movie review a mother's instinct

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

‘mothers’ instinct’ review: anne hathaway and jessica chastain in a suburban trauma drama that’s not as juicy as it should be.

The 1960s-set film, directed and shot by cinematographer Benoît Delhomme, tells the story of besties torn asunder when one of their sons dies in an accident.

By Leslie Felperin

Leslie Felperin

Contributing Film Critic

• Share on Facebook
• Share to Flipboard
• Send an Email
• Show additional share options
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Pinterest
• Share on Reddit
• Share on Tumblr
• Share on Whats App
• Print the Article
• Post a Comment

Esteemed cinematographer Benoît Delhomme’s credits have included a conspicuous number of thoughtful, visually sumptuous period pieces, such as The Talented Mr. Ripley , The Theory of Everything and Lady Chatterley’s Lover , as well as a few films made to promote fashion brands like Balmain, Dior and Chanel. In a way, that résumé partially explains why he might have been inclined to make his directorial debut with Mothers’ Instinct, for which he also serves as the DP.

Related Stories

Gap is selling the viral white shirtdress anne hathaway just wore on the red carpet, how a tag heuer watch helps propel the love story in 'the idea of you', mothers' instinct.

A remake of a 2018 Belgian film, Duelles (directed by Olivier Masset-Depasse), and based on a novel by Barbara Abel, Mothers’ Instinct sounds on paper quite promising. A director with a stronger affinity for camp, comedy and queer sensibility, like Pedro Almodóvar or Todd Haynes perhaps, might have made this into a riotous self-mocking melodrama that, if tweaked right, might have packed a proper wallop in the last act despite the silliness of the final twist. The fatal mistake with this film as it stands, however, is that it takes itself so drearily seriously and seems to think it’s offering an incisive critique of mid-20th century patriarchy, or some such. It’s like a pop-up book version of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique that comes with a supplementary paper doll set so you can change the lead characters’ outfits.

Of course, there are tiny fractures in both marriages, barely visible on the surface, which end up shattering this little suburban Eden. It starts when the boys come home with bird boxes they’ve made at school and Max ends up falling off the balcony below his window to his death when he tries to hang it in the tree, proof that no good can come from handicrafts. Alice sees the disaster just before it happens from her garden and is running up the stairs to try to stop him but doesn’t make it in time. Prone to guilt because of the tragic death of her parents when she was a child in a car accident that she alone survived, Alice is distraught, of course. But not as distraught as Celine, who blames herself for not having kept an eye on her child every moment of the day; she was busy vacuuming when the accident happened, proving no good can come from housecleaning.

From here on out, Sarah Conradt’s script starts shuffling the coconut half shells around the table, suggesting that maybe it’s Alice, who admits to having spent time in an institution for depression, who’s losing her sanity. She becomes convinced that Celine, offended by something Jean said to her, killed the old woman by hiding her heart medication, and that she even has evil intent toward Theo, who is allergic to peanuts and ends up eating a carelessly left-out cookie he finds in Celine’s kitchen.

Certainly, the delicious costuming by Mitchell Travers ( The Eyes of Tammy Faye , Hustlers ) hints that something might be awry with Alice given her willingness to wear a purple, teal and blue plaid coordinating blouse and pedal pusher set that doesn’t quite suit her coloring. Celine, on the other hand, never strays from her palette of cerulean (very Devil Wears Prada) , chocolate and funereal black. She’s always accessorized with her signature string of pearls that becomes a talisman of her maternal constancy, even when a stray blank stare or twitch of the mouth suggests she might be a pig-in-a-blanket short of the full canapé tray, mental health-wise.

Full credits

Thr newsletters.

Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Alicia vikander, jude law talk surprising ending of henry viii movie ‘firebrand’, box office: ‘inside out 2’ heading for historic $140m-$150m u.s. opening, a near-record for pixar, china’s leading lights look to shine across the shanghai film fest’s main competitions, shanghai: director rolf de heer on joining competition jury, seeking “new worlds to explore” in cinema, ‘outstanding: a comedy revolution’ review: trailblazing queer comics get their due in entertaining netflix doc, luc besson’s ‘dogman’ kicks off 2024 transylvanian film festival.

Mothers’ Instinct Review

The ennui of suburban life is a well-trodden subject of cinema, peeling back the layers of a seemingly picturesque existence into something more sinister. Enter  Mothers’ Instinct , a familiar yet intriguing new addition to the cinematic ’burbs. Making his directorial debut, Benoît Delhomme's experience as a cinematographer pays off handsomely in this 1960s-set drama. Shots are beautifully and mysteriously composed. The exquisite costuming also does valuable storytelling, with colour palettes incisively reflecting the mothers’ emotional states. Everything is gorgeous to behold on the surface, which makes the darkness that lies beneath (and there's plenty of it) all the more delectable.

The real power of  Mothers’ Instinct  lies in its dynamite cast. Hathaway, whose hair and costuming has echoes of Jackie Kennedy, is outstanding as a mother trying to reacclimate to society after a terrible loss. It's the hints at something more sinister lying behind the sincerity of her performance that makes her such a treat to watch. Chastain provides a worthy foil, suffering from her own overpowering guilt and anxiety while simultaneously trying to create an idyllic life for her husband and son.

It’s a thrill of its own to have two performers at the top of their game play off each other.

The pair have starred in films together before ( Interstellar  and  Armageddon Time ), but in  Mothers’ Instinct,  they finally get to share a frame. It’s a thrill of its own to have two performers at the top of their game play off each other, and their chemistry is every bit as exhilarating as trying to figure out the film’s next move. Supporting performances impress, too — though their characters are not as rich, Josh Charles impresses as a father struck by grief, and Anders Danielsen Lie makes the most of his role as a rather generic unsupportive husband.

Tension builds steadily and menacingly throughout  Mothers’ Instinct . While the time period and subject matter may seem like a natural fit for melodrama, Delhomme plays things surprisingly even-handedly. It's a choice that pays off, letting the actors guide the emotions without the overbearing strings you'd expect from the genre. The scope of the story is purposefully limited, resulting in a few scenes that feel somewhat samey, but overall, this is a taut, emotive thriller you won’t soon forget.

Your browser is not supported

Sorry but it looks as if your browser is out of date. To get the best experience using our site we recommend that you upgrade or switch browsers.

Find a solution

• Skip to main content
• Skip to navigation

• Back to parent navigation item
• Digital Editions
• Screen Network
• Stars Of Tomorrow
• The Big Screen Awards
• FYC screenings
• World of Locations
• UK in focus
• Job vacancies
• Cannes Close-Up
• Distribution
• Staff moves
• Territories
• UK & Ireland
• North America
• Asia Pacific
• Middle East & Africa
• Future Leaders
• My Screen Life
• Karlovy Vary
• San Sebastian
• Sheffield Doc/Fest
• Middle East
• Box Office Reports
• International
• Golden Globes
• European Film Awards
• Stars of Tomorrow
• Cannes jury grid

Subscribe to Screen International

• Monthly print editions
• Awards season weeklies
• Stars of Tomorrow and exclusive supplements
• Over 16 years of archived content
• More from navigation items

‘Mothers’ Instinct’: Review

By Nikki Baughan 2024-03-26T12:42:00+00:00

Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway find their friendship tested by tragedy in Sixties suburban America

Source: Studio Canal

‘Mothers’ Instinct’

Dir: Benoit Delhomme. US. 2024. 94mins

In 1960s affluent American suburbia, populated by gleaming cars, manicured lawns and white picket fences, neighbours Alice (Jessica Chastain) and Celine (Anne Hathaway) enjoy a close friendship that cuts through the more mundane aspects of domestic life. Yet when tragedy occurs, their bond begins to splinter and warp. Guilt, grief and paranoia make for a heady mix in this English language remake of the 2018 Brussels-set film, which trades heavily in kitschy melodrama to entertaining, if largely forgettable, effect. 

  There is some fun to be found in the arch campness of it all 

The original film’s director Olivier Masset-Depasse was due to helm here but, when he had to leave the project, the remake’s cinematographer Benoit Delhomme stepped up to make his directorial debut. This version skews very close to the original, which was based on a novel by Barbara Abel and premiered at Toronto before going on to win nine Magritte awards in Belgium and being released in several — largely French-speaking and European — territories. Fuelled by the star power of Chastain and Hathaway (who have previously worked together on films including Interstellar and both produce here) this English language remake has the potential to travel further. It releases in the UK on March 27, where it is likely to tempt audiences looking for alternatives to Kung Fu Panda 4 and Godzilla X Kong , although a US release date is still unconfirmed. 

