Mothers' Instinct
Neon | Release Date: July 26, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
48
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
16
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Screen RantBen GibbonsJan 11, 2025
Mothers' Instinct is a compelling thriller that elevates Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain to incredible heights. The film is a tense and terrifying story of love, loss, and deception that sees people pushed to their limits. Read full review
80
EmpireBarry LevittMar 22, 2024
Sophisticated, adult thrillers are few and far between, and Mothers’ Instinct fills the void admirably. With vivid, striking imagery and top-notch production design, the film paints an exciting, moreish portrait of psychological intrigue. Read full review
70
Vanity FairRichard LawsonJul 31, 2024
Mothers’ Instinct is fun, in a throwback sort of a way. The performances are big and appealing; the period stylings are relatively lush for a lower-budget movie. Sure, there’s some silly stuff, overheated moments that merit guffaws—but that’s part of the mission of movies like this. Read full review
67
The Film StageAlistair RyderApr 5, 2024
While the third act delivers the inevitable campy melodrama that’s the chief selling point, it’s the film leading up to it that proves most remarkable: a sincere throwback to a deeply uncool cinema seemingly unconcerned with the ridicule it’ll likely receive. Read full review
60
ColliderEmma KielyAug 7, 2024
Mothers' Instinct is an entertaining, well-acted drama that falters under the weight of its shocking ending. Read full review
60
We Got This CoveredCharlotte SimmonsJul 23, 2024
Perhaps poetically, Hathaway and Chastain's instincts are the immaculate saving grace for those of 'Mothers' Instinct's story. Read full review
60
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyApr 3, 2024
There’s an odd timidity here that borders on self-denial. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeMar 29, 2024
The plot is rubbish. Nobody seems comfortable putting tongue anywhere near cheek. If the costumes were any more heightened you’d demand a song and dance number. All of which makes it hard to look anywhere else. But good? Probably not. Bad? Maybe not that either. Read full review
58
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJul 25, 2024
It helps that Hathaway is rivetingly dangerous as a woman who’s capable of nothing and anything all at once, and that “Mothers’ Instinct” inherited an ending that — at long last — allows it to square the raw emotionality of its characters with the daytime TV luridness of their situation, but that pitch-perfect finale only serves to reinforce how the rest of this movie struggles to articulate the profound sadness that undergirds even its frothiest moments. Read full review
50
Washington PostTy BurrAug 14, 2024
It’s a critic’s failure to gauge the movie he wishes had been against the movie that is, but in this case the movie that is is disappointingly bloodless, cold rather than chilling, with a payoff that isn’t shocking so much as an admission that we’ve spent 90 minutes we’ll never get back. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoAug 14, 2024
Mothers’ Instinct gets by on its pulpy potential more than anything else. There’s something intrinsically appealing about watching two phenomenal actresses go head-to-head in an old-fashioned melodrama. Read full review
50
ABC NewsPeter TraversJul 28, 2024
This 1960s-era soap opera is less a movie than an excuse for Oscar-winners Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain to dress to thrill and try to kill each other. With stars like these, you can almost forget how quickly the plot drifts off into absurdity. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineRoss McIndoeApr 23, 2024
Benoît Delhomme’s 1960s-set directorial debut can’t decide whether it wants to be considered camp or not, awkwardly pitching itself between a somber drama and antic melodrama. Read full review
50
Screen DailyNikki BaughanMar 29, 2024
While a committed Chastain and Hathaway do their utmost to inject some gravitas into proceedings there are some moments which border on the absurd, particularly as it reaches its frenzied climax. Still, there is some fun to be found in the arch campness of it all and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the film looks gorgeous. Read full review
50
VarietyGuy LodgeMar 27, 2024
Mothers’ Instinct doesn’t breathe: It hasn’t the grandeur of great melodrama, nor the savoir-faire of great noir. Like its mismatched heroines, it’s constantly, twitchily figuring itself out, as we sit tight, intrigued, tensely waiting for it to trip. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreJul 26, 2024
Mothers’ Instinct is, indeed, pretty terrible, and not in the so-bad-it’s-good sense, and yet there’s something strangely moving about it. It’s a poignant example of how what looks like rich material to actors can turn out to be lousy material for audiences. Read full review
40
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeApr 2, 2024
A film about two immaculately groomed women gaslighting and goading each other to the point of madness should be a lot more fun than this. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyMar 29, 2024
It’s a thriller’s engine purring away, while it stubbornly sits in neutral, getting us nowhere. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinMar 29, 2024
Ultimately, the characters’ motivations, like their titular instinct, are weakly delineated, but viewers are well-advised not to worry their pretty little heads about any of that and just concentrate on the pantsuits. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 27, 2024
The movie starts out very serious and shocking and concludes on a note of pure farce, though I have to say Chastain’s performance has a clenched restraint which is marginally more convincing than Hathaway’s operatic but callow displays of hurt and entitlement. Read full review
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