Mothers’ Instinct Movie Review: The R-Rated Thriller Will Leave You Speechless
Cast: Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, Josh Charles, Anders Danielsen Lie, Caroline Lagerfeld
Directed By: Benoit Delhomme
Where to Watch: In Theaters
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars)
Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain are the protagonists of the new film Mothers’ Instinct, Benoit Delhomme’s debut film, which will be released in cinemas on Friday 9 May. Distributed by Vertice360, this dark and intense psychological thriller is prohibited for children under 14 years of age by the decision of the Commission for the Classification of Cinematographic Works. This is an unusual choice for a film belonging to the thriller genre and therefore the fruit of the imagination of a good screenwriter, but the emotional impact caused by this story is so strong that it risks psychologically disturbing a younger audience, and not only. Mothers’ Instinct is a refined yet shocking noir that tells the story of two women, two mothers, and two friends whose relationship is destined to slowly deteriorate due to suspicion, guilt, and paranoia.
The two Oscar-winning stars Chastain and Hathaway play Alice and Céline respectively, whose seemingly perfect lives in a suburban center of 1960s America are suddenly turned upside down by a tragic accident involving one of their children. From that moment on their life will never be the same again. In our review of Mothers’ Instinct, we will tell you the main narrative points of the film (obviously, without any spoilers), we will analyze the direction of Benoit Delhomme, here in his debut behind the camera among other things, and we will explain in more detail because this US-style remake is unable to stand the merciless comparison with Double Suspicion, ending up having brought to the big screen a cinematic operation that is interesting and compelling, but which unfortunately is only half convincing.
Mothers Instinct Movie Review: The Story Plot
We are in the combed, powdered, wealthy, rigid America of the 1960s. A riot of hats, intricately embroidered dresses, pastel palettes, painted nails, pinned-up hairstyles, and heels sink into the garden soil during children’s birthday parties. Céline and Alice are neighbors, they are friends and confidants, capable of navigating the tensions of each other’s marriages together, supporting each other without envy in the face of the small black holes of their perfect life. They both have a husband who loves them, a nice car in the driveway, and a child who grows up playing in the garden with the neighbor’s son. The film opens with a seemingly sinister sequence: Alice (Jessica Chastain) sneaks into Céline’s (Anne Hathaway) house, using the spare key that her neighbor left her. The tension, however, is given more by the tense music blatantly positioned to give this sensation than by the skillful use of direction, editing, and shots.
The first scene of Mothers’ Instinct, with its banal and blatant way of managing a scene that is easily predictable in its outcome, but which should instead keep us on our toes, is already the sum of all the limitations of this film. Benoît Delhomme demonstrates in his directorial debut that he is not a director, that he does not have the talent, the inspiration, the vision necessary to compete with his Belgian colleague or in general with the medium-high level of foreigners to whom Hollywood gives a chance. A tragic event happens the relationship between the two protagonists begins to deteriorate their maternal instinct becomes the decisive and obsessive characteristic of their character (the title also reminds us of this, in case it wasn’t clear enough). It’s all obvious not because the plot told is banal or predictable, but because the film makes it so, using directorial and cinematographic vocabulary and grammar in an elementary and obvious way.
If Mothers’ Instinct is not a complete disaster it is because it has an excellent acting cast, confirming the problem of these productions: to make your debut in Hollywood you need important names, the stars move towards interesting but safe projects, reluctant to take on risks. Based on the novel “Beyond the Barrier” by Barbara Abel, Mothers’ Instinct is first of all a “third generation” film adaptation, because it is a direct remake (among other things, very faithful) of the film Double Suspect with Veerle Baetens and Anne Coesens, which it takes its inspiration from that book and which was presented with great critical and public success during 2018 at the Toronto International Film Festival. If the Belgian feature film directed by Olivier Masset-Depasse followed and paid homage with grace and intelligence to some of the narrative structures of the Alfred Hitchcock thriller, the directorial debut of the director of photography Benoit Delhomme is instead a thin operation, devoid of depth and artistic ambition, saved in equal measure by the content first of the novel and then of the 2018 film, and by two acting performances that illuminate Mothers’ Instinct even in its darkest moments.