Right from the off, Delhomme’s experience as a cinematographer (on the likes of Lawless , The Theory Of Everything and Salome ) is evident in his every crisply composed frame. An opening sequence strikes an immediately off-kilter note; Celine (Hathaway) beatifically picks flowers from her lush, sunny garden while her neighbour Alice (Chastain) watches her through the curtains, shrouded in shadow. (The film shot on location in New Jersey, although an exact location is never specified.) Anne Nikitin’s score is ominous as Alice enters Celine’s home, only for the film to immediately upend expectations with a surprise birthday party, which highlights the strong, long-established relationship between the two women (and seeds several plot points for later use).

While Alice and Celine couldn’t be more different – the former frustrated with the life of a homemaker and desperate to return to her job as a journalist, the latter happy with her traditional lot – they both dote on their eight-year-old sons. Pointedly, Alice does not want another child, while Celine cannot have another. And it is when Celine’s son Max (Baylen D. Bielitz) suffers a tragic accident that everything changes. In the weeks that follow, Celine pushes Alice away, seeming to blame her for witnessing but not being able to stop Max’s accident, then begins to find solace in spending time with Alice’s son Theo (Eamon O’Connell). 

At first, Celine’s slighly odd behaviour could well be put down to her grief, which has driven her husband Damien (Josh Charles) into a debilitating depression. The screenplay by Sarah Conradt-Kroehler is strongest here, capturing Celine’s initial shock and subsequent numbness, then her desperate attempts to return to some kind of normality; turning up at Theo’s school, hosting awkward dinner parties. Her entire identity was wrapped up in her son, and there is genuine pathos in her attempts to paper over the gaping hole in her life. 

When Alice begins to become suspicious of Celine’s motives, her own mental health history means she is unable to convince her husband Simon (Anders Danielsen Lie) to believe her. From this point, the film begins to ramp up the histrionics, both women being driven to mania by feelings of grief, guilt and paranoia — which, in this hermetically-sealed environment, they are unable to properly express —  and both husbands fading uselessly into the background. While a committed Chastain and Hathaway do their utmost to inject some gravitas into proceedings there are some moments which border on the absurd, particularly as it reaches its frenzied climax.

Still, there is some fun to be found in the arch campness of it all and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the film looks gorgeous. As with the original, there is plenty of the Hitchcockian to be found in everything from the styling of the two women to often vertiginous camera angles and the increasingly uneasy domestic atmosphere. And Russell Barnes’s unfussy production design pleasingly captures the cookie-cutter affluence of the period without it becoming an overwhelming pastiche. 

Costume design, by Mitchell Travers, is particularly impressive, and effectively tells the story of the women’s changing dynamic. While Celine and Alice wear similar pastel dresses early on, Alice’s looser, brighter colours soon contrast with Celine’s largely black attire. A scene in which a recently-bereaved Celine wears a white Jackie Kennedy-inspired outfit to Theo’s school recital, in a ill-judged attempt at a fresh start, is both satorially and emotionally striking.

Production companies: Freckle Films, Mosaic

International sales: Anton [email protected]

Producers: Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, Jacques-Henri Bronckart, Kelly Carmichael, Paul Nelson

Screenplay: Sarah Conradt-Kroehler

Cinematography: Benoit Delhomme

Production design: Russell Barnes

Editing: Juliette Welfling

Music: Anne Nikitin

Main cast; Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, Josh Charles, Anders Danielsen Lie, Eamon O’Connell, Baylen D Bielitz, Caroline Lagerfelt

• United States

Related articles

‘Inside Out 2’ climbs to $22.3m international box office; earns $13m in North American previews

2024-06-14T16:52:00Z By Jeremy Kay

Disney execs up three-day North American opening weekend forecast to around $100m.

‘Where Elephants Go’: Transilvania Review

2024-06-14T08:00:00Z By Lee Marshall

A 20-something drifter and a young cancer patient make a connection in this Bucharest-set comedy/drama

‘Despicable Me 4’: Annecy Review

2024-06-14T07:16:00Z By Wendy Ide

Gru’s domestic bliss is shattered by a new arch-nemesis in Illumination’s latest gag-packed caper

More from Reviews

‘Inside Out 2’: Review

2024-06-12T19:00:00Z By Tim Grierson Senior US Critic

Puberty brings unpredictable new emotions in this captivating animated sequel from Pixar

‘The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie’: Annecy Review

2024-06-12T16:26:00Z By Wendy Ide

Porky Pig and Daffy Duck reunite, and thaaat’s not all, folks!

‘The Moor’: Review

2024-06-12T15:08:00Z By Nikki Baughan

A Yorkshire moor hides terrifying secrets in this atmospheric British horror debut

• Advertise with Screen
• A - Z of Subjects
• Connect with us on Facebook
• Connect with us on Twitter
• Connect with us on Linked in
• Connect with us on YouTube
• Connect with us on Instagram>

Screen International is the essential resource for the international film industry. Subscribe now for monthly editions, awards season weeklies, access to the Screen International archive and supplements including Stars of Tomorrow and World of Locations.

• Screen Awards
• Media Production & Technology Show
• Terms and conditions
• Privacy & Cookie Policy
• Copyright © 2023 Media Business Insight Limited
• Subscription FAQs

Site powered by Webvision Cloud

UK Edition Change

• UK Politics
• News Videos
• Paris 2024 Olympics
• Rugby Union
• Sport Videos
• John Rentoul
• Mary Dejevsky
• Andrew Grice
• Sean O’Grady
• Photography
• Theatre & Dance
• Culture Videos
• Fitness & Wellbeing
• Food & Drink
• Health & Families
• Royal Family
• Electric Vehicles
• Car Insurance Deals
• Lifestyle Videos
• UK Hotel Reviews
• News & Advice
• Simon Calder
• Australia & New Zealand
• South America
• C. America & Caribbean
• Middle East
• Politics Explained
• News Analysis
• Today’s Edition
• Home & Garden
• Broadband deals
• Fashion & Beauty
• Travel & Outdoors
• Sports & Fitness
• Sustainable Living
• Climate Videos
• Solar Panels
• Behind The Headlines
• On The Ground
• Decomplicated
• You Ask The Questions
• Binge Watch
• Travel Smart
• Watch on your TV
• Crosswords & Puzzles
• Most Commented
• Newsletters
• Ask Me Anything
• Virtual Events
• Betting Sites
• Online Casinos
• Wine Offers

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in Please refresh your browser to be logged in

Mothers’ Instinct review: This timid Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain melodrama needs more kitsch

A tale of psychologically fractious sixties housewives that looks beautiful but ultimately feels sterile, despite strong performances from its two leads, article bookmarked.

Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey

Get our the life cinematic email for free, thanks for signing up to the the life cinematic email.

Mothers’ Instinct has an achingly chic framework for Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway to stomp around in, with all the substance of a Vogue shoot. Transformed into psychologically fractious Sixties housewives, the actors pour cocktails while their hands shake, smoke erratically, and attempt to solve all their problems with bottles of chloroform. They do it with aplomb.

A blonde Chastain plays Alice, a former journalist under pressure from her husband to have a second child. Her pin-up doll smile betrays visible cracks. She’s prone to sudden outbursts, which she dutifully chases with shots of contrition. Hathaway, meanwhile, plays Céline, a mother who wants another child, but is no longer able to conceive. She carries the wound like a saint, her eyes downcast and her wardrobe pristine.

A sudden, violent accident rips through the lives of these close friends and neighbours, whose worlds don’t extend beyond their well-appointed front lawns. The women grow suspicious of each other, of both the sincerity of their grief, and their love for each other and their children. Events continue to spiral until, suddenly, we find ourselves in the middle of a Hitchcockian thriller .

Mothers’ Instinct is the kind of film we could always do with more of. It’s an opportunity, like last year’s May December , for two great actresses to lock horns, armed with characters written as psychological minefields – the kind of parts that Joan Crawford and Olivia de Havilland would once have killed for.

But there’s an odd timidity here that borders on self-denial. On the one hand, the costume work by Mitchell Travers is exquisite. Céline, at two key points in the film, rocks up in a dove-white, Jackie Kennedy-style skirt suit, and it’s a joy to connect the dots on what that reveals about the character’s intentions. Yet, beyond a handful of clever lighting choices, that bathe these women in an interrogatory spotlight, Mothers’ Instinct looks beautiful but ultimately feels sterile.

