
MOTHERS’ INSTINCT
In this taut and smartly styled thriller set in the ‘60s, a sudden tragedy upends the previously-close bond between two women and their families.
Alice (Veerle Baetens) and Céline (Anne Coesens), live next door to each other with their families in the adjoining halves of a Tudor villa. Living nearly symmetrical lives, the two are close friends, as are their two sons Theo (Jules Lefebvres) and Maxime (Luan Adam). After a tragic accident occurs, the two mothers are suddenly thrust from their perfectly pristine lives into a confounding new reality teeming distrust, deceit, and uncertainty. As the two husbands carry on with their working lives, Alice and Céline have no other choice but to indulge in their own personal madness over the shared traumatic event as they are confined to their pastel dwellings. Director Olivier Masset-Depasse delivers this warped and aesthetically enticing feature that puts a deliciously fresh spin on the well-worn Hitchcockian genre. This female-centric thriller toys with truth and reality as it vividly depicts a skewed sense of maternal responsibilities.
CAST: Veerle Baetens, Anne Coesens, Mehdi Nebbou, Arieh Worthalter
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