwood novel, and Polaris, a drama which could see her reunite with You Were Never Really Here star Joaquin Phoenix. The critical success of Die, My Love should, we hope, mean that we won’t have to wait another six or more years for Ramsay’s next film.