Such heightened emotions – there’s a suspicious, lingering shot of a teacup in one scene, while a hysterical Alice lobs a gift-wrapped present right at Céline’s front door in another – deserve the rich, seductive technicolour of a Douglas Sirk melodrama. Here, they look comparatively washed out. It makes it harder for those moments to land, as if Mothers’ Instinct were afraid of its own kitsch.

It’s particularly odd considering the film is a remake of a 2018 Belgian thriller of the same name – and also adapted from a novel by Barbara Abel – that had far more of the Sirkian look, and was all the better for it. This Hollywood iteration, marking the directorial debut of cinematographer Benoît Delhomme, seems far less interested in creating any sense of atmosphere, than it is in proudly displaying the A-list muscle of its leads. It means much of the film is captured in reverential close-up. It’s the first time Chastain and Hathaway have actually acted opposite each other, despite starring in both Interstellar and James Gray’s coming-of-age drama Armageddon Time . So, you can’t really blame the excitement – it merely seems as if something may have been lost in translation.

Dir: Benoît Delhomme. Starring: Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, Josh Charles, Anders Danielsen Lie. 15, 94 minutes.

‘Mothers’ Instinct’ is in cinemas

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.

New to The Independent?

Or if you would prefer:

Want an ad-free experience?

Hi {{indy.fullName}}

• My Independent Premium
• Account details
• Help centre

Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain play duelling and glamorous housewives in Mothers' Instinct

Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain as desperate housewives locked in a duel that simmers with sad-girl glamour? Go ahead, just try not to say "mother" for 94 minutes, as the old viral challenge went.

There's certainly a lot to like in Mothers' Instinct, a glossy psychological thriller that unravels against the changing landscape of suburban America at the dawn of the 60s.

Hathaway sulks and schemes in black-widow gloves and a Jackie Kennedy bob; Chastain trembles on the cusp of a meltdown, her ginger locks scorched a Hitchcock blonde that practically screams Lifetime original movie. There's grief, poisoning, a meddling mother-in-law — the perfect recipe for a ripe melodrama of the macabre.

If only the movie had the courage of its camp convictions.

Adapted from the 2018 French film of the same name (itself based on a 2012 novel), Mothers' Instinct stars Hathaway as Céline, an upper-middle-class suburban housewife with a prosperous husband (Josh Charles; yes, the guy from 'Fortnight' ) and a young son, Max (Baylen D. Bielitz).

Her next-door neighbour, Alice (Chastain), is almost a mirror version: She's likewise married to a pencil-pushing suit (Anders Danielsen Lie), and has a primary-school-aged boy, Theo (Eamon O'Connell), with whom Max is friends.

In what may come as a surprise to anyone who's never seen a movie set in ye olde suburban America, things are hardly idyllic for either woman.

Céline's inability to conceive another child is thawing her marriage. Alice wants to return to the workforce, a notion that her husband rejects. There might be a progressive president on the way in JFK, and a race to put men on the moon, but women are expected to carry on being happy homemakers.

You can hardly blame them for going a little crazy.

"Is it enough for you, this life?" Alice asks Céline, in one of those tender moments that suggest a kinship forged in the face of male neglect.

Then, tragedy. While Céline is distracted with housework, Max teeters on the edge of a third-storey balcony — and Alice, who clocks the situation from afar, is too late to prevent the boy from plummeting to his death. (Luckily, no steel drum 50 Cent covers were harmed in the fall .)

Spiralling into a black hole of grief, Céline secretly blames Alice for the accident, and draws closer to Theo, smothering him as a substitute for her own son.

If you can already guess where all of this is going, then you're well ahead of what director Benoît Delhomme and screenwriter Sarah Conradt give the audience credit for — though the film's predictably soapy twists and turns aren't the problem.

Idling in a low gear for much of its run time, Mothers' Instinct is a muted thriller that doesn't play to the material's inherent strengths. Rather than ramp up the pulpy fun of the story, the movie is gratingly tasteful — a mid-century melodrama reconfigured as over-lit, piano-soaked streaming filler, all empty spaces and digital sheen.

The film's lacklustre look is odd, considering first-time feature director Delhomme's substantial body of work as a cinematographer — a resume that includes films with both Hathaway (One Day) and Chastain (Lawless).

The French filmmaker clearly knows how to frame his stars, but his dramatic direction — and his ability to work the movie's emotional register — is another matter.

You can see Hathaway and Chastain — Oscar winners for their respective grandstanding in Les Misérables and The Eyes of Tammy Faye — itching to open up the throttle, even as the film refuses let to them relish its cliches.

True, Chastain does get some mileage out of Alice's escalating paranoia, as her anxiety over her own inadequacy as a mother curdles into fear and mistrust.

And Hathaway gives Céline a cool, inscrutable edge; watching her dark, down-turned eyes, it's impossible to tell where the grief ends and the plotting begins. (Between this and her role in the Ottessa Moshfegh adaptation Eileen , the resurgent star is developing quite the taste for rebellious 60s women.)

At the same time, neither actor can quite lock onto the other's wavelength, an issue that appears to stem from Delhomme's uncertainty as to how to play the tone.

With its dark subject matter and air of domestic oppression, Mothers' Instinct obviously has its eye on Hitchcock and Highsmith, with a dash of Douglas Sirk's ravishing technicolour melodrama. But it has little sense of the disreputable, or the willingness — even with an admirably twisted finale — to let the material get sufficiently dark and unhinged.

In an era where adult-focused studio movies have all but vanished from the multiplex — and where Hollywood actresses in their 40s remain under-served — you can understand what might have drawn Hathaway and Chastain (who both serve as producers) to the project.

Still, they both deserve better than this streaming purgatory.

Somebody get these two into a Todd Haynes movie, and fast.

Mothers' Instinct is streaming on Prime Video.

• X (formerly Twitter)

Related Stories

Oscar-winner anne hathaway kissed '10 guys' in chemistry audition in a practice she describes as 'gross'.

Anne Hathaway's The Idea of You is ripe with steamy romps, but is it any good?

After 20 years as that-guy-from-that-thing, Hit Man marks Glen Powell's ascension to leading-man material

• Arts, Culture and Entertainment
• Film (Arts and Entertainment)
• Thriller Films
• United States

Mothers’ Instinct: maternal grief turns deadly in this intense but predictable psychological thriller

Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway go toe to toe in a suspenseful suburban story dressed up in immaculate pastel outfits and one too many retro-thriller tropes.

Suburban motherhood is a hothouse incubator for murderous fears in Benoît Delhomme’s brittle, female-centred psychological thriller, which filters the maternal grief and guilt surrounding a child’s death into an intense if predictable suspense story.

He’s whipped up a handsome, 1960s-set showcase for stars-and-producers Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway, who engage in a mother-off here as suburban New Jersey next-door-neighbours whose friendship cracks when Alice (a taut, jittery Chastain) witnesses the accidental death of Celine’s young son Max. As the despairing Celine becomes fixated on Alice’s son Theo, a succession of ambiguous events (a stolen toy in Max’s coffin, Theo teetering on Max’s fatal-fall balcony, a nut-allergy near-miss) winds into a paranoid web of suspicion that haunts the guilt-ridden Alice.

Despite being anchored by a fine, well-matched pair of performances (Josh Charles’s grief-broken father, and Anders Danielsen Lie’s pragmatic husband are unapologetically sidelined), the film can’t shake off a slightly second-hand feel. Probably because it’s a very faithful (occasionally even shot-for-shot) English-language remake of Olivier Masset-Depasse’s dark 2018 Belgian drama Duelles, but one lacking the Hitchcockian crackle of the original. First-time director Delhomme (who’s had a distinguished career as a cinematographer on films like 2014’s The Theory of Everything) elects to keep the film visually simple, and firmly performance-led. Dressed with a few retro-thriller tropes (lots of window-spying shots, a house transformed from haven to deathtrap) it’s an elegant, if slightly characterless piece.

A film that shows a restrained nostalgia for the Sirkian suburban ‘drama of swollen emotion’, it is stickily obsessed by the social pressure on 1960s housewives to be perfect wives and mothers. “Is it enough for you, this life?” Alice asks the docile Celine early on, after her husband forbids her return to journalism, like a page from The Feminine Mystique. The repeated contrast of strained, well-mannered cocktail parties and tense suppers with glimpses of Hathaway writhing in despair or Chastain overcome by suspicions results in a clunky narrative insistence that domestic oppression brings forth lurid neuroses.

