Review of the film “Maternal Instinct” by Benoit Delhomme

In theaters – “Maternal Instinct”, a psychopathological thriller directed by the Frenchman Benoit Delhomme in Hollywood. After watching this neat remake of the Belgian film directed by Olivier Masset-Depasse in 2018, Mikhail Trofimenkov I was moderately frightened, moderately perplexed: did the director intend the film to be a social parable, or does it just seem like one?

If in Belgian cinema any psychopathology of everyday life evokes thoughts about the sad life of a small country and evokes references to the work of the great national surrealists, then transferring the action to the United States certainly pushes for broad socio-cultural generalizations. The very scale of the country inexorably forces us to perceive any seemingly local history as a kind of metaphor. That’s how it is here.

The setting of “Motherly Instinct” is the country of suburbia, that is, the elegant suburbs settled by the first stable middle class in US history in the 1950s. The great economic crisis and war are behind us: everything is fine, beautiful marquise.

The time of action is the beginning of the 1960s, that is, the era of the youngest and most reckless President Kennedy. In other words, a time when forty-year-old men wore hats, danced with cigarettes in their teeth, and felt “a little bit like John Kennedy.” Well, they saw “a little bit of Jacqueline Kennedy” in their beloved wives.

And at the same time, they earned enough from their dust-free commodity-money jobs to sincerely wonder why their “Jacquelines” miss the interrupted careers of aspiring journalists or, say, singing teachers: the house is full, what else do they need? Give birth, drink iced tea with your neighbors on the sunny terraces. Joyfully imitate amazed delight when your neighbors throw you a surprise party in honor of your birthday, eat the cake and not only remain silent, but pretend that you are happy with everything.

The two families that became the collective heroes of Delhomme’s film are just such exemplary “Stepford spouses.” Blonde Alice (Jessica Chastain) and Simon (Anders Danielsen Lee), Damien (Josh Charles) and brunette Celine (Anne Hathaway) are almost doll-like couples who could adorn any poster glorifying the American way of life. Well, or become models of the wonderful artist Norman Rockwell, who, with mixed horror and delight, created the myth of that very suburbia.

But, as usual, things don’t just go wrong. But what goes wrong is so radical that the beautiful scenery of a beautiful era is destroyed, happy masks fly off, seemingly attached to the faces of people who are far from happy, but who are not aware of their unhappiness.

Each couple has one son. Celine and Damien have Max. Alice and Simon have Theo. Under the most absurd circumstances, Max dies by falling from the roof, despite Celine’s attempt to save him. Further more. Jean, Theo’s grandmother, dies when she falls down the stairs.

The solidarity of neighbors experiencing a common grief is quickly replaced by attacks of mutual paranoia, waterfalls of accusations, suspicions and clashes on the verge of physical violence. Benoit Delhomme, as a director brought up in the tradition of French cinephilia, skillfully plays with and at the same time destroys one of the mythologies of classical Hollywood.

During the golden era of American cinema, blondes and brunettes embodied the light and dark aspects of human nature, respectively. By pitting Jessica Chastain against Anne Hathaway, the director constantly “changes the stakes” and confuses the audience.

Who is an angel and who is a demon, who is sincerely suffering from the loss of a child, and who is going explosively crazy, who is socially dangerous, and who needs to be patted on the head and put in a straitjacket – by and large, all this is not important. And so it is clear that the martyrology of the film will not be limited to poor Max, the quiet suburban cemetery will grow considerably, and one cannot count on the victory of Hollywood Good over Hollywood Evil.