Mothers’ Instinct Movie Review and Analysis
Comparisons aside, Mothers’ Instinct remains an excellent example of pleasant entertainment, a murky game of mysteries and deceptions in which – just like in the oldest of lessons taught by literature and cinema – nothing is ever really as it seems. Benoit Delhomme uses the typical clichés of the genre to confuse the viewer and try to undermine his certainties throughout the film. The story proceeds at a suffused but pressing pace, and even if the screenplay – signed by Sarah Conradt – perhaps claims to explain too much (or in any case, much more than Masset-Depasse did with greater awareness in his film), the profound disturbances that afflict the souls of the two protagonists are never diluted, and the tension built scene after scene does nothing but fuel a sense of restlessness and unease that the spectator experiences like Alice or Céline (it all depends on the character with whom we can empathize more, whether his actions are right or wrong).
Of course, part of the success of Mothers’ Instinct can also be attributed to its exceptional cast. Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway – who finally find themselves sharing the scene despite having previously taken part in the same film (Interstellar in 2014 and Armageddon Time in 2022) – immerse themselves with great class and dedication in two certainly uncomfortable roles, outlining two complex and layered female figures, involved in a fragile and ambiguous relationship, full of understanding but also of hostility, proving once again that they are two superlative interpreters: Hathaway is exceptional in the role of Céline, a woman who tries to reintegrate into society and to regain contact with reality after the most traumatic experience that can happen to a mother; Chastain, for her part, is the perfect counterpart in the role of Alice, a woman crushed by a sense of guilt, devoured by anxiety and victim of an apparent paranoia, who tries in every way not to lose that lucidity that she has so much struggled to regain.
What are you willing to do to be a mother (or to continue to be one)? This is the age-old but in its own way, an interesting question that poses a story like the one told in Mothers’ Instinct, a gripping psychological thriller that nevertheless addresses complex issues such as motherhood, the role of women, mental health, and the sense of guilt in perhaps too evanescent a manner. Delhomme’s remake is nevertheless able to exert a discreet charm thanks to a crescendo of ambiguity, paranoia, and tension, to the elegance of a staging capable of exploiting the potential that is hidden even in the smallest detail, but above all in two interpretations that contribute to cementing a strong disturbing feeling that winds throughout the entire viewing.
The ambiguity of the lives and psychologies of the two protagonists is emblematic from the very first scenes: Alice looks out of the glass window at home and watches her neighbor Céline leave in the car; with an impenetrable look, she takes the house keys from her neighbor, opens the door and sneaks into the home of the character played by Anne Hathaway: what could Alice possibly be planning? A few minutes into Delhomme’s film, we discover that it was simply about organizing a surprise birthday party for Céline; yet the first five minutes of Mothers’ Instinct are practically enough to instill suspicion, doubts, anxieties, and paranoia in the most casual spectator. The same ones that during the film story try to project the two protagonists played by the Oscar-winning American actresses onto each other. More than an adaptation of the novel Over the Hedge by Barbara Abel, Benoit Delhomme’s first feature film behind the camera is almost a carbon copy remake of Duelles by Olivier Masset-Depasse.
Of course, compared to the Belgian cult movie of 2018, the setting changes (here we are in a charming suburban neighborhood of the United States of America, amid the glittering 60s) and the actors in front of the camera, but the names of the characters, the scenes, and situations seem to slavishly follow the steady and confident pace of the murky thriller released in European theaters six years earlier. It’s a shame, however, that its predecessor Mothers’ Instinct doesn’t share the liveliness and freshness of its staging. Because the direction of Benoit Delhomme (the adapted screenplay was entrusted to the female pen of Sarah Conradt) seems not to want to commit to staging a cinematographic spectacle worthy of rising to the status of a conscientious and conscious American remake of Double Suspicion; everything that the French director and the American screenwriter bring to the table is a sense of reverence and respect towards the prestige of the 2018 Belgian feature film.