As the mysterious accidents and febrile accusations mount, the film’s good taste palls a bit. All that jealousy, gaslighting and coercion comes immaculately wrapped in pastel outfits, Chastain in a Tippi Hedren blonde chignon and neat shifts, while Hathaway channels White House-era Jackie Kennedy. One starts to long for a bit of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) gothic quotable camp to liven up the proceedings. Fewer canapés, more catfights. Star wattage and period perfect sugar-almond-hued suits can only take a film so far.

►  Mothers’ Instinct is in UK cinemas from 29 March.

• Work & Careers
• Life & Arts

Mothers’ Instinct film review — Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain star in a stormy psychological drama

Try unlimited access only $1 for 4 weeks.

Then $75 per month. Complete digital access to quality FT journalism on any device. Cancel anytime during your trial.

• Global news & analysis
• Expert opinion
• Special features
• FirstFT newsletter
• Videos & Podcasts
• Android & iOS app
• FT Edit app
• 10 gift articles per month

Explore more offers.

Standard digital.

• FT Digital Edition

Premium Digital

Print + premium digital, ft professional, weekend print + standard digital, weekend print + premium digital.

Essential digital access to quality FT journalism on any device. Pay a year upfront and save 20%.

• Global news & analysis
• Exclusive FT analysis
• FT App on Android & iOS
• FirstFT: the day's biggest stories
• 20+ curated newsletters
• Follow topics & set alerts with myFT
• FT Videos & Podcasts
• 20 monthly gift articles to share
• Lex: FT's flagship investment column
• 15+ Premium newsletters by leading experts
• FT Digital Edition: our digitised print edition
• Weekday Print Edition
• Videos & Podcasts
• Premium newsletters
• 10 additional gift articles per month
• FT Weekend Print delivery
• Everything in Standard Digital
• Everything in Premium Digital

Complete digital access to quality FT journalism with expert analysis from industry leaders. Pay a year upfront and save 20%.

• 10 monthly gift articles to share
• Everything in Print
• Make and share highlights
• FT Workspace
• Markets data widget
• Subscription Manager
• Workflow integrations
• Occasional readers go free
• Volume discount

Terms & Conditions apply

Explore our full range of subscriptions.

Why the ft.

See why over a million readers pay to read the Financial Times.

International Edition

• Daily Newsletter

Mothers’ Instinct Review: Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain Lead Sincere, Stylish Melodrama

It wouldn’t take much to convince an unsuspecting audience member that Mothers’ Instinct is the latest dispatch from the Don’t Worry Darling cinematic universe. The directorial debut of cinematographer Benoît Delhomme initially appears to be a surface-level rendering of a bygone era, a vaguely defined late 1950s or early 1960s, in which the women are talked out of career prospects and encouraged to stay at home to be wives and mothers, first and foremost, kept at a distance from their husbands’ lives. But, of course, nefarious secrets are discovered to be closer to home and far lower in concept within this stylish melodrama, which hews far closer to the “women’s pictures” of the period depicted in both style and substance than the campier thriller it’s being presented as––though those looking for the latter will still get what they ordered courtesy of Anne Hathaway’s brilliantly rendered turn as grieving mother Céline.

In recent years, the cultural tide has turned back in the actress’ favor thanks to a gradual acceptance that her unique balance of over-earnestness and near-meta self-awareness––which made her a punching bag in the Les Misérables era––is a feature and not a bug of her performance style. As with her turn in William Oldroyd’s more psychodramatic Eileen last year, she elevates ever-so-slightly undercooked material by being self-aware to what it demands of her without descending into archness, appearing beguilingly sincere while holding the audience and those around her at a calculated remove. We’re currently in a fascinating period of Hathaway’s career that almost–– almost ––suggests a deliberate response to the online backlash incurred a decade prior. Working within the bones of a genre that could be written off as “hagsploitation,” she’s very consciously opting to play women who could similarly be dismissed as easily by the world around them, aiming to show a more complicated figure beneath a demure, overly mannered façade.

There are already cracks in Céline’s façade upon introduction: some tensions in her friendship with neighbor Alice (Jessica Chastain) over their familial bliss, and at a dinner party, Alice’s husband Simon (Anders Danielsen Lie) talks extensively about wanting another child––Céline is unable to have any after complications that followed giving birth to son Max (Baylen D. Bielitz). There’s an unspoken jealousy from one woman to another, with one looking at the other to quietly mourn the stereotypical, Eisenhower-era family unit she can’t have. This is pushed further following the shock death of Max, who falls off a balcony while playing outside; Céline becomes unresponsive, and the dynamics in her friendship with Alice change forever. Alice rushed into their home to try stopping her son from falling––which was drowned out to Céline by the sound of her vacuum cleaner, this movie’s answer to an instrumental cover of “P.I.M.P.”––but failed to halt the accident, and suddenly her best friend becomes removed. But is it because she couldn’t stop the inevitable from happening, or is it because she still has the perfect family intact?

Mothers’ Instinct slowly, surely gravitates from social-issue melodrama into more conventional thriller territory, and this isn’t a slight letdown from what came before for how well Hathaway threads the needle between two disparate genres. The more impressive thing about Delhomme’s film––remaking a 2018 Belgian thriller of the same name, itself adapted from a 2012 novel––is that it, for the most part, commits to being a sincere, character-driven story about the very different effects grief has on two people, risking caricature because of its occasionally overblown theatrics while maintaining a sincerity through it all. No, there are no prizes for guessing that one of these two women is hiding a secret (or several) that complicates this as a straightforward story about loss, but that inevitable discovery isn’t at odds with the perceptiveness of the drama that came before it. If anything, it only heightens the thesis about ways in which the inability to deal with loss can lead to destructive behavior, staying true to the pain of the characters even as it plunges them into a blackly comic soap opera.

Observe the way Céline forms a close bond with Alice’s young son Theo (Eamon Patrick O’Connell) in the weeks following her own son’s death. The beats are played as unsubtly as you’d expect within a melodrama that was likely aspiring to the highs of Douglas Sirk––if it (naturally) doesn’t reach them, I wouldn’t fault a film from our cynical age for trying––but it crucially understands that sincerity is the key to selling such broad emotion. Though twists and turns reveal a level of deceit within this dynamic, there’s no overly manipulative calculation in how plot mechanics bring them together. There are genuinely poignant observations as to how they come to cling to each other in the face of an untimely death, and no third-act twists can undermine the resonance of that.

So while the third act delivers the inevitable campy melodrama that’s the chief selling point, it’s the film leading up to it that proves most remarkable: a sincere throwback to a deeply uncool cinema seemingly unconcerned with the ridicule it’ll likely receive. Mothers’ Instinct is far from a perfect film, but it would be just as home in the heyday of the women’s picture; that’s not nothing.

Mothers’ Instinct opens in the UK on March 27 and will be released in the U.S. by NEON.

Mothers' Instinct is a film that digs deep into female identity and male patriarchy, say cast

Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain discuss why they decided to make a psychological thriller based around motherhood in their new film Mothers' Instinct.

Join the Irish Independent WhatsApp channel

Stay up to date with all the latest news

Latest Movie News

Russell crowe says thought of new gladiator film starring paul mescal makes him ‘melancholy’.

Kevin Spacey admits he was ‘too handsy and pushed boundaries in the past’

Kneecap review: An honest and irreverent insight into Belfast rappers’ free-living republicanism

Barry Keoghan set to star in new crime film alongside Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo

Andrew Scott joins Knives Out 3 cast alongside Daniel Craig and Challengers star Josh O'Connor

What Disney’s Beach Boys film does not tell you about genius songwriter Brian Wilson’s broken brain

Oscar nominated ‘Super Size Me’ filmmaker Morgan Spurlock dies aged 53

Kelly Rowland speaks out after video of her scolding Cannes security guard goes viral

Belfast filmmaker refuses to say if Iran is paying him as he is ‘special guest’ in Tehran alongside sanctioned Wagner group figure

Trump biopic’s Irish producers on its controversial rape scene: ‘We believe in keeping it’

Top Stories

Michael O’Leary interview: From Green ‘failures’ to Dublin Airport passenger caps, Ryanair boss says air-travel industry has plenty to be concerned about

Masked anti-immigration protesters cleared by gardaí after gathering outside Taoiseach Simon Harris’s family home

Motorcycle gang Hells Angels are back as they take flight with the Kinahans

Kate Middleton arrives for first public appearance since cancer diagnosis

Latest news more, ‘the elections 2024 was like watching attenborough report on the discovery of a new species of sea urchin’, leo varadkar: apologies could begin to ‘change hearts and minds’ over unity, the best of dr michael mosley’s simple but effective health and well-being advice, latest  | met éireann issues status yellow thunderstorm warning for nine counties this evening, ‘i lost my dad when i was 12 – now i ask myself did i really know him at all’, fabian hurzeler joins brighton to become the youngest permanent premier league manager, live  | munster v glasgow – urc semi-final at thomond park, leinster’s trophy drought continues after urc semi-final defeat to bulls, joe alwyn on taylor swift and whether he has ever been to vauxhall, switzerland open euro 2024 account with impressive victory over hungary.

