Mothers' Instinct

The sixties, a suburb. Two families live side by side. Alice and Céline have been friends for years; their sons are the same age and grow up together. One day there is an accident: Céline's son falls from a balcony. Alice was looking out of the window opposite at that moment and could do nothing. Céline knows. The grief begins and the relationship between the two women changes. Céline takes constant interest in Alice's son; she buys him presents, collects him from school, invites him over. Alice is uneasy. Then an order is set up in which everyone suspects everyone and who is in the right is not clear. Olivier Masset-Depasse directs. Veerle Baetens plays Alice and Anne Coesens plays Céline. It is a Belgian production. The source is Barbara Abel's novel. The film won awards in Belgium and was later remade in English. The form is classical thriller; the domestic look of the sixties and the use of colour are deliberately made to resemble the films of that period. The real matter it builds is that grief and guilt cannot be separated; the narrative leaves the viewer between the two women as well. The photography rests on symmetrical framing and the use of windows; the two houses are always in sight of each other. Its limit is the script; in the second half the tension goes somewhere familiar and the ending gives the expected resolution. Who it is for: viewers who like classical thrillers and period design. Who it is not for: the plot is familiar, the pace slow, and the subject turns on the death of a child.