Mothers’ Instinct is a curiosity. Released by Neon with little to no fanfare, the film centers two A-list actresses in a stylish 1960s domestic drama. Directed by cinematographer Benoit Delhomme, the picture is a remake of Olivier Masset-Depasse’s 2019 French film Duelles. While I’ve not seen the original, it’s worth noting that the film swept the 10th annual Magritte Awards — winning an unprecedented nine of its ten nominated categories.
One would not suspect those esteemed origins, though, with the way Mothers’ Instinct has been handled. Initially picked up for America in May 2022 by Neon and elsewhere the following month by StudioCanal, the quiet and subdued picture was not given much chance to take purchase on the festival circuit. That initial acquisition by Neon, in fact, happened within the 20 days before principal photography began. While it did pop in some European film fests shortly before certain regional releases — such as the Pleasure of Cinema Festival in Riva del Garda, Italy — it mostly flew by under the radar before its initial theatrical release in Lithuania on March 8, 2024.
Delhomme’s film wouldn’t hit American theaters until July 26. Under three weeks later, on August 10, Neon quietly released the film to digital platforms with practically no marketing to back it up. Part of my day job contract involves looking over movie and TV news. Searching the tag, I only see the film’s initial announcement four years ago, a trailer, and a few evergreen guides meant to snag people asking questions on Google. Now, the film is on Netflix, with sites like LadBible drudging click-y chum that a handful will gawp at for five minutes then move on with their lives. Because now, Mothers’ Instinct is just content — another thing to decide you don’t want to watch on Netflix because the new season of The Circle just got uploaded.
This is has become a trend in recent years. Three of my favorites of ‘23 — Fair Play, Who Cloned Tyrone, and Surrounded — went largely unseen and unconsidered. This year, George Miller’s towering three-hour opus, Furiosa, suffered a critical box office blow and flopped to Max by the end of the summer. And I don’t even have it in me to talk about The Flash right now. Neon — a respected distributor by this point — seems the sort of outfit to avoid this type of disreputable fly-by-night release. Yet Instinct didn’t pop up in any of the arthouse theaters I frequent in Portland. If it was booked at any local theaters at all, in fact, I must have missed it.
So did most, if the tone of that LadBible article and a few others like it are anything to go by. This past week seems to be the first time many are hearing about Mothers’ Instinct. And those watching are expecting… Something else. A common complaint among top Letterboxd reviews is the absence of comedy or camp from the bleak, languid picture. How anyone came to expect Mommy Dearest from a remake of a French domestic drama is beyond me.
Because Instinct is decidedly unfunny. Expecting comedy — intentional or not — from its grave set-up and the creatives involved feels disingenuous. Because while the picture may not be able to entice with over-the-top scares or overblown performances, it sings in its subtleties. Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain bring quiet, careful control to each scene they share — reining in the chaos with the sort of maternal restraint expected of their characters. Their pain and longing dwell behind forced smiles through teary, unblinking eyes. Rain, waiting to burst from the clouds.
These performances ground what could otherwise devolve into a generic ‘psychotic mother’ thriller. The film’s first inflection point comes when Alice (Chastain) spies Celine’s (Hathaway) son playing on the rails of his second-story balcony. Alice rushes into her neighbor’s house and confuses the boy’s mother, who follows close behind. But it’s too late — the boy falls and dies on impact.
Celine is left bereaved and listless. Her husband, Damian (Josh Charles) withdraws after the accident. Her friendship with Alice suffers under mutual shame. But then — she begins to bond with Alice’s son, Theo, when his mother isn’t watching. This is where the lines in Mothers’ Instinct start to blur, as Celine’s insistence on spending time with Theo crosses a few uncomfortable lines for Alice. Is this an attempt to reconcile her grief? Or is Celine trying to take over Alice’s maternal duties out of spite? There’s no one clear-cut answer as the film proceeds, as the prospective audience is given ample reason to doubt and believe both principal leads.