• Latest News
• Local ePapers
• Environment
• Journalists
• Budget 2023
• Personal Finance
• Small Business
• Commercial Property
• In The Workplace
• The Left Wing
• The Throw In
• Women's Sport
• Horse Racing
• Other Sports
• Health & Wellbeing
• Home & Garden
• Food & Drink
• Sex & Relationships
• Theatre & Arts
• Competitions
• Reader Travel Awards
• Travel News
• Staycations
• The Indo Daily
• The Big Tech Show
• Real Health Podcast
• Our Journalism
• Corporate and Social Responsibility
• Subscription Bundles
• Subscriber Rewards
• Subscription Puzzles
• Newsletters
• CarsIreland.ie
• Switcher.ie
• Reach Delpac
• Terms & conditions
• Privacy statement
• Cookie Policy
• Group Websites
• Advertise with Us
• Subscription Rewards

'Mothers' Instinct': Cast, Plot, and Everything We Know So Far

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

Quick Links

Does 'mothers' instinct' have a release date, is there a trailer for 'mothers' instinct', who is starring in 'mothers' instinct', who is making 'mothers' instinct', is 'mothers' instinct' a remake, what is 'mothers' instinct' about.

Both Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain might be promoting their recent projects Eileen and Memory coming out in theaters later this year, but they have a lot to look forward to as they reunite onscreen in the upcoming US version of Mothers' Instinct . The film is based on a novel by Barbara Abel , and it tackles a friendship between two women that is forever transformed after a fatal accident. Hathaway revealed in an interview with Vogue Hong Kong that her role in the forthcoming thriller is her "hardest one" yet, which only adds to the anticipation for this adaptation to the screen. From cast details to the plot, here is everything that we know so far about the suspenseful project set in the 1960s.

Editor's Note: This piece was updated on January 9, 2024.

Mothers' Instinct

Alice and Celine live a traditional lifestyle with 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.

The release date for the film hasn't been revealed yet, but the film's official poster says it will be out soon. Even though Mothers' Instinct wrapped up in July 2022, much hasn't been disclosed about a theatrical release or whether it will land on streaming directly. Several images of Hathaway and Chastain on set surfaced online last year, revealing the actresses in their 1960s attire and hairdos. The Devil Wears Prada lead even left Cannes early in 2022 after her festival debut so that she could return to work on the project in New Jersey.

The official trailer for Mothers' Instinct was released by Studiocanal on January 9, 2024, giving audiences their first official look at the film.

Even though the release date and trailer haven't come out yet, there is information available about the film's main cast. As previously mentioned, Academy Award-winners Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain will play the two best friends that undergo a fall-out after a tragic accident. The two actresses shared the screen before in Christopher Nolan 's Interstellar back in 2014. Since then, they have both been busy with other onscreen endeavors. Last year, Hathaway starred in the Apple TV + series WeCrashed alongside Jared Leto , which followed the true story of the rise and fall of a startup called WeWork. She also played Esther Graff in Armageddon Time , described by Collider's own Ross Bonaime as "one of Gray’s most ambitious tales so far, even if it isn’t quite as effective in presenting its ideas as it should be". Meanwhile, Chastain has been busy with various roles after winning an Oscar for Best Actress in early 2022. From starring as Amy Loughren in Netflix's The Good Nurse to playing another Tammy on a Showtime original series, the actress has continued to not only deliver memorable onscreen performances but also remained vocal about actors' rights during the SAG-AFTRA strike. Since her latest project ( Memory ) had an interim agreement, she used her opportunity to promote the film as a way to continue to support the strike .

In an interview with IndieWire on the 48th Annual Chaplin Gala , Chastain described the upcoming project as similar to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? , which starred Bette Davis and Joan Crawford . Different from the animosity between Davis and Crawford on set, The Eyes of Tammy Faye actress shared that she had a lot of fun working opposite Hathaway:

“Of course it’s a different kind of film, but it’s this idea of these two actresses coming together and playing this…the tension I think is very interesting. Thank god Annie and I love each other, so it’s a little different than that experience.”

Other names tied to the film are Josh Charles ( The Good Wife ) and Anders Danielson Lie ( The Worst Person in the World ), who are expected to play the husbands of Hathaway and Chastain's characters . Gossip Girl actress Caroline Lagerfelt is also joining the project, but her role hasn't been revealed yet.

Benoit Delhomme is responsible for directing Mothers' Instinct and this will be his directorial debut. After working as a cinematographer on films like Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Most Wanted Man , Delhomme is ready to lead the ensemble and crew in this new role. The screenplay was written by Sarah Conradt , who had previously worked on two episodes of 50 States of Fright . NEON acquired the distribution rights of Mothers' Instinct , which will be produced by Hathaway, Chaistain, and Kelly Carmichael (the latter two under production company Freckle Films).

Freckle Films shared the following statement after NEON was announced as the film's official US distributor:

“Neon is a true filmmaker’s haven. Their unique vision and distinctive campaigns are a reflection of their mission to bring the best and most diverse cinematic experience to US audiences. Mothers’ Instinct will be in excellent hands with Tom and the team.”

Other producers of the upcoming thriller are Paul Nelson of Mosaic and Jacques-Henri Bronckart .

Yes indeed, the movie is essentially a US version of a Belgian picture called Duelles , directed by Olivier Masset-Depasse . The first onscreen adaptation of Barbara Abel's novel came out in 2018, and it featured actresses Veerle Baetens and Anne Coesens as the leads. Duelles was critically acclaimed and even won Best Feature at the Chicago International Film Festival . The film also received 9 awards at the Magritte Awards , a prestigious ceremony in Belgium.

Even though Benoit Delhomme went on to direct the US version, Masset-Depasse was originally announced as the director of the remake .

The official synopsis from Studiocanal reads:

Starring Academy Award winners Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway, Mothers’ Instinct is an unnerving psychological thriller about two best friends and neighbors, Alice and Céline, whose perfect lives in ‘60s suburbia are shattered by a tragic accident involving one of their children. Marking the directorial debut of acclaimed cinematographer Benoit Delhomme, we follow Alice and Céline as their familial bonds are gradually undermined by guilt and paranoia and a gripping battle of wills develops, revealing the darker side of maternal love.

• Anne Hathaway
• Jessica Chastain

First Details: Tina Romero’s QUEENS OF THE DEAD (EXCLUSIVE)

“My dad created this monster in the form that we all know it, and he used it as a way to look at society over the course of several decades.” Writer/director Tina Romero is talking to FANGORIA about her father’s enduring legacy. Indeed, entire books have been written about the subtext found inside George A. Romero’s zombie films. The racial tensions and injustices simmering under the surface (and then boiling over) in Night of the Living Dead ; Dawn of the Dead ’s depiction of a consumerist impulse so strong it not only kills the living, but raises the dead; the abject failure of government institutions to save any of us in Day of the Dead ; one-percenters enjoying fine dining and cozy living behind electrified fences while the apocalypse rages outside in Land of the Dead , and so on. Ms. Romero’s point is that each entry of the Romero zombie canon has reflected its era, and in doing so became even more resonant over time, a universality existing and ripening within each film’s respective specificity. 

That legacy, one which many pretenders to the zombie throne seem to have forgotten, is perhaps why it feels so fundamentally correct that Ms. Romero is embarking on Queens of the Dead , a film that’s poised to take her father’s creation very much into the here and now. “My dad’s zombies were always reflecting what was going on in the world, and I almost feel a responsibility to take the torch and keep the Romero zombie alive, upholding, respecting, paying homage to it, while also introducing myself and my own voice as a filmmaker, and my own perspective. Which is different from his.”

