Mothers’ Instinct (2024)

Mothers'-Instinct-(2024)
Mothers’ Instinct (2024)

The drama in “Mothers’ Instinct” is driven mostly by the plot, which is what I think allows the film to continue. The storyline about mothers doesn’t seem foreign to society. It was kind of cheap seeing these two great actresses in a melodramatic duel, and it is also appealing at some level. But, nevertheless, Benoit Delhomme (Cinematographer of “A Most Wanted Man,” “At Eternity’s Gate,” and many other films) can’t decide what film he is shooting. In its most commercial aspect, The Sisters seems to me like something that emerged ‘in the silver age’ of practicing authors, an offspring of pictures such as “Leave Her to Heaven” or “Gaslight”. However, there are disquieting undercurrents of emerging modern mystery drama which clashes best with the silly last half of the film. Even so, at the center of this borderline mess are the parts of two actresses in whom femininity has been shaped by what the film “Mothers’ Instinct” could have been, assuming it had a defined point of view and told a more cohesive story.

Based on the lightly adapted French film “Dulles”, “Mothers’ Instinct” is set in a classic American suburb in the 60s. It is a time when people put on even the most casual type of clothing for a semi-formal event. There is a certain flamboyance among women and men do not forget to put on a tie! Loosely scripted by Sarah Conradt, the film by Delhomme focuses primarily on two characters, Alice (Jessica Chastain) and Celine (Anne Hathaway) who are presented as the husbands’ wives. Earlier in the beginning, we’re introduced to the husbands, Simon (Anders Danielsen Lie) and Damian (Josh Charles) however it seems there’s some underlying stress in both the couples. It is also mentioned that Celine and Damian fought for Max (Baylen D. Bielitz) to be the only child they had. As we see Max playing with the son of Alice and Simon, Theo (Eamon O’Connell) it’s revealed that the former is allergic to almonds in a plot development that’s often referred to as ‘Chekhov’s Gun’. (In a well-defined script, saying that a character has an allergy without any follow-up seems absurd).

One day, Alice watches her daughter play around near the window and Jesus Christ sees Max balancing on the third floor of a family apartment and attempting to place a bird feeder on the balcony railing.

She completely panics, trying to cross the gap between the two houses that the children had created, but she’s too late as Max dies when his mom is vacuuming. Obviously, both women sink into the depths of grief. Celine grieves the death of a child, which any mother would never want to face, Alice on the other hand, grieves whether she did everything possible to reach Max before he fell. Behind the cynical twists, there is a wondrously tragic story, and it is about the trauma survivors and how they rebuild their entire worlds that have been destroyed. How on Earth do you get through the entire day and not be able to face your own neighbor the same way ever again?

Alice begins to consider that Celine’s character arc has come to a conclusion that earned this film-aged Hitchcock. Not ruining anything, it should be stated that Max is not the last descendant of these families to perish, while Alice has good reason to fear, Celine may well have transformed her grief into revenge. The most interesting of the three parts of “Mothers’ Instinct” is the second one because it makes us ask ourselves if Celine turned violent, or if these are simply coincidences.

Is it not possible that it is Alice’s guilt that makes her think the worst? Hathaway and Chastain are indeed very good in this midsection, together with one of my favorite line readings of the former’s career. With her work in the better film “Eileen” and now this, Hathaway is showing how much she would have fit perfectly in the different era of Hollywood and I am here for it. Both performers sometimes get a little histrionic, but they are restrained when the script requires them to be, each managing to strengthen the film through their distinct performances as actresses.

However, a persistent problem of understanding what kind of movie “Mothers’ Instinct” wants to be becomes a serious drawback in the last third of the film. It aims to be both Sirk and Hitch but lacks the richness of the former and the teeth of the latter which makes some of the truly insane ending decisions look completely out of place. More time developing a sense of tension might have helped as it is a film that all too often feels frantic with its many plot twists it’s 94 minutes long after all when allowing the mysteries a great deal more time to resolve would have worked better. In the end, it fails to deliver any coherent ambiance which leaves its otherwise flawless leading ladies in a film that manages to expose them but does less than enough to emotionally block them, thus making them feel merely constrained by the movie.

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