Mothers’ Instinct
Dustin Chase
If you’ve been missing slightly campy psychological thrillers that defined a subgenre in the 90s…. “Mothers’ Instinct” will satisfy that craving. It’s a bit of Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling” mixed with the 1992 video store classic “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”. Oscar winners Jessica Chastain (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”) and Anne Hathaway (“The Idea of You”) bring the drama in colorful and overwrought performances as friends, mothers, and wives from the early 1960s. Chock full of “no she didn’t” and “I cannot believe this,” moments, “Mothers’ Instinct” is fast-paced at 90 minutes and rarely offers the audience a chance to catch their breath (or contemplate how ridiculous that was).
If you lived on the idyllic street in New Jersey in the 60’s where Alice (Chastain) and Celine (Hathaway) reside, you would envy their life. Best friends, next-door neighbors, and even their children are best friends. Everything changes when tragedy strikes. Envy, guilt, blame, and paranoia infect both households. They stay home mothers, watch through second-floor windows, lurk around garden hedges at each other, as if playing a real-life game of chess. Alice, more open with her feelings, theories, and suspicions, begins worrying her pragmatic husband Simon (Anders Danielsen-Lie) about having another mental episode. Celine and her husband Damian (Josh Charles), each dealing with grief in their own ways, withdraw from society. Alice’s eight-year-old son Theo (Eamon Patrick O’Connell) is caught in the crossfire as the women’s friendship deteriorates.
[Jessica Chastain] redefines the old saying, “If looks could kill.”
The theme here is psychological torture, 1960’s housewife edition. Hathaway’s Celine is Jackie Kennedy-like in her look and demeanor. Her initial behavior is what you expect of 60’s film-era female characters. Chastain’s Alice on the other hand is more modern, frustrated by the limitations society has on women. This offers Chastain a more studied, internal performance. Looks, nods, and horrified reactions are all captured without grand melodrama. She redefines the old saying “If looks could kill.” The anxiety within the story bleeds over to the audience, we quickly catch on to the film’s pacing that every scene is large brush strokes. Subtly has no place in this movie. Even the costumes are so overdone it’s almost distracting.
Do tragedies create villains, or do they simply expose what you couldn’t see before? “Mothers’ Instinct” rarely gives us time to contemplate that question or any other as it races to an unpredictable ending. The conclusion is as divisive as the rest of the film, so points for consistency. It’s a love-it-or-hate-it kind of film. You either relish this type of drama and suspense or you are glad these types of movies ended in the 90’s. For some there is diabolical enjoyment in watching two actresses at the top of their game go after each other: “August Osage County” pitted Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep; “Notes on a Scandal” had Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench, are both film’s superior examples. The film isn’t perfect, it’s a quantity of thrilling scenes over quality at every
Final Thought
Chastain and Hathaway deliver audacious performances in the twist-a-minute, psychological thriller.