And how. The film, which begins filming this month, drops the classic Romero zombie outbreak onto the sexy, sequined fableau of a drag show in a queer NY club. “It takes place over one night, at the beginning of the dead rising,” Romero reveals. “We find ourselves at a big warehouse party in Bushwick. We’ve got a party promoter for whom everything’s going wrong, and her lead act has dropped out, so she needs to call upon a friend — a retired drag queen — to resurrect his drag, to come and save the night. And it turns out to be a night of many resurrections,” she says, laughing. “And our motley crew of characters find themselves holed up in a Bushwick nightclub, having to decide ‘do we get out of here or do we board the place up?’ And they’ve got to survive the night. It’s about a group of non-fighters finding the survival skills deep within.”

Ms. Romero assures FANGORIA that Queens , which she’s co-written with novelist and comedian Erin Judge , will honor what came before, presenting a gory siege pitting the living dead against a team of ragtag protagonists fighting for their lives. “It’s going to be a conga line through the zombie apocalypse,” she laughs. “I really believe that zombie movies should be fun. And my hope is that audiences find this movie to be a fun ride that’s packed with some good jump scares, and some yummy gore and some pretty amusing characters.” 

Ms. Romero wasn’t a horror junkie as a kid, but growing up in the Romero household all but guaranteed a certain level of exposure. “I grew up on Pippi Longstocking and West Side Story , and I was a ’80s Disney kid. But I sat on a zombie’s lap before I met a mall Santa,” she says. “I would be watching Bye Bye Birdie in my room at night, and then tiptoe past a horrifying movie poster on the wall. My world has always been a very strange juxtaposition of dark and light, and that is what I think of as at the core of my creativity.”

That creativity has fueled a successful career in the NYC club scene (as her alter ego DJ TRX) but, understandably, the moviemaking itch has always been there. “I’ve been at it for a minute; the bug bit me very young,” she says. “I went to film school, I’ve done lots of shorts and music videos , and I’ve been dreaming of making a feature for years.” But the filmmaker initially resisted the pull of the genre. “People have always asked me, ‘Don’t you want to make a zombie movie?’ And I would always say, ‘No, I want to make a gender-swapped Peter Pan!’ I didn’t want to do a zombie thing unless I knew how to do it authentic to me, as an artist, and as something that felt of my world, and felt like a story I could tell.” 

That story eventually revealed itself to her during her day (night?) job. 

“There was a party that I DJ’ed regularly. It was a beloved weekly party, and one year, one of the co-promoters broke off, and started a rival party on the same night. It was a big drama, and there was a big social media war. And the original promoter posted this manifesto that begged the question, ‘When will the queer community stop devouring its own?’ And it kind of hit me like a bolt of lightning. I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is the way into the genre for me.’ I want to look at zombies through the lens of going out, and specifically within this community.”

The idea took a bit of time to flourish. “I got to pitch it to my dad, and he said, ‘Take it, run with it. I love it.’ And unfortunately, he passed before I had a draft,” Romero says. “But then COVID hit, and it gave me this opportunity to really hunker down and get the script done, get the pitch together and take it out. And it’s not the easiest time to get something made. It’s definitely been pulling a sled up a mountain. But we got here.”

Romero’s affection for her father’s work is palpable. “I’m excited to put the Romero zombie in this world — and when I say ‘the Romero zombie,’ it’s sticking to the mythology: slow moving, one bite turns you, got to take out the brain, a little lingering sense of humanity.” At the same time, she’s also keenly aware that the last thing her dad would want is hollow mimicry (she excitedly teases that her zombies will have a “new flavor” added). She’s confident that Queens of the Dead must, first and foremost, be authentic to her own artistic sensibilities — some of which will be an adjustment for old-school zombie fans.

“My perspective on the world is female, it’s queer, and it’s very dance-y. And I describe what I’m going for as a ‘glam gore zom-com.’” And how exactly will that manifest on the screen? “There… might be some glitter in the blood,” she laughs. Another example: “When I was in high school and college, I was very big into dance and choreography, and I would choreograph numbers with 30 people. I kind of always go for the spectacle.” Additionally, “I’m a bit more fantasy leaning; I’m a bit more design leaning; ‘How are these zombies dressed?’ Of course, that is something my dad had a lot of fun with as well. But I think that there’s just a little bit more of a fantasy and glam element to what I’m going for.”

Romero drops one particular bombshell about her new film that’s sure to be divisive among old-school zombie fans. 

“There will be no guns in this movie,” Romero declares. “I think it’s very boring to kill zombies with guns. And this is all about DIY. What kind of weapons is a drag queen going to make on this night, out of what they have in the green room? ‘No guns’ is one of the large conceits of this film.” (Before any oldheads get their knickers in a twist at this news, Fango will remind you that the UK-set zom-com masterpiece Shaun of the Dead did just fine with no guns for the bulk of its running time.)

It certainly sounds like a trail or two is about to be blazed, and aiding Romero in bringing this new era of Romero zombies to life (death?) is Vanishing Angle, the production shingle behind a recent Fango fave. “I saw Josh Ruben’s Werewolves Within in 2021 and I said, ‘I’ve got to meet the people who made this movie.’ It’s an ensemble horror, leaning into comedy, quirky, set in a small world. I thought it was such a good film, and I just wanted to meet the producers behind it.” Those producers were Natalie Metzger and Matt Miller, whose get-it-done energy hit close to home for the director. 

“They’re so unafraid of jumping into something edgy, ambitious, and they’re not afraid of taking risks and getting dirty. And we had a conversation that was like, ‘Let’s do it in the spirit of your father.’ I could hear him in my head saying, ‘Make the movie, kid. It’s better to make a movie than not make a movie.’ Vanishing Angle fosters a type of filmmaking that’s very family driven. And that’s how my dad made movies. And I love that.”

Queens of the Dead films this summer and is poised to hit screens — and the pages of FANGORIA Magazine — in 2025. 

Similar Posts

THE MOVIE CRYPT Podcast Returns With Yorkiethon 7

FIRST LOOK: Nosferatu Haunts The Demeter In Troy Nixey’s Poster For Mondo

After Midnight: A Conversation With David Bruckner of ‘The Night House’

Post-Apocalyptic Monster Movie DIE ALONE Coming From WOLFCOP Director

A Mother’s Instinct: Watch This Exclusive Clip From THE TWIN

Review: THE INVITATION

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Fandango at Home
• Netflix streaming
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• Inside Out 2 Link to Inside Out 2
• Hit Man Link to Hit Man
• Thelma Link to Thelma

New TV Tonight

• The Boys: Season 4
• Bridgerton: Season 3
• Presumed Innocent: Season 1
• The Lazarus Project: Season 2
• The Big Bakeover: Season 1
• Camp Snoopy: Season 1
• How Music Got Free: Season 1
• Love Island: Season 6

Most Popular TV on RT

• Star Wars: The Acolyte: Season 1
• Eric: Season 1
• House of the Dragon: Season 2
• Dark Matter: Season 1
• Sweet Tooth: Season 3
• Evil: Season 4
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• The Boys: Season 4 Link to The Boys: Season 4
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

Best Shark Movies Ranked by Tomatometer

All 28 Pixar Movies Ranked by Tomatometer

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Hacks Creators Lucia Aniello and Paul W. Downs Discuss That Scene from the Emotional Season 3 Finale

Hotel Cocaine : A Look Behind the Scenes at “The Studio 54 of Miami”

• Trending on RT
• 1999 Movie Showdown
• The Boys First Reviews
• Best Movies of All Time

A Mother's Instinct

Where to watch.

Rent A Mother's Instinct on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

Jason Bourque

Josie Bissett

Nora Betnner

Spencer Drever

Gus Betnner

Scarlett Betnner

Richard Harmon

Seth Durand

Sharon Taylor

Detective Jenkins

20 Best Movies New to Streaming in June: ‘Hit Man,’ ‘Origin,’ ‘I Am: Celine Dion’ and More

Summer movie season is off to a slow start, as Memorial Day weekend hit a three-decade low at the box office. But at least there are some good movies coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix’s “Hit Man,” starring Glen Powell as an undercover cop who pretends to be a professional assassin. The Richard Linklater film will stream June 7, joining other titles coming to Netflix including “Aftersun” with Paul Mescal and “La La Land” starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.

Chris Pine’s Los Angeles-set noir “Poolman” is landing on Amazon Prime Video on June 7, too, as well as “Mothers’ Instinct,” starring Anne Hathaway and Julianne Moore as housewives whose lives are shattered after a tragic accident. Sydney Sweeney and Powell’s hit rom-com “Anyone but You” also joins Prime Video on June 21, as well as the new documentary “I Am: Celine Dion,” in which the iconic singer navigates her stiff person syndrome diagnosis as she returns to the stage.

