Film Review: ‘Mother’s Instinct,’ a psychological thriller that keeps you guessing until the end
Anne Hathaway plays "the perfect mother" in this 2024 psychological thriller in a remake of a French film, which itself was a novel adaptation
Updated 10 May 2024
Jasmine Bager
Anne Hathaway has played many roles over the course of her career: a surprise princess, an assistant to a fashion magazine editor, a recovering addict, Cat Woman. In “Mother’s Instinct,” she plays a mother — the perfect mother.
In this 2024 psychological thriller — a remake of a French film which itself was a novel adaptation — Hathaway is joined by Jessica Chastain. The two play best friends who are living the American dream.
They are next-door neighbors. Their husbands are the best of friends, as are their eight-year-old sons. They live in an affluent neighborhood in cookie-cutter 1960s’ suburban America. Everything seems idyllic.
The film begins with Celine’s (Hathaway) birthday. Alice (Chastain) and the women’s husbands throw a surprise backyard party. Celine receives a pearl necklace, a joint gift from their family and friends. It’s a wonderful celebration.
But the next day, there’s a tragic death.
One of the young boys falls from a balcony under suspicious circumstances. At the time, he was being supervised by the other mother.
The film forces us to ask: How can a mother live with herself after she entrusted her son’s life to her friend? Could anyone forgive themselves? Could they forgive their friend?
By mid-film, there are still two mothers — but now one is childless. The one whose son has survived feels guilt. The one who lost her boy feels fury. Both feel grief.
As the story unfolds there are more deaths and we begin to wonder: Did one mother deliberately harm the other’s son? Who is innocent here? Who is evil? Was it an accident or a deliberate act? And who will die next?
Events become more sinister. Nothing seems perfect anymore. Even the beautiful pearl necklace ends up broken on the floor, the tiny gems rolling around chaotically.
First-time director Benoit Delhomme does a good job of leading our eyes where he wants them to go. The cinematography is beautiful, while the styling and outfits are divine.
This film keeps you guessing until the end. And there is no happy ending; sometimes, the happy ending is that there is one at all.
Mobile cinema brings Tunisians big screen experience
Mobile cinemas have long existed in other countries, but Heraghi said CinemaTdour was “unique” for turning a truck into a full-fledged theater
Updated 23 December 2024
AFP
DJEMMAL, Tunisia: Like many of his fellow Tunisians, 23-year-old Amine Elhani has never been to the cinema, but now, thanks to a mobile theater touring the country, he can finally enjoy the big screen.
The bright red truck of CinemaTdour, or “moving cinema,” has transformed parking lots and factory grounds in underserved towns and neighborhoods across the North African country into pop-up theaters.
In the central town of Djemmal, dozens of workers unloaded the expandable truck, easily setting up a fully equipped outdoor movie theater with 100 seats.
“The screen is huge, and the sound effects are amazing,” said Elhani, who had so far only watched films on his phone or computer.
He had “never had the chance to go to a movie theater,” he told AFP.
“It’s a fantastic experience, especially because I’m watching with friends.”
Movie theaters are scarce in Tunisia, numbering at just 15 and largely concentrated in major urban hubs.
Recognizing this gap, CinemaTdour was launched in May by private cultural network Agora and nonprofit Focus Gabes, with funding from private donors.
“We wanted a way to reach as many viewers as possible, in a short time and on a limited budget, while offering them an authentic cinematic experience,” project director Ghofrane Heraghi told AFP.
Mobile cinemas have long existed in other countries, but Heraghi said CinemaTdour was “unique” for turning a truck into a full-fledged theater.
Without government funding, CinemaTdour relies heavily on partnerships with private companies to cover costs like film rights, maintenance and staffing.
The truck itself was purchased on credit for about one million Tunisian dinars ($315,000), Heraghi said, with annual operating expenses of around 500,000 dinars.
For 10 days in Djemmal, residents could watch films for free thanks to a partnership with German car parts manufacturer Draxlmaier, which has a factory in the town.
Jihene Ben Amor, Draxlmaier’s communications manager in Tunisia, said the company wanted to “contribute to the development” of remote and underserved regions where it operates.
For many workers, earning up to 1,000 dinars a month, the cost of tickets and the journey to a main city with a movie theater can be prohibitive.
“Having this cinema right outside their workplace also gives workers a sense of pride and belonging,” said Ben Amor.
After Djemmal, CinemaTdour set up in Hay Hlel, an impoverished neighborhood of the capital Tunis.
Many children gathered around the pop-up theater, eager for their turn.
Yomna Warhani, 11, was beaming with excitement, anticipating her first ever movie screening.
“I can’t wait to see what it’s like inside and what films they’ll show,” she said.
