Taglines: Sometimes it’s the only thing you can trust.
Mothers’ Instinct movie storyline. Set in the early ’60s, best friends and neighbors Alice (Jessica Chastain) and Celine (Anne Hathaway) both live an idyllic traditional lifestyle with manicured lawns, successful husbands, and sons of the same age. Life’s perfect harmony is suddenly shattered after a tragic accident. Guilt, suspicion and paranoia combine to unravel their sisterly bond a psychological battle of wills begins as the maternal instinct reveals its darker side.
Mothers’ Instinct is a 2024 American psychological thriller film directed by Benoît Delhomme in his directorial debut, and starring Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, Anders Danielsen Lie, and Josh Charles. It is a remake of Olivier Masset-Depasse’s 2018 French-language film, which itself was an adaptation of the 2012 novel Mothers’ Instinct (French: Derrière la haine) by Barbara Abel. Mothers’ Instinct was released in the United States on July 26, 2024.
About the Story
In suburban America in 1960, Alice and Céline are next-door neighbors, and both mothers to boys of a similar age. Alice stages a surprise party for Céline’s birthday, during which tensions between Alice and her husband become apparent. The next day, Céline’s son, Max, stays home sick from school.
Alice spots Max standing precariously on a balcony, trying to hang a birdhouse he made at school, she tries to go through a shortcut passageway in the fence the kids made but she can’t go in, so she runs around the house to the front gate and attempts to alert his mother, but the two are unable to act quickly enough and Max falls to his death.
After her son’s death, Céline distances herself from Alice, but grows closer to her son, Theo. At Max’s funeral, Theo notices one of his own toys in Max’s coffin and lashes out. After the funeral, Céline leaves for an unknown location for a month, and when she returns, she reconciles with Alice. One day Alice leaves Theo with Céline at her house and she sees Theo playing bubbles on the same balcony Max fell from.
She panics and runs to him, but this time she can cross the passageway through the fence and immediately gets near to Céline’s house. Céline appears beside Theo, explaining she was there watching the kid but she quickly noticed Alice could get through the fence for her own son, unlike the last time for Max.
Alice also notices that and thinks the incident was Céline’s attempt to test her. Theo grows even closer with Céline, to the point of inviting her to his birthday party, much to Alice’s dismay. The party goes as expected, but afterward, Alice’s mother-in-law (Simon’s mother) suddenly collapses, dying of a heart attack.
Simon’s mother has been taking medication for her heart, but an autopsy carried out at Alice’s request reveals no trace of that medication in her bloodstream. Alice suspects that Céline has been replacing the drug with a placebo, but her attempts to find evidence prove fruitless. Alice’s suspicions deepen when Theo is hospitalized after a severe allergic reaction at Céline’s house, with Alice believing Céline has deliberately encouraged Theo to eat food to which he is allergic. Alice enters Céline’s house while she is out one day to attempt to find evidence, but Céline catches her and orders her to leave.
Alice and Simon contemplate moving away from Céline, but the two eventually reconcile after Theo threatens to take his own life in response to their feud. Later that night, Céline kills her husband by sedating him with chloroform and slicing his wrist, making it look like a suicide.
Alice and Simon allow a seemingly distraught Céline to stay with them, but while Alice goes to Céline’s house to gather the rest of Céline’s things, Céline sedates Simon and Theo. When Alice discovers this, she and Céline fight. Alice initially fends off Céline’s attempt to forcibly sedate her, but Céline later does succeed in sedating her and killing both her and Simon by disconnecting their boiler to stage a gas leak. She spares Theo and later adopts him.
Directed by: Benoît Delhomme
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, Anders Danielsen, Josh Charles, Eamon O’Connell, Caroline Lagerfelt, Baylen D. Bielitz, Steve Routman, Keeley Miller, Joel Nagle, Alexander Blaise
Screenplay by: Sarah Conradt
Production Design by: Russell Barnes
Cinematography by: Benoît Delhomme
Film Editing by: Juliette Welfling
Costume Design by: Mitchell Travers
Set Decoration by: Daniel R. Kersting
Art Direction by: Ernesto Solo
Music by: Anne Nikitin
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Neon
Release Date: March 8, 2024 (Lithuania), July 26, 2024 (United States)
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