Whenever we catch wind of an Americanized remake of a non-English film, a variety of questions spring to mind: “Why are we doing this?” “Is this necessary?” “Will this encourage people to seek out the original film?” “Will there be a Deadpool cameo, at least?”
All very valid and pressing inquiries that Hollywood ought to give the utmost consideration going forward. For now, though, this impulse remains one of the great mysteries of the entertainment machine, and so if we have to put up with films like 2024’s Mothers’ Instinct, we should at least try and enjoy the complimentary presence of Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain. That’s what the residents of Hulu seem to be doing, after all.
Per FlixPatrol, 2024’s Mothers’ Instinct has cemented itself atop the United States’ Hulu film charts at the time of writing, edging out its fellow motherhood-centric thriller Nightbitch, which rests at second place.
Based on Olivier Masset-Depasse’s 2018 film of the same name, which in turn is based on the 2012 novel Behind the Hatred (Derrière la haine) by Barbara Abel, Mothers’ Instinct stars Hathaway and Chastain as Céline and Alice, two neighbors living in 1960s America who are best friends, and whose sons share a hearty bond of their own. But when one of their children succumbs to a tragic accident, the resulting psychological domino effect begins to unravel both of their lives.
Mothers’ Instinct is a case where its players give far more to the movie than the movie could ever give back to them. Ironically, it’s as though Hathaway and Chastain are mothering the film, guiding it along with their subtle intensity and anxiety-inducing body language, single-handedly breathing emotional life to these characters the film only seems half-interested in accommodating. It’s a parent-child relationship that was supposed to be a collaborative artist-art relationship, and one can only imagine how restless that dynamic would be for the actresses.
And really, that might be the most effective lens to view this movie through. Céline and Alice are facing psychologically torturous turmoil from their predicament, and that turmoil is inseparable from their identities as mothers — mothers, of course, oft being burdened with many a thankless responsibilities and expectations. Simultaneously, the effectiveness of Mothers’ Instinct as a film hinges squarely on Hathaway and Chastain’s performances; a thankless responsibility all its own that could easily reflect in the dwindling mental states of their characters.
This, however, is mostly undercut by the overwhelming likelihood that the film’s failures outside of these performances were not intentional, and even if they were, it’s not exactly the easiest filmmaking strategy to get behind. Sincerity has always and will forever be the cornerstone of great cinema, and while an intentional version of the aforementioned failures would hold quite a bit of cheeky weight that we’d be wise to dissect, movies are at their best when they move you emotionally and challenge you to reconsider things about your life.
And yet, Mothers’ Instinct remains an example of the latter; presumably, it will challenge you to reconsider diving into a movie just because it has Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain in it.