But the final package manages to only half convince because it is dangerously similar to the result of a product perhaps preferably destined on the small screen rather than in large cinemas. On the other hand, what keeps the attention of the spectator afloat, who perhaps hasn’t seen the previous film or hasn’t read the source novel, is the murky and ambiguous content of the narration, straddling suspicions and underground truths, drivers’ narratives that move and push the two protagonists to act against each other and with violent psychological consequences. Far from wanting to identify a scapegoat and a single culprit for the tragic events that dot Delhomme’s film, Mothers’ Instinct nevertheless maintains a dry and essential cinematic approach, always at a safe distance from the danger of blaming or pointing the finger at one or the other protagonist.
Qualities were already part of the artistic DNA of Doppio Suspetto, and which here the director of photography turned director respects and replicates, however without personality behind the camera, transforming his debut in the director’s cabin into a simplistic task well carried out, manneristic but without traces of forms of authorship on the horizon. However, this does not mean that Mothers’ Instinct is not a cinematographic work of any merit, because despite everything it offers the spectator two performances of great depth as an actress: in the dual role of producers of the film, Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway give complexity and facets suited to the Alice and Céline of the big screen, thus positioning them as some of the most effective and centered female portraits of their respective and shining careers. A double asset of great appeal that a remake of this genre needed to have in its arsenal, because it was in a dangerous balance between a low-budget operation that was only half successful and a remake that was not up to the standard of the brilliant progenitor of six years earlier.
Yet, Mothers’ Instinct at the end of the fair entertains and captivates, especially all those who will approach the film released in our theaters on Thursday 9 May with Vertice 360 without knowing anything about the pre-existing novel and film. This feature film, with extremely high-quality direction and photography, has the power to hypnotize us to the point of making us enter the story and trap us inside for the entire duration of the film, leaving us with a crescendo of tension that reaches its highest point at the end of the film which overwhelms, shocks and leaves you speechless, like a punch in the stomach. Mothers’ Instinct tells a dark and chilling story that addresses the themes of loss, psychological manipulation, motherhood, and above all mental health, sparking a very current and necessary debate on these topics. But what gives the film a touch of real class are the two leading actresses.
Chastain and Hathaway are two great interpreters of contemporary cinema and with this film, they give us an interpretation that is nothing short of excellent, dancing, with surprising naturalness, between opposing emotions and showing us the darkest sides of mourning, jealousy, guilt, and psychological weakness. Watching Mothers’ Instinct is not psychologically easy and what you will be left with at the end of the film will be mixed emotions. On the one hand, we appreciate its structural beauty and the quality of the interpretation of its leading actresses, on the other we cannot remain indifferent to the cruelty of the story told. So, prepare to feel pain, annoyance, resignation, and most of all anger. If it doesn’t sink in completely, the credit goes to Anne Hathaway who is truly fit and delightful to watch in her morbid ambiguity. The impeccable costume department and the make-up and hairstyle department deserve mention, offering a small show of bon ton 60s fashion.
Mothers’ Instinct Movie Review: The Last Words
Mothers’ Instinct is the American remake of the excellent Belgian thriller Double Suspect and the directorial debut of cinematographer Benoit Delhomme. It’s a shame, however, that the adaptation (all too faithful) and the staging are uninspired and reduced to bare bones; fortunately, Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway once again demonstrate great acting prowess. By entertaining, stirring consciences, and provoking emotions, whether positive or negative, Mothers’ Instinct has allowed cinema to do what it was created for: leave a mark. Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway – who finally find themselves sharing the scene despite having previously taken part in the same film (Interstellar in 2014 and Armageddon Time in 2022) – immerse themselves with great class and dedication in two certainly uncomfortable roles, outlining two complex and layered female figures, involved in a fragile and ambiguous relationship, full of understanding but also hostility, proving once again that they are two superlative interpreters.
Mothers’ Instinct Movie Review: The R-Rated Thriller Will Leave You Speechless - Filmyhype
Director: Benoit Delhomme
Date Created: 2024-05-09 16:43
3.5
Pros
- The acting performances of the two splendid protagonists
- The 60s setting
- The murky and enveloping story, between doubts and paranoia
Cons
- All in all, a remake that doesn't live up to the original
- Direction and adaptation are reduced to the bare bones
- The feeling is that of a somewhat missed opportunity
