'Mothers' Instinct' and the horror of maternal desperation
The supposedly primal need women have for children is everywhere
It’s been a bit since I’ve written about monstrous mothers. Here we are. I recently watched the 2024 film Mothers’ Instinct, adapted from a French film adapted from a book. It stars Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain, and the latter can really do no wrong in my book. Alas, though, I’m sad to report, this film is tense and disturbing, but disappointingly familiar. A real sad moms gone mad story, with some highbrow cat fighting and great acting mixed in for effect.
I will give it to the filmmakers— I barely took a breath while watching, it’s that wrought with dramatic irony. At times, I wanted to shake the women in the film, make them see what was happening. But then, the husbands did it for me. They are constantly rattling the 1960s, coifed women on screen, mixing in a few threats about having their wives committed (again), as the women and their hair slowly unravel. For about half the film, in fact, I thought perhaps this was a story about how women are driven mad by their husbands insisting they are mad.
But in the end, the film betrays two persistent and familiar fantasies: that mothers without children go insane; and that in their desperation for a child to control, women will stop at nothing.