Mothers’ Instinct (M18)

94 minutes, opens on March 14
2 stars

The story: It is the 1960s, and Alice and Celine (Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway respectively) are happy suburban housewives taking care of their husbands, children and homes. They are also neighbours and close friends. When tragedy strikes Celine, grief turns to suspicion and events spiral out of control. This is an American remake of the French film Duelles (2018), which is adapted from the 2012 novel Derriere La Haine (Behind The Hatred) by Belgian author Barbara Abel.

For the first half of the film, the story dwells on the pleasures and anxieties of the two mothers. 

Alice (Chastain) and Celine (Hathaway) pour their energies into becoming perfect housewives. Everything they do is aimed at making their homes prettier and keeping their children safe and happy. 

Their husbands, meanwhile, are breadwinners, and that is that. Should the women bring up the subject of careers outside the home, they get a gentle rebuke.

Dreaming about a job other than vacuuming and raising children is a betrayal of the marriage, the husbands say. The unspoken assumption is that a win for the women is a loss for the men. 

When tragedy strikes, the consequences of shaping one’s life and identity around motherhood come to haunt them.

French film-maker Benoit Delhomme, a seasoned cinematographer making a directorial debut, has opted to find a middle ground between artifice and realism.

The acting is naturalistic and the soundtrack is gently non-intrusive. The flat, even lighting telegraphs the notion that this is the idealised American version of suburbia.

Chastain and Hathaway are flawless but, as leads in a movie designed to showcase their dramatic talent, they do not get much to chew on here. 

The film’s middle-of-the-road approach, which takes the lane between a television-style domestic drama and a psychological thriller, feels unsatisfying.

In 2024, audiences expect more. A film cannot just say that the pre-feminism 1960s were the happy days portrayed in today’s nostalgia industry.

Perhaps there is a cautionary tale here. For those wondering why studios make so few twisty, women-in-peril Hitchcock-style thrillers, it is because they are difficult to pull off. 

Hot take: This psychological thriller aims too low to be either psychological or thrilling.