On Hulu, watch Oscar nominee “Perfect Days” or Ava DuVernay’s latest film “Origin,” or head over to Apple TV+ to watch Lily Gladstone shine in “Fancy Dance,” which premiered at Sundance ahead of her star turn in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

Below, check out a full rundown below of the biggest movies new to streaming in June.

Hit Man (June 7 on Netflix) 

The Glenaissance is here. After earning buzz in major hits like “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Anyone but You,” Glen Powell is the main star in Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man.” Inspired by a true story, Powell plays an undercover New Orleans police officer who pretends to be a contract killer in order to arrest his clients. However, his latest case goes awry when he falls for the woman who hired him, played by Adria Arjona. Netflix bought the film out of the Toronto Film Festival for $20 million, and with “Twisters” coming up this summer, Powell’s star continues to grow.

A Family Affair (June 29 on Netflix) 

Just a couple months after Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine stole hearts in Prime Video’s “The Idea of You,” Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman are going at it in Netflix’s “A Family Affair.” Efron plays Chris Cole, an arrogant movie star, who falls for Nicole Kidman’s Brooke Harwood. The catch? Brooke’s daughter Zara (Joey King) is Chris’ assistant. A complicated, steamy love affair follows as Zara is caught between her mother and her annoying boss.

Aftersun (June 21 on Netflix)

Paul Mescal broke into Hollywood and earned his first best actor Oscar nomination with the poignant, coming-of-age film by first-time director Charlotte Wells. He plays a young father on vacation with his 11-year-old daughter, and they both struggle to come to terms with themselves and their place in the world. “For a depressive young dad at a Turkish resort with his pre-teen daughter, the pressure to maximize that time out of reality only draws the reality nearer; Charlotte Wells‘ sensuous, sharply moving debut shows that no amount of pool time and fruity drinks and Macarena dance-alongs can keep either the past or future at bay,” wrote Variety critic Guy Lodge. Check out this emotionally devastating movie before Mescal further blows up in this fall’s “Gladiator II.”

Am I OK? (June 6 on Max) 

Comedian Tig Notaro directs this coming-out story starring Dakota Johnson as Lucy, a woman who realizes she’s a lesbian after all her dates with men fail miserably. “Emotionally, she’s as awkward as a freshman with her first pimple. Lucy has never been in love, never had a real relationship, and never ends her dates with anything more than a handshake,” wrote Variety critic Amy Nicholson. Johnson and co-star Sonoya Mizuno earned positive reviews after the film premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, and now more people have the chance to check it out.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (June 1 on Netflix) 

Thanks to Warner Bros. Discovery’s new cross-platform deal, some of the movies previously only found on Max are now coming to Netflix, including the most recent entry in the terrifying “Conjuring” universe. “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It” follows paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) as they help a young man accused of murder who claims he was possessed by a demon. The real story went down in history as the first time demonic possession was used as a defense. Watch this movie ahead of the upcoming “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” which brings the Warrens’ story to a conclusion.

I.S.S. (June 3 on Paramount+)

Ariana DeBose stars in this outer space thriller that follows two diplomatic crews of scientists aboard the International Space Station who are each ordered to take control of the vessel at all costs. As geopolitical tensions ignite on the surface below, the astronauts, adrift from national identity and their fellow man, quickly begin to unravel. Gabriela Cowperthwaite directs.

Mothers' Instinct (June 7 on Prime Video)

This directorial debut by French cinematographer Benoît Delhomme stars Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway as a pair of housewives whose sisterly bond begins to crack after tragedy strikes their neighborhood. Part melodrama, part noir, the feature promises two transformational roles for its two leads.

Dumb Money (June 10 on Prime Video)

This ripped-from-the-headlines ensemble comedy retells the GameStop meme stock phenomenon that put Wall Street in a noogie during the COVID pandemic — less than three years after it all went down. Paul Dano, America Ferrera, Pete Davidson and many more stars feature as the online investors hoping to pump up the retail brand’s value so they can cash out against the rich suits that bet against the company. Craig Gillespie directs.

La La Land (June 1 on Netflix)

Damien Chazelle’s bittersweet ode to Los Angeles arrived on Netflix June 1. The movie musical starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone won six Oscars, including best director for Chazelle, best actress for Stone, best original score and best original song. It follows struggling artists Seb (Gosling) and Mia (Stone), a jazz musician and actress, who fall in love and must juggle their relationship while chasing their dreams in Hollywood. The film was a hit with critics and audiences, raking in $447 million worldwide. Variety chief film critic Owen Gleiberman loved the film, calling it in his review “the most audacious big-screen musical in a long time.”

Poolman (June 7 on Prime Video)

Who is Poolman? Why, it’s Darren Barrenman, the L.A aficionado and all-time chiller played by Chris Pine, who is pulled into a web of urban planning conspiracies that endangers the wellness of himself, his friends and his beloved pool. Helmed by Pine in his feature directorial debut and shot in sumptuous 35mm photography, “Poolman” has style and vision. It most closely resembles Pine’s goofball turn as an over-the-hill rocker in Netflix’s comedy series “Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp.” In a phrase: it has the funny.

I Am: Celine Dion (June 25 on Prime Video)

Celine Dion gets personal documenting her struggles with stiff-person syndrome in this new documentary. Helmed by Irene Taylor, the feature promises an intimate look at the world-famous singer’s recent health troubles and her wishes to return to performing live.

Anyone but You (June 21 on Prime Video)

She’s Sydney Sweeney. He’s Glen Powell. Can it all work out? You’d be surprised how many speed bumps there are in this romantic comedy, which sees the two stars play spurned lovers forced to reunite and play the happy couple to make their exes envious — all of this while everyone absconds to a destination wedding in Australia, which is really asking a lot of people. Will Gluck directs, bringing his signature touch.

The Old Oak (June 24 on Prime Video)

The final feature from esteemed British director Ken Loach, this drama continues the filmmaker’s decades-long project of combining sociological realism and fierce dramatic storytelling. The film follows a pub owner in a mining town struggling to keep his business afloat and the relationship he forms with a Syrian refugee to help steady its operations. Selected to play in competition at the Cannes Film Festival last summer, the feature provides a fitting capstone to Loach’s celebrated career.

Trigger Warning (June 21 on Netflix) 

Jessica Alba makes her return to the big screen in Netflix’s cleverly named “Trigger Warning,” her first film since 2019. She plays a Special Forces commando who takes ownership of her father’s bar after his death, but must contend with the dangerous gang causing trouble in her hometown. In the trailer, Alba shows off some “John Wick”-style action and must get to the bottom of her father’s mysterious death.

Perfect Days (June 6 on Hulu)

Wim Wenders received rave reviews — and an Oscar nomination — for his 2023 drama about a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo. Sharing its name with a Lou Reed song, “Perfect Days” premiered at Cannes Film Festival, where lead actor Kōji Yakusho won the best actor award. In his review for Variety , Guy Lodge called “Perfect Days” Wenders’ best narrative film in decades, praising its “humane, hopeful embrace of everyday blessings.”

Origin (June 10 on Hulu)

Ava DuVernay’s latest film is an ambitious and untraditional adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson’s nonfiction book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.” Starring Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as Wilkerson herself, the movie follows the author as she travels through Germany, India and the United States, researching the deep-rooted social hierarchies in each country’s history. The film faltered at the box office but wowed critics, including Variety ‘s Peter Debruge, who wrote in his review : “The film will get people thinking and talking. The way DuVernay directs it, ‘Origin’ is a swirling tornado of ideas.”

Tangerine (June 1 on Netflix) 

Right after winning the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or for his latest film “Anora,” director Sean Baker’s acclaimed film “Tangerine” is coming to Netflix. Shot entirely on three iPhones, the film is an exuberantly raw and up-close portrait of one of Los Angeles’ more distinctive sex-trade subcultures,” wrote Variety critic Justin Chang. “Centered around two sharply drawn transgender women who find the resilience of their friendship tested and affirmed over the course of one busy Christmas Eve, writer-director Sean Baker’s sun-scorched, street-level snapshot is a work of rueful, matter-of-fact insight and unapologetically wild humor that draws a motley collection of funny, sad and desperate individuals into its protagonists’ orbit.”