Both Damian and Alice’s husband Simon (Anders Danielsen Lie) provide the necessary social misogyny inherent to Instinct’s time period. Damian drinks himself into a sad, unpredictable stupor and blames Celine for not grieving ‘his’ son enough. Meanwhile, Simon belittles and discounts every suspicion Alice has due to her past mental health issues — even threatening to have her institutionalized at one point in the film. Embodied in both men are the attitudes of this time period, and their offhand behavior speaks a lot louder than overt, on-screen domestic violence. It’s just accepted that men can talk to their wives like this — to threaten their autonomy and belittle their intelligence. Normalization in action.
One of the unspoken but ever-present elements of the film is tied into both husbands, or rather, the absence of them. In the early parts of Mothers’ Instinct, before their bond has frayed beyond repair, both Alice and Celine are physically and emotionally close. They lean on each other, caress one another, and pledge complete devotion every step of the way. As Celine couldn’t hear her son playing on the balcony as she vacuumed, and Alice only saw him when she was taking care of the yard, one is naturally invited to think, “What if they weren’t cleaning?”
“What if—” both Delhomme and writer Sarah Conradt seem to implore — “the social and domestic burdens of these two women who love their sons weren’t present? How might they love? What sort of family might they make?” Better, brighter theoreticals — dashed against the back lawn like a preteen’s skull. Drowned with the second glass of whiskey.
But it’s in how Mothers’ Instinct resolves that inspired me to write anything on it. Because while I don’t want to just nakedly lay out the back half of the film, I do want to emphasize — it’s surprising. The simmering tensions of the first act boil over into hot, steamy frothy with a stiff aftertaste most audiences won’t expect. There are surprisingly bleak insights into American motherhood present here, specifically as it pertains to the idea of who is “mentally fit” to be a mother. Further, the climax itself is a queasy and uncertain conclusion that flies in the face of films about motherhood made in the past few years. It’s refreshing to watch an American film with actors of this caliber that is so avoidant of didactic morality or spoon-fed narrative.
The stylistic restraint present, as well, is commendable. It’s easy to see Instinct turning into pulpy, low-rent ‘killer mom’ fluff ready-made for cult consumption. Instead, Delhomme wisely sticks to subtle scene compositions and suitably still camerawork to match. His shots often embody a stark duality — one striking frame is half white window curtain, half Jessica Chastain’s peeking face. Behind her face is the only pop of color, a complementing tartan curtain. As Alice eyes Celine with suspicion, we see the white serenity expected of her versus the fiery, complex patterns she’s feeling in that moment. It’s one shot, but one of many like it — quiet moments where Delhomme trusts his mise en scene to do its work and simply provides a steady, careful eye to view it with.
When the tension does come, it’s the editing of Juliette Welfling that brings displacement and distress to Mothers’ Instinct. As Alice and Celine’s trust of each other begin to slip, edits grow faster, and the actions between them grow larger. By the last fifteen to twenty minutes, we’re pelted with the beginnings of slow actions and the sharp jumps to their completion. A climactic stand-off in Alice’s home, and the lead-up to it, are the main perpetrators of this technique. While unnecessary fast cuts are a travesty, the almost perverse dissonance this lends to the picture is nothing short of breathtaking. By this point in the picture, we don’t whether to trust Alice or Celine. Welfling, then, ensures that the audience can’t even trust the film itself. A stylish and winning decision.
Mothers’ Instinct is one of 2024’s winners not just for direction, editing, and acting, however. At a not-too-recent point in history, two A-listers leading a queasy prestige thriller from a French director would’ve been a selling point. Now, actors are lucky if any of their non-branded vehicles can even leave the depot. How many platforms compete for dwindling mindshare and how few films succeed at the box office result in situations like, well, this. Good films unattached to any recognizable IP, with no lurid or grotesque selling points — comedic, horrific, or otherwise — simply cannot hang in today’s marketplace.
Yet they do get made. They must, if the art is to continue breathing. These failures must accrue and mount up until they become unacceptable. Because while they might be failures in the eyes of investor types, they are the furthest thing from artistically bankrupt.
back soon, with something more adult for my paid backers!
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