Mothers’ Instinct: Film Review
After appearing together in movies like Interstellar and Armageddon Time, good friends Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway have reunited once again for the psychological thriller Mothers’ Instinct.
In this film, the directorial debut of cinematographer Benoît Delhomme, Hathaway and Chastain play 1960s housewives and neighbours Céline and Alice. They are so close they are essentially like sisters; their nine-year-old sons are best friends and their husbands Damian (Josh Charles) and Simon (Anders Danielsen Lie) are good pals. They have the perfect suburban family set-up.
This peace is shattered following a tragedy. Feelings of guilt, resentment and suspicion slowly unravel their friendship. Alice becomes convinced that Céline is trying to hurt her family but Simon brushes off her paranoia and refuses to take her seriously so Alice has to take matters into her own hands.
Mothers’ Instinct is one of those mid-budget slow-burning adult thrillers that were big in the 1990s. I loved them then and it turns out I still love them now! This is a taut, tight thriller and I was riveted for the whole 94 minutes. You don’t know where it’s going and it keeps you guessing for a while. Is Alice paranoid and grasping at straws or is Céline really up to no good? The concerns start small and accumulate until it all becomes clear in the final act.
The wild third act is where Mothers’ Instinct really kicks into gear; it is tense, nail-biting stuff. People in my screening were verbally responding to the edge-of-your-seat climax. However, sadly, I stopped liking it at a certain point because the story didn’t conclude how I wanted it to and became rather over-the-top and far-fetched. I have seen critics call this film a soapy melodrama overall but I only found it that way in the final five minutes.
Chastain is the picture of ’60s housewife perfection on the surface. She maintains that tight-lipped restraint all the while things are slipping out of her control. Hathaway has played a version of this character a few times and she treads a fine line between giving too much and just enough. Céline could have gone very wrong in less experienced hands.
Mothers’ Instinct, a remake of the 2018 French film of the same name, has proved not to be everyone’s cup of tea but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
In cinemas from Wednesday 27th March