A mothers instinct about their children is more often than not right and you’ve got to wonder why Hitler’s mum never had a word in his ear as he got older. Today you’ve also got to to wonder why, in a world of teenage tosspot tik-tokkers and idiotic influencers, why a mothers instinct hasn’t kicked in and told their kids to get a proper job. But the mothers in cinematographer turned director Benoit Delhomme new 1960’s set thriller are devoted to their kids. Celine (Anne Hathaway) and Alice (Jessica Chastain) are neighbours whose sons Max and Theo are best buddies forever in each others companies sneaking through a gap in the back garden hedge. Their fathers are very much in the background here in an era when the men went out to earn whilst their wives were child rearing homemakers.
Both kids are only children and Celine and her husband had struggled to conceive and Alice’s husband frequently makes unintended faux pas in front of them to his own about having more kids. That Alice is blonde, her husband brown haired and their son is pasty faced and ginger must surely have had them wary of switching on a high wattage lamp for fear of him getting skin cancer. But after the accidental death of Max falling from his bedroom balcony things soon begin to spiral between the two mothers as Alice soon notices her offers of condolence seemingly ignored or avoided. Does Celine blame Alice for her son’s death? Soon Alice agonizes that maybe she could have prevented the accident. It’s not long before there’s a suggestion that Celine trauma has led to some unstable behaviour with certain events that occur until it is revealed that Alice herself has previously suffered from a mental health episode that has seen her husband section her. It’s a fine balance that keeps the audience on its toes as to something more sinister going on. Mothers instinct has been likened to the work of Hitchcock and in that respect there’s something of his 1941 film ‘Suspicion’ about the proceedings
Both Oscar winning actresses are on top form here with the audience left in doubt as to who might be to blame that sees the women become best of frenemies. And though the ending is a little daft if not downright improbable the journey there is immensely entertaining.
related feature : Olivia Colman & Jessie Buckley introduce Wicked Little Letters
related feature : Guillermo Del Toro’s ‘Crimson Peak’ – DVD / BLU RAY disc review
We spoke to director Benoit Delhomme about the making of the film….
Here’s the Mothers’Instinct trailer….
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