Bread & Roses (June 21 on Apple TV+)

From Sarah Mani, “Bread and Roses” is a documentary that follows the effects of the 2021 Taliban offensive on women living in Afghanistan. As U.S. troops pulled out of the country and the Taliban strengthened its control, women lost the rights to work, go to school past sixth grade and walk unaccompanied. With Jennifer Lawrence boarding the film as a producer, the film premiered at Cannes in 2023 and was bought by Apple. In her review for Variety , Catherine Bray wrote, “This film is a necessary howl of rage, one that argues cogently — via the simple expedient of capturing life as it is lived — that to ignore what it happening in Afghanistan is to condemn half the population of the country to oppression under a dictatorship that is both political and personal.”

Of an Age (June 7 on Peacock)

Australian writer-director Goran Stolevski crafts a whirlwind romance drama in “Of an Age,” which centers on a young man who develops an intimate relationship with the brother of his ballroom dance partner over the course of 24 hours. The disorienting and swoon-worthy pull of first love overflows in Stolevski’s handheld direction, while his script embraces the warmth of finding your person with the heartbreak of not having enough time to make it endure. While the film’s central character learns to embrace his sexuality over the course of the film, Stolevski refuses to let his romance drama become a derivative look at queer self-acceptance. It’s all the more refreshing for that. “Of an Age” is a warm-hearted gem tinged with beautiful melancholy.

Fancy Dance (June 28 on Apple TV+)

Lily Gladstone is best known for her mesmerizing performance as Mollie Kyle in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which earned her an Oscar nomination for best actress. But before that movie premiered in theaters, Gladstone starred alongside Isabel Deroy-Olson in Erica Tremblay’s directorial debut “Fancy Dance,” which bowed at Sundance in 2023. Apple picked up the distribution rights to the film more than a year later, giving it a limited theatrical window on June 21 before it streams on Apple TV+ later in the month. Variety chief film critic Peter Debruge called the film “engaging” and “a rare glimpse into Native culture” that both educates and entertains.

More from Variety

Hamptonsfilm unveils its summerdocs slate featuring ‘super/man: the christopher reeve story'(exclusive), how content spending will grow in the post-peak tv era, doc about si swimsuit issue founding editor jule campbell is in the works as franchise celebrates 60th anniversary (exclusive), sandbox films to theatrically release penny lane’s ‘confessions of a good samaritan’ (exclusive), what netflix learned from ‘fallout’ success apparent in new synced-up games & unscripted strategy, salman rushdie documentary set based on his memoir ‘knife,’ with alex gibney directing (exclusive), more from our brands, brands are beginning to turn against ai, what it’s like to stay at the waldorf astoria monarch beach, the oceanfront socal resort for serious golfers, mlb’s rules on gambling: what happens when players bet, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, get 7-day max free trial before it’s too late watch house of the dragon, hacks and more, verify it's you, please log in.

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

When fate brings Belfast teacher JJ into the orbit of self-confessed 'low life scum' Naoise and Liam Og, the needle drops on a hip hop act like no other. Rapping in their native Irish, they ... Read all When fate brings Belfast teacher JJ into the orbit of self-confessed 'low life scum' Naoise and Liam Og, the needle drops on a hip hop act like no other. Rapping in their native Irish, they lead a movement to save their mother tongue. When fate brings Belfast teacher JJ into the orbit of self-confessed 'low life scum' Naoise and Liam Og, the needle drops on a hip hop act like no other. Rapping in their native Irish, they lead a movement to save their mother tongue.

• Rich Peppiatt
• 1 User review
• 14 Critic reviews
• 81 Metascore
• 1 win & 3 nominations

Top cast 66

• Móglaí Bap Or Naoise
• (as Naoise Ó Cairealláin)

• Mo Chara Or Liam Óg
• (as Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh)

• Dj Próvai Or JJ
• (as JJ Ó Dochartaigh)

• Detective Ellis

• Arló Ó Cairealláin

• Uncle Peadar
• Wee Liam Óg

• Gerry Adams
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

More like this

Did you know

• Trivia First Irish-language film to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

User reviews 1

• chenp-54708
• Jan 28, 2024
• How long is Kneecap? Powered by Alexa
• August 2, 2024 (United States)
• Official Site
• Irish Gaelic
• British Film Institute (BFI)
• Coimisiún na Meán
• Curzon Film Distributors
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 45 minutes

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• See more gaps
• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Recently viewed.

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, reverse the curse.

Now streaming on:

When it premiered at Tribeca last year, David Duchovny ’s “Reverse the Curse” was titled “Bucky F*cking Dent,” which is a title that would have at least given this remarkably lifeless film a bit of personality. It’s also the title of the book, also by Duchovny, on which this maudlin film is based. It's a story about baseball and father-son relationships that doesn’t understand either, content to use fandom and a terminal diagnosis in cheap, manipulative ways. Duchovny the director never bothers to ground his melodrama in something that feels real, missing the target on the period in which it’s set and an honest understanding of the people who live and die on the success and failure of their favorite teams.

Set in 1978 - although it never really feels like it outside of Jimmy Carter clips and some questionable fashion choices - "Reverse the Curse" is the story of Ted ( Logan Marshall-Green ), a writer who pays the bills as a peanut vendor at Yankee Stadium even though his pop Marty (Duchovny) is a lifelong fan of the New York baseball team’s rival, the Boston Red Sox. As anyone with even a passing knowledge of baseball knows, the Red Sox were reportedly cursed when Babe Ruth left them to go to the Yankees, leading to a championship drought that lasted multiple generations. They didn’t win the World Series from 1918 to 2004, so “Reverse the Curse” takes place right in the heart of that torture for Red Sox fans everywhere.

In fact, Marty is so attached to his team that it impacts his declining health. Struck down with a terminal cancer diagnosis, Ted notices that pop has better days when the Red Sox win, so he sets about on a scheme to basically lie to the old man, replacing the box scores in his daily paper with winning ones and even getting Marty’s buddies to help fake storms – hose on roof, metal to mimic thunder – so dad will think a loss was merely a rainout. While Ted loosely comes to terms with his relationship with his father in a manner that feels half-hearted at best, he also forms a relationship with Marty’s “Death Specialist,” a charming woman named Marianna ( Stephanie Beatriz ). Can Ted keep Marty around long enough to finally see the curse reversed during the notorious playoff stretch of 1978? And maybe even fall in love at the same time?

It's hard to tell someone who has dedicated as much of himself to a project as Duchovny did here – writing the book, screenplay, and directing – that he’s not right for the role, but that probably should have happened. Not only does Duchovny, an eternally youthful looking performer, just not come off as old enough to really sell the history of this part, he just doesn’t have the kind of everyman gravity that a dying Red Sox fan needs. Marshall-Green is also miscast, but it’s Beatriz who frustrates most; the underrated “ Encanto ” star struggles to push through the melodrama of her character to find something grounded. She succeeds more than anyone in giving the film a solid foundation, but one wishes it was a part of a project that didn’t waste her work.

Besides a few funny scenes and Beatriz’s work, there’s too little truth in “Reverse the Curse.” It may not seem like that big of a deal given that this isn’t really a baseball movie, but it’s a story about fandom of the sport that doesn’t seem to know much about it or be made by people who love it. There’s a superficiality to this story of sports and dads that feels almost exploitative in the way it uses both to pull strings instead of illuminating anything about character or humanity that feels true. 

How so many people have lived and died around their favorite teams is a topic that should invoke more passion than the surprisingly soulless film seems interested in doing. It’s partially because Duchovny’s style has always been more aloof than engaged, which works in the right material, but not here. There’s nothing aloof about almost 90 years of sports heartbreak. Trust me. I’ve been down that road. I’m not convinced anyone who made this film has.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

Now playing

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Tomris laffly.

Under Paris

Matt Zoller Seitz

Marya E. Gates

This Closeness

Film Credits

Reverse the Curse (2024)

105 minutes

Logan Marshall-Green as Ted Fullilove

David Duchovny as Marty Fullilove

Stephanie Beatriz as Mariana

Daphne Rubin-Vega as Eva

Santo Fazio as Shticker

• David Duchovny

Latest blog posts

The 2024 American Black Film Festival Announces Retrospective: Celebrating The Legacy Of Denzel Washington: Moderated by Chaz Ebert

Tribeca Film Festival 2024: 8 Highlights from This Year’s Event

It's Too Bad That Audience Pictures Like Ultraman: Rising Will Barely Be Seen in Theaters

Jesse Plemons on Being Funny, Stepping Off the Ledge and Making ‘Kinds of Kindness’