I watched the trailer for this film a couple of times in the cinema, I didn't realise it was a remake of a Belgian film, which I was unable to find to watch before; Mark Kermode gave this film a relatively positive review while the Radio Times which gave it 2 out of 5, I decided to watch it and make my own mind up. Basically, set in the 1960s, in the American suburbs, Alice (Jessica Chastain, also producing) and Celine (Anne Hathaway, also producing) are next-door neighbours and mothers with sons of a similar age. Alice and Celine's friends and family stage a surprise birthday party for her. There are tensions between Alice and her husband Simon (Anders Danielsen Lie) during the party, and that night, she tells him she wants to go back to work as a journalist. She also suggests that they should have another child together; Celine cannot have any more children. The next day, Celine's son Max (Baylen D. Bielitz) is unwell and stays home from school. Alice is pruning the roses in the garden when she sees Max in a precarious position on the balustrade of the upper balcony trying to reach a birdhouse. Alice tries to crawl through the hedge but is forced to run around it to alert Celine of the danger. Alice runs upstairs, but neither she nor Celine get there quick enough, and Max falls off the balcony to his death. Alice feels guilty for not saving Max, and Celine appears to be distancing herself from her, perhaps blaming her for the accident. Alice notices Celine growing closer to her son Theo (Eamon Patrick O'Connell), who feels lost without his friend to play with. Alice finds solace in spending time with Theo, while her husband Damien (Josh Charles) has become depressed. At Max's funeral, Theo notices his treasured bunny rabbit toy has been placed in Max's coffin and lashes out. Celine apologises to Theo for taking the toy, and although she returns it, Alice has suspicions about her actions. A month later, Celine returns from an unknown location (possibly a mental hospital) and reconciles with Alice. Theo grows even closer to Celine. One day, Alice panics when she sees Theo on the same balcony next-door but manages to crawl through the hedge. Celine appears up there with him but is confused by Alice's reaction, and Alice is shocked and angered by her calmness. The following day, Alice questions Celine if she was testing her, but Celine makes her feel guilty for insinuating this. Theo has become so close to Celine that he invites her to his birthday party, much to Alice's disdain. The party goes normally, but Simon's mother Jean (Caroline Lagerfelt) talks to Celine, suggesting she should avoid anything that might remind her of Max. When Jean next visits, she suddenly collapses and dies of a heart attack. Paranoid that Celine was present at the time of death, she requests an autopsy from Dr. Wallace (Alexander Blaise), without Damien's knowledge. The autopsy reveals that there was no heart medication in Jean's system. Alice suspects that Celine tampered with Jean's medication but cannot find proof. Alice's suspicions increase when Theo is taken to hospital after a severe allergic reaction at Celine's house. Alice believes that Celine deliberately encouraged Theo to eat cookies, which he is allergic to. When Alice sees Celine leaving her house, she decides to sneak in to try to find evidence of her tampering with the drugs, but Celine catches her and orders her to leave. Alice tells Simon about everything she has noticed and mentions the autopsy without his permission. But Alice has had mental issues in the past, Simon is convinced that these issues are resurfacing, he does not believe her and suggests she should see a psychiatrist. Alice tells Simon that she wants to move away, after everything that has happened surrounding Celine. But Theo threatens to take his own life in response to their arguing and they try to reconcile as Alice admits she must be imagining things. However, later that night, Celine is seen killing her own husband, sedating him with chloroform, and slicing his wrist, making it look like a suicide. Despite the tension between them, Alice and Simon allow a seemingly distraught Celine to stay with them. Alice and Celine appear to reconcile talking things through. But when Alice decides to go next door to gather Celine's belongings, Celine sedates Simon and Theo. Alice finds evidence of Celine's twisted motives, including the chloroform, and races back. She and Celine fight, with Celine overpowering Alice and sedating her. Alice and Simon are killed when Celine disconnects a boiler to make it look like an accidental gas leak. She avoids the gas herself and spares Theo by barricading herself in his bedroom with the window open. In the end, Celine adopts Theo, and the two are happy together spending a fay at the beach. Also starring T. L. Flint as Officer, Steve Routman as Medical Examiner, Joel Nagle as Attorney, Scott Robertson as Judge, and Larry Petersen as Pastor. Chastain as the highly paranoid neighbour and Hathaway as the obsessive woman with a warped mind both give credible performances, I can see the comparison to a Hitchcockian psychodrama, with emotions running high and the "potboiler" plot building up with paranoia, anxiety and silent hatred increasing between the two women, I agree it gets a bit too ludicrous by the end, but you cannot help but want to know where it is going, and the costumes and period detail is terrific, it is a glossy and tense enough psychological thriller. Worth watching!
Review of Mothers' Instinct
