Alice (Jessica Chastain) and Celine (Anne Hathaway) are living the perfect suburban 1960’s life. Neighbours in a beautiful residential street, successful husbands providing for them and both with seven-year-old sons who are best friends. But when tragedy strikes and an accident takes Celine’s child from her, everything is upended. Is it hatred or suspicion that has taken control? 

Opening with a small fake out that foreshadows what is to come, Mothers’ Instinct goes on to display the picture perfect American Dream lifestyle. The only minor grumbles from the protagonists about their picture perfect lives is that Alice would like to return to work and Celine is unable to have any more children. Everyone in the two neighbourly families are friends. Husbands Simon (Anders Danielsen Lie) and Damien (Josh Charles) talk about politics, sons Theo (Eamon Patrick O’Connell) and Max (Baylen D. Bielitz) play together all the time and Alice and Celine are like sisters. 

The tragedy that befalls them all is when Max falls from the balcony of his home and dies. Celine is downstairs vacuuming and unable to hear Alice’s screams. Whilst Alice is unable to squeeze through the bush that separates the families homes as she tries to warn Max and gain his attention. The death devastates them all. 

The question of who is most disturbed by the death is what fuels the rest of the film. Is Celine disturbed enough to truly believe it was Alice’s fault? Unable to have anymore children of her own is she really systematically destroying Alice’s life in an effort to claim Theo as her own? Or is it Alice whose guilt is causing her to lose grip on reality? She previously needed psychiatric help when her parents died in a car accident because she was unable to separate the grief from the guilt. Is she misreading what is happening and imagining Celine’s hate? 

Mothers’ Instinct is a film I hoped would be better than it was. With Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway together on screen in a film with adult themes I was hoping for a riveting drama with stellar performances. The result though is rather staid and feels stage like rather than cinematic. Debutant director Benoit Delhomme is a seasoned cinematographer and his goal was either to keep the tone completely measured and controlled throughout or he focused too much on what he knows best which is the framing of the image. Even when the film is escalating to its final moments it remains measured and calm. If that was the goal then it was achieved but it did not work for me in giving any sense of impact to the events on screen. 

As for Chastain and Hathaway they are typically good. But neither gets to deliver scene stealing or mind blowing characters. Again everything is quite typical of this sort of psychological thriller. 

The outcome is fine. It’s intriguing and watchable. But there is nothing particularly memorable that remains with you. What does intrigue me now is whether the film it was based on, 2018’s French language Duelles or the 2012 novel Derrière La Haine that was based on have the same tone.