Metacritic-Rezensionen

Sophisticated, adult thrillers are few and far between, and Mothers’ Instinct fills the void admirably. With vivid, striking imagery and top-notch production design, the film paints an exciting, moreish portrait of psychological intrigue.

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.

The plot is rubbish. Nobody seems comfortable putting tongue anywhere near cheek. If the costumes were any more heightened you’d demand a song and dance number. All of which makes it hard to look anywhere else. But good? Probably not. Bad? Maybe not that either.

There’s an odd timidity here that borders on self-denial.

Mothers’ Instinct doesn’t breathe: It hasn’t the grandeur of great melodrama, nor the savoir-faire of great noir. Like its mismatched heroines, it’s constantly, twitchily figuring itself out, as we sit tight, intrigued, tensely waiting for it to trip.

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.

The movie starts out very serious and shocking and concludes on a note of pure farce, though I have to say Chastain’s performance has a clenched restraint which is marginally more convincing than Hathaway’s operatic but callow displays of hurt and entitlement.

Ultimately, the characters’ motivations, like their titular instinct, are weakly delineated, but viewers are well-advised not to worry their pretty little heads about any of that and just concentrate on the pantsuits.

It’s a thriller’s engine purring away, while it stubbornly sits in neutral, getting us nowhere.

A film about two immaculately groomed women gaslighting and goading each other to the point of madness should be a lot more fun than this.