This sinister thriller will have you questioning a mother's instinct

In Mother's Instinct those besties are two of Hollywood's finest actors, Oscar winners Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain, suburban 1960s housewives whose young sons are also besties.

Celine (Hathaway) and Alice (Chastain) spend their days cleaning their picture-perfect homes; their evenings smoking cigarettes, drinking martinis and dancing seductively with each other's husbands. Life is bliss.

But then tragedy strikes when Celine's son Max (Baylen D. Bielitz) falls to his death and their bond is irretrievably broken.

It's the directorial debut for French cinematographer Benoit Delhomme, whose credits include The Talented Mr Ripley and 2022's Lady Chatterley's Lover. (If you haven't seen this saucy version of Lady Chatterley starring Emma Corrin (The Crown) and Jack O'Connell (SAS Rogue Heroes), it's worth seeking out on Netflix.)

Like both these films, and particularly Mr Ripley, in Mother's Instinct there's a real sense that something is very wrong behind the beautiful facade. From one very early scene where Celine comes home and notices that the curtains aren't how she left them, you're wondering, figuratively, what's behind them.

There's a couple of ways to look at the film. First, it's a study of grief. When Celine loses her son she's shipped off to "rehab" for a month to recover. When she returns she tries to resume a normal life, arriving at a school function alone. Can her increasingly erratic behaviour be attributed to her grieving? Or was she always a little unhinged?

It's also an interesting look at what it meant to be a mother in the 1960s. Both women are homemakers but Alice is desperate to go back to work as a journalist. Her husband expresses doubts but Celine is her biggest supporter. Is she a bad mother for wanting to go back to work? She also admits she was hospitalised for post-natal depression after Theo's birth.

It's also revealed that Celine can't have any more babies after complications with Max's birth. Is she a bad mother for not being able to fulfil her womanly role? She feels her husband blames her for her son's death because she was vacuuming when he fell. (Women can't win, can they?) Does either woman have a "mother's instinct", who is the more worthy mother?

It was such a joy watching Hathaway and Chastain share the screen, as it was with Julienne Moore and Natalie Portman in May December. Leading ladies giving each other the space to shine.

And in such fabulous clothes. Costume designer Mitchell Travis hits all the marks, channelling Jackie Kennedy and the like. While Alice's clothes are mostly bright and colourful, Celine's wardrobe moves with her mood swings, from colour to mourning black, back to lighter shades.

The supporting cast does well. Young Eamon Patrick as Alice's son Theo is solid in a challenging role. The poor lad does have to deal with a lot of adult concepts. The husbands are played by Josh Charles (as Celine's husband Darren) and Anders Danielsen Lie (as Alice's Simon). Charles does well as the grieving father, Lie doesn't get much air time but is the generic '60s unsupportive partner. Caroline Lagerfelt, as Simon's mother Jean, has a couple of scene-stealing moments too.

As Alice's suspicions about Celine's motives begin to grow, people begin to question her sanity. To the point where her husband sends her off to therapy and medicates her.

But the moral to the story is don't ever write off a mother's instinct. It could be fatal if you do.