Tory Halo

Where do I begin... I'll start with the good. Mother's Instinct, performs its job well as a psychological thriller-drama in the sense that the script does have you at the end of the seats when its most impactful. The set pieces land really well, with characters placed in situations that almost make you want to look away in terms of how things may pan out and how the script tonally is able to switch between soft intimacy to thermonuclear intensity to horrifying morbidity at the drop of a hat. The acting is also top-notch. Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain are seasoned pros who know exactly what their doing, and bring an excellent performance to bring the script to life. They have really good chemistry and bounce off one-another in the dramatic moments like they've been doing it forever. So why the 1-star? Simply the story. While I respect a script that challenges the standard format of the heores journey and leans into its darkside as a thriller, Mothers instinct feels it's crossed a line in the sand. When the credits started rolling, I was left actually impressed at how this film was able to leave me so horrified, and not in the good way. In short, it's got some pretty sketchy morality that I feel should never have made it past draft versions of the script. From presenting a weary mother wanting to protect her son as derranged maniac needing to locked up in the psych hold (which would have actually worked in the third act IF the plot twist hadn't resulted in her killed off in the end) to the perverted depiction of an actual derranged woman adopting her best firend's child (after ending her husband's life, best friend's life AND her best friend's husband's life) being the actual winner of the story? What kind of message does that send? On a technical level, the internal logic and consistency is all over the place, with characters coming to the most irrational conclusions based off the flimsiest of facts. They come to conclusions that make no sense and refuse to entertain even the most basic logical possibilities, like how Simon (one of the husbands) didn't thinnk it was strange that his mother stopped taking vital medication up until the point of her death. Or how Damian (the othre husband) doesn't find it odd that his wife is being accused of doing x, y, z without, at the very least, getting clarification from noth sides? The actors (Anders Danielsen Lie and Josh Charles) do the best with they were given, but they definetly weren't given a lot. The husbands have very little impact towards the trajectory of the plot yet slide into key moments whenever the script needs them to. It all just feels contrived and forced. It all sums up to a film that starts off strong, charging down the finish line in full stride with the gold in its hands yet somehow manages to trip over its feets at the last 10 metres and completly fumbles it. People are dead, the bad guy wins and no one made any sense. In all, it was a film I enjoyed at the start and hoped to quickly forget about in the end.