Mother’s Instinct — The Grief We Carry
Some doors can’t be closed lightly
Grief, a tale as old as time itself, still finds new ways to surprise us as an audience. Such is the case for Benoît Delhomme’s visceral, underrated Mother’s Instinct (2024).
The film follows the story of housewives Alice (Jessica Chastain) and Celine (Anne Hathaway), after the latter tragically loses her young son, Max. As the story wears on, Delhomme plunges his audience into a classic Polanski-esque thriller scenario. After losing her child, Celine becomes an almost intrusive presence in her best friend’s life, hovering around Alice’s living son, Theo, to the point of eeriness.
It’s not long until Alice begins to second guess her once close friend, going as far as to accuse her of evil, even murderous intentions. On the outside, the film poses a classic mother’s dilemma, a la Rosemary’s Baby. Is Alice (herself an anxious, somewhat disturbed woman) imagining things, or has Celine lost her mind following a tragic accident?
A contagion of death
After a while [..] people just disappear, because it spooks them to be around someone perpetually in pain. (Fleabag, S02, E04)
Few creators capture loss better than Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge. The above quote kept ringing in my…
