Mothers' Instinct

Set in a middle class 60's setting which is beautifully done, 2 families who are dear friends both experience unforeseen trauma in their lives which leads to a catastrophic end.

I'm not a grand fan of Hathaway who plays Celine, but this pairing with Chastain who plays Alice is cinematic gold. The story follows the pair through trauma and heartbreak with an ultimate end of a perfect pairing.

The film at first is slow and kind of reminds you of the old slow starting films of the 60's. But it's done so nicely that it's not onerous to follow the story being set. Slowly but surely events unfold and you realise something is happening but you're not sure what.

Eventually 1 mystery is solved but it only opens up another mystery, and then another, and then another.

I'd not say it kept me on the edge of my seat, but it certainly held my attention with ease. I particularly loved the way it made me feel deep sympathy with both star characters, knowing that 1 or perhaps both of them was the 'bad guy'. Then again, perhaps neither of them were and they were being manipulated by someone else... Pitting them against one another was a great move and kept me guessing until the end.

The sets and wardrobe and even the traits of people were absolutely on point for the 60's, and I loved how there was no extraneous noise affecting the main script. No police interviews, no secondary characters poking their noses in, and no grand arguments with threats and shouting. It was all very muted and yet was foreboding in it's quiet, like a great Hitchcock movie, but obviously not near as good.

All in all a great story and a great film with great actors and I give it a solid 7.

I think this film is brilliantly done. Anyone of a certain age remembers the way of life during the time period in which this is set and it's a thriller play on words, so to speak. The setting and style is spot on down to the smallest detail, to the point the thriller story itself is the secondary plot. I suspect certain generations may not quite get the significance. Chastain and Hathaway played their roles perfectly. I give this a high score because I do appreciate the nuances of life unfolding on screen and the sort of Hitchock'ish ... but not...chilling thriller innuendo that presents. I totally get it and I totally liked it.

I am a guy and this movie is primarily about the relationship between two women, two mothers, each with a husband and an 8-yr-old son. So I didn't know if I would enjoy it but I like both actresses, Chastain and Hathaway, so I watched it out of trust that they would not participate in a poor movie. It is actually a remake of a 2018 French movie "Duelles", with the same character names and the same basic story.

Filmed in New Jersey, the story is set in the 1960s, in one scene they are talking about whether new president JFK was too young, and one of the ladies says Jackie will run things anyway. Jessica Chastain is Alice and Anne Hathaway is Céline. They live next door to each other in a middle class neighborhood and each has a key to the other home. Their sons are best friends.

Then a tragedy strikes and that changes all the friend and family dynamics. It quickly develops into a very dark story as the family losses pile up and it is hard to say which are the stable ones. The ending was a total surprise to me, and is a very dark conclusion.

While it turns out to be a not very pleasant movie I enjoyed the viewing experience. My wife skipped, somehow she thought she had already watched the movie. Did she really?

At home, on DVD from my public library.

The beginning started out promising and the acting is superb as what you can expect from A-listers such as Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway. Kinda remind me of Fractured in Netflix as the premise is kinda guessing whether it is the bad guy and the hallucinating side. Sadly, those talents and concept are wasted in what started out as an intriguing story then turns into something dull boring with laughable ending.

There are plot holes here and there alongside with the SUPER PREDICTABLE storyline which makes the thrill gone by the end of the first half. With its 95 mins run time they can actually stretch it a bit and make it into something out of ordinary instead of this rushed B movie kind of story. Don't waste your time in the cinema for this.

The movie universe it so saturated these days that a film with two Oscar winning actresses in the lead roles can come out and almost no one will ever hear about it. It doesn't help that the film has a title that sounds like a Lifetime film and a poster that is unimaginably bland. Seriously? No one could come up with anything better than just the two of them standing side by side?

Which is all a shame because the film is decent. In fairness it's my kind of movie, so I'm probably going to enjoy it more than most. But as far as reasonably grounded domestic thrillers go, this had all the right ingredients. A catastrophic event leading to major consequences with some mystery and darker themes lurking beneath the surface. Sign me up.

The old trope of the annoying child is going to bug a few people. Hollywood has been fixing this a bit more often in recent times, but this film had a big serving of it. However if you simply want to see two pretty good actresses going toe to toe in a surprisingly heavy film then this may be up your alley. 7.5/10.