Mother’s Instinct movie review: Unsurprising suburban thriller

Mother`s Instinct

Film: Mother's Instinct
Cast: Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Eamon Patrick O'Connell, Anders Danielsen Lie, Josh Charles
Director: Benoît Delhomme
Rating: 2.5/5
Runtime: 94 min

A suburban thriller set in the 60's this motherhood dictated drama draws out murderous fears and criminal intent through tragic circumstance. Renowned cinematographer turned director Benoît Delhomme makes the picture look distinctive enough but the overall treatment fails to generate surprise or enthusiasm. This female-centred psychological thriller, uses maternal grief and guilt as a construct for spreading thin a hugely predictable suspense story.

The cinematography is imminently alluring here. Alice (Jessica Chastian) and Celine ( Anne Hathaway), neighbors and best of friends living with their respective husbands and one-child families in Suburban New Jersey, find their close sisterhood tearing-up after an unforeseen tragedy upends their lives. Ambiguity takes over as a taut, jittery Alice and an inconsolable grieving Celine teeter around edgy paranoia and suspicious behavior.

A largely faithful remake of Olivier Masset-Depasse's dark 2018 Belgian drama Duelles, this film fails to generate crackling tension or biting suspense. The narrative feels overdone with both lead performances bordering on the melodramatic. Josh Charles's as the grief-stricken father and Anders Danielsen Lie as the matter-of-fact husband are the only ones who lend heft to this telling even with underwritten roles. First-time director Delhomme manages to create a visual language interspersed with some amount of dread but its not enough for a completely immersive experience. The production design and costume work are noteworthy, meticulous in detail.

The simplistic narrative is enhanced by some old-fashioned thriller tropes but the predictability subverts the enjoyment. Scriptwriter Sarah Conradt fails to bring out the unhinged elements of Barbara Abel's novel and Delhomme's direction feels too placid to enhance the wicked by-play. The plot could have been a killer if only Delhomme had gone full-throttle in establishing atmosphere and tension. The duality of the characters is never established and the colorful window dressing appears to be the only distinctive hallmark here. There's quite a bit of drama but with no real empathy developing for the characters, the audience is bound to feel left out from the what transpires on screen. The final act feels comically hyper-real and fails to make sense altogether.

The ending feels rushed and the resolution lacks the emotional payoff that we were expecting.