Film Review — Mothers’ Instinct
Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway chew scenery in Benoît Delhomme’s solid psychological thriller
Based on Olivier Masset-Depasse’s Duelles (2018), which I confess I haven’t seen, Benoît Delhomme’s English language remake is the second screen version of Barbara Abel’s novel Mothers’ Instinct, and it’s rather good. Featuring a pair of strong leads in Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain, their names appear in precisely the same configuration in the opening credits as Steve McQueen and Paul Newman’s did in The Towering Inferno (1974), with one name in the top right-hand corner and one in the lower left: an attempt to visually signal equal billing. Whether this credit is an in-joke or something contractual I’ve no idea, but regardless, this vaguely Hitchcockian psychological thriller simmers entertainingly throughout.
Set in early picturesque 1960s suburban America, Alice (Chastain) and Céline (Hathaway) are next-door neighbours and close friends. With their glamorous dresses and hair, and chain-smoking, smart-suited husbands Simon (Anders Danielsen Lie) and Damian (Josh Charles), everyone looks like they strayed from the set of TV series Mad Men. Their children Max (Baylen D Bielitz) and Theo (Eamon Patrick O’Connell) play together, and at first, all seems well. Then tragedy strikes (the trailer spoils…
