Jennifer Lawrence delivers as a young mother who acts like a baby.

A few weeks ago, I was one of the few film critics to dislike “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” which had Rose Byrne playing a mother dealing with a number of stressful situations. Her daughter has to have a feeding tube in her, while she acts like a brat, and their apartment gets flooded and no one is doing anything about it. I admired Byrne’s performance and the concept that the film was trying to go for, but I felt it was too overwhelming, especially the bratty segments.

Now, we have “Die My Love,” which has Jennifer Lawrence playing a young mother descending into madness. And her child is a baby, who shall remain nameless and barely cries. That’s soothing to me, but there’s a little more to it than meets the eye. And therefore, I think it’s the better independent film of the genre than the other film.

The young mother Lawrence plays is a former writer named Grace, who spends her days taking care of the baby, while moping about and walking around. Sometimes, she holds a kitchen knife, and sometimes, she listens to loud music. And sometimes, at night, she imagines having an affair with a motorcyclist (Lakeith Stanfield in silent movie mode). At least we think she’s imagining she is.

Her spouse is Jackson (Robert Pattinson), who relocates them from New York to Montana. He’s the one who works, while she does her usual unhappy routine. He even brings home a stray dog, which she hates. Besides, she says she wanted a cat. And there are times when he criticizes her for her behavior. His mother and her mother-in-law Pam (Sissy Spacek) assures her that the early states of motherhood can drive anyone crazy (“Everybody goes loopy the first year”). She’s one to talk, considering that she often holds a gun while sleepwalking. And her behavior might have something to do with her dementia-stricken husband (Nick Nolte).

“Die My Love,” based on Ariana Harwicz’s book, is co-written and directed by Lynne Ramsay, who also made “We Need to Talk About Kevin” and “You Were Never Really Here.” You can easily tell she’s reflecting on “Kevin,” by having the main heroine mope about and complain about motherhood and her loss of dreams. And the fact that Grace is a former writer. Actually, Ramsay originally passed on the project as a director, because she express some of the same themes in that movie, but Lawrence eventually convinced her to make this movie. Either way, I think maybe she should one day direct a movie with Lawrence and Tilda Swinton.

Even though we don’t always understand what is going on, we acknowledge how the young mother has reached a breaking point in her life. In fact, I think that being a mother has basically deteriorated herself into becoming a baby. You can tell how childish she acts, and Lawrence convinces us of her nature with such powerful acting. And even in a small role, Spacek is also great as her mother-in-law with how she adapts to her character’s “loopy” behaviors.

I still prefer “Die My Love” over “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” because there are no bratty kids or stressful moments, but there are going to be some crazy situations and characters who seem worthy of being Ramsay-directed characters. In fact, she’s a filmmaker who can adapt books with a certain kind of complexity and insanity that shows you she has a voice in cinema. And I admire the opening shot regarding a forrest fire, which either could be real or a dream in this film. Like Spacek’s character said: “Everybody goes loopy the first year.”