Motherhood, and all its terrifyingly wonderful aspects, has rarely been rendered with as much dimension as in Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love. The Scottish writer-director is at her best when she’s tapped into fractured psyches, and the destruction they often wreak on others (You Were Never Really Here and We Need to Talk About Kevin), but her latest is no different, utilizing a scorching lead performance from Jennifer Lawrence. And though it’s often captivating and visceral, the film’s meandering plot tends to wear down the viewer throughout its 2-hour runtime.

In some ways, it feels like Die My Love is the kind of film which Jennifer Lawrence has been building towards throughout her career. It’s often in conversation with mother!, another stressful fable about the uncertainties of parenthood, but Lawrence makes this a new, unique performance. As Grace, Lawrence is unmoored and unconventional, but her ability to still be sympathetic is her greatest superpower. And Ramsay’s screenplay – written with Enda Walsh and Alice Birch, and adapted from Ariana Harwicz’s novel – provides no easy answers, nor is it really concerned with arriving at a predetermined destination. Indeed, the film sometimes feels almost improvisational, as if Ramsay and Lawrence simply came up with the arc of Grace’s struggles in the moment.

Nevertheless, the film does have a loose structure, even when it feels like it couldn’t care less about telling its story in an easily digestible manner. Some viewers will be turned off by the structure, others may be invigorated by it. At the onset, Grace and Jackson (Robert Pattinson) are moving into his recently deceased uncle’s countryside home. It’s in rough shape, but they see nothing but potential – potential not just in their living quarters but in their still-budding relationship. Before we know it, they’ve welcomed their first child, and the troubles begin.

Die My Love jumps back and forth through time, so we’re never really sure if the baby is in the picture or not, but this is almost beside the point. Ramsay is more concerned with exploring how a relationship and a psychosis unravels. We see Grace go from a vivacious, infectious personality to someone who’s almost been beaten down by life and all its mundanities. She grows emotionally distant from Jackson, especially once he unexpectedly brings home the world’s yappiest dog – not that he puts in much effort towards the relationship himself. She becomes tired of the pleasantries of vague social life. She’s often burdened by Jackson’s father’s (Nick Nolte) rapidly deteriorating mental state. Crucially, the baby itself isn’t the source of Grace’s problems. Her only (occasional) respite comes when visiting with Jackson’s mother (Sissy Spacek), and the two can bond over their shared trauma.

All of this allows Lawrence to portray any number of emotions in any given scene. She can be frightening one moment, and hysterical the next. She can be full of malaise at a birthday party, and crawling through the tall grass as a way to play with the baby. It’s captivating work from one of the best actresses working today, even when the film starts to wear out its welcome. At just under 2 hours, Die My Love begins to feel repetitive once Grace’s struggles are fully established. Ramsay drags her characters through the mud, and while I wouldn’t say the film isn’t an exercise in misery, the bright spots of hope are few and far between. Yes, this is essentially the point, depicting how early parenthood is the best kind of inescapable prison, but if the film were 10-15 minutes shorter, we’d likely still arrive at the same conclusion.

To add to the film’s surreality, cinematographer Seamus McGarvey frequently uses an anamorphic lens, and outdoor scenes are often tinted with an otherworldly blue. Needle-drops are consistently excellent and frequently asynchronous to the action on screen. It’s easy to see why Ramsay was drawn to Harwicz’s novel, and why Lawrence and Pattinson were the perfect choices for the roles. After last year’s Nightbitch tackled similar subject matter in a more easily digestible, poppy way, it’s refreshing to see another female perspective on motherhood from a bizarre, difficult angle, warts and all. Still, one can’t help but wish those warts could be sanded down just a bit.

Die My Love will be released in theaters nationwide on November 7.

OSCAR POTENTIAL:

• Jennifer Lawrence is the film’s best chance at any Oscar nominations, in Best Actress. But Die My Love‘s prickly and difficult nature is likely going to turn off voters, despite her status as a previous winner.