Nejiba El Hadji, a 47-year-old mother of four, said: “It’s not just the kids who are thrilled, believe me.”
To her, the mobile cinema was a rare source of joy in an otherwise bleak environment.
“We have nothing here, no cultural centers and no entertainment, just the streets,” said Hadji.
“People say our kids are lost, but no one does anything about it.”
CinemaTdour’s two-week stay in Hay Hlel was funded by the World Health Organization, with screenings themed on mental health, smoking and drug abuse, and violence against women.
The shows were tailored for younger audiences as well as for viewers with hearing or visual impairments.
Heraghi, the project head, said that “what drives us is the social impact of culture.”
“We want to break stereotypes, shift mindsets, and promote values like social cohesion and community spirit.”
In just a few months, CinemaTdour has reached more than 15,000 people, including 7,500 in the southern oasis town of Nefta where a month of free screenings was sponsored by a date exporter.
The project now hopes to secure funding for additional trucks to expand its activities across the country.
But Heraghli has even bigger aspirations, she said, “taking it to Algeria, Libya, and maybe even across Africa.”
‘Mufasa’ filmmaker and cast dish on ‘Lion King’ prequel
Updated 23 December 2024
Shyama Krishna Kumar
DUBAI: US filmmaker Barry Jenkins, known for his unique storytelling approach in films like the Oscar-winning “Moonlight” and “If Beale Street Could Talk,” was never in the business of making CGI-heavy blockbusters. But when Disney calls, you answer.
“Mufasa: The Lion King,” a prequel to the 2019 photorealistic telling of the 1994 classic, sees Jenkins take the directorial baton from Jon Favreau — and he says a vital piece of advice from the latter helped him see the project through.
“Mufasa: The Lion King” is a prequel to the 2019 photorealistic telling of the 1994 classic. (Supplied)
“His advice was very simple and concrete. He said, ‘Just forget about the tech. Forget about the tech and just find whatever way you can to tell the story in your voice.’ It was really crucial,” Jenkins told Arab News.
“We still, of course, had to learn the technology, and sort of master it. But we realized very quickly we weren’t beholden to the way the technology was being presented to us, and that we could sort of mold it and meld it to fit our storytelling principles.”
Exploring the unlikely rise of the beloved king of the Pride Lands, “Mufasa” enlists Rafiki (John Kani) to relay the legend of Mufasa (Aaron Pierre) to young lion cub Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter), daughter of Simba (Donald Glover) and Nala (Beyonce), with Timon (Billy Eichner) and Pumbaa (Seth Rogen) lending their signature schtick.
Bringing the laughs in “Mufasa” are Eichner and Rogen, returning to play Timon and Pumbaa, respectively. (Supplied)
Told in flashbacks, the story introduces Mufasa as an orphaned cub who meets a sympathetic lion named Taka (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) — the heir to a royal bloodline. Their chance meeting sets in motion an expansive journey for the adoptive brothers, with their bonds tested as they work together to evade a deadly foe.
The concept of found family is integral to “Mufasa,” and while there are no surprises as to Taka’s eventual identity, Jenkins says telling his story was as important as telling Mufasa’s.
“When I first read the script, I was surprised and moved by the depth of this backstory. But then I was like, why am I surprised? Because when you watch the 1994 film, Jeremy Irons is bringing so much heartache, so much woundedness, so much bitterness to this performance. And this story is really about the energy of that woundedness, of that heartbreak. And so, I shouldn't have been surprised,” said Jenkins.
The star-studded cast — including Mads Mikkelsen, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen — bring fresh perspectives to the beloved “Lion King” universe. (Supplied)
“But once I read the script, I did realize that the success of the film, the emotional success of it, was going to depend on the quality of that bond and the way we detail it. So it was really important to us,” he added.
Charged with making the film’s music Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of the pop culture phenomenon “Hamilton.” Jenkins says he couldn’t have found a more perfect collaborator.
“I just always have admired how earnest Lin is in his work. If you look at interviews of him speaking about anything he’s done, you can tell he’s so earnest and passionate about what he does. And you know, you can’t make the ‘Lion King’ in a cynical way. You have to be just earnest about it. And I thought when it came to this idea of making a musical, I’ve never done that, so let me work with someone who has and who’s done it very well,” said Jenkins.
The star-studded cast — including Mads Mikkelsen, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen — bring fresh perspectives to the beloved “Lion King” universe.
When asked what made him say yes to the project, Mikkelsen — who plays the villainous albino lion Kiros — said that apart from the fact that he simply “loved lions,” he could see the parallels between Mufasa and his character.
“There’s not a big difference between Mufasa and Kiros. In the sense of their upbringing, except that Mufasa loses his parents in the beginning. They don’t throw him out. And that’s the opposite story with Kiros. He was abandoned. He’s an albino lion, and in the animal kingdom, it’s a no-go. So, his heart is darker than Mufasa. There’s no hope in his heart. That’s just survival. And so, he finds his own pride, and he wants a piece of the cake. He wants the entire cake,” Mikkelsen said.
Bringing the laughs in “Mufasa” are Eichner and Rogen, returning to play Timon and Pumbaa, respectively.
For Eichner, the film brings him strangely full circle.
“I saw the original in 1994 with my parents in the movie theater. I remember that. And then, strangely enough, several years later, when it went to Broadway in the very acclaimed Broadway production, I was right out of college and one of my first jobs was being a bartender at the ‘Lion King’ on Broadway. And I didn’t get to see the show. They wouldn’t let you watch the show, but they would pipe the audio from the show into the lobby so that we could hear it and know when intermission was coming. So, I’ve heard a lot of ‘Lion King’ in my life,” he said.
Rogen enjoyed collaborating closely with Eichner as they recorded their parts together, allowing them to work more organically.
“We get to record together, which is really rare in these types of movies. I think a lot of the dynamic that we have in the movies wouldn’t be possible if we were recording it two different times were, like, really interactive with one another and building off of what the other person’s saying in the moment. And it’s very fast as well. And yeah, it’s just really cool to get afforded the opportunity to carve out a little section of these giant, expensive franchise movies with our little brand of improvizational comedy. It’s cool that they let us do that,” Rogen said.
When asked if they could recall any of their improvised bits in the movie, Rogen said: “There’s some meta jokes that break the fourth wall. Billy makes some references to the Broadway show. We have a lot of jokes on how we wish we had more songs and more screen time. I mean, all that stuff that was just really making us laugh as we were doing it. And no part of me thought it would make it into the movie, honestly, but a lot of it made it into the movie.”
Eichner added: “I also like when Timon and Puma become a little bitter and resentful at Rafiki because he’s inserting himself into the story, but not giving us a part in it. At the premiere, actually, which is the first time I saw it with an audience, I had forgot about that. And that was kind of surprising that we’re allowed to do that in the movie, but it almost feels like that part is more for the adults in the crowd.”
Sister act: Saudi sibling filmmakers Raneem and Dana Almohandes talk musicals, inspiration and telepathy
Updated 20 December 2024
Shyama Krishna Kumar
JEDDAH: A trip to Saudi Arabia’s AlUla, a chance encounter with a persistent mosquito on the streets of New York and an enduring love for musicals inspired Saudi filmmaking sisters Dana and Raneem Almohandes to create their animated short film “A Mosquito,” which screened at the recently concluded Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah.
“We were walking in New York, having a good time, and there was this mosquito who kept coming back to me,” explained older sister Raneem. “This is how it all started, with one question: ‘What does this mosquito want?’ We thought, ‘She wants to talk to us, but we’re not giving her the chance.’ So, that’s where the story was born.”
Set in 1969, “A Mosquito” follows Zozo — a tiny mosquito with big dreams. While her peers are content with ordinary life in the majestic landscapes of AlUla, Zozo dares to dream of becoming a famous singer — heading to Egypt to sing before the legendary Umm Kulthum.
“A Mosquito” began life as a two-minute short — part of Raneem’s university project. It turned into its fully realized version after they took their idea to the AlUla Creates program, a local initiative that provides funding, mentorship and networking opportunities for Saudi filmmakers and fashion designers.
“When AlUla invited us to apply, we had this idea already, and we wanted to expand on it, because, you know, university projects are victims of time and resources. We developed the story with the AlUla Creates team,” said Raneem.
“We went to AlUla earlier, and we captured the aesthetics from there. The frames that you see in the film are identical to the pictures we took during our trip,” added Dana.
Raneem graduated from New York University in musical theater writing (Dana, the younger of the two, is studying filmmaking at Princess Nourah Bint Abdul Rahman University in Riyadh). “We grew up watching musicals, but we felt like we don’t have any that are in the Saudi dialect, so we wanted to create (them),” said Raneem. “That’s why I studied musical theater writing.
“We’ve always loved expressing ourselves through art. For example, Dana will do a dance whenever she wants to express how she feels about someone. Like, for my birthday, she would do a choreographed dance. I used to do small videos for our family — sometimes they’re music videos, sometimes short films … this is how we started. And then I started an Instagram page for DIY videos, and we worked together on it. It was one of the first (Instagram accounts) to reach 1 million followers in the Middle East,” said Raneem. “Dana was, like, 10 years old back then.”
Before they had received any formal training, the duo were chosen as For Change Ambassadors of Saudi Arabia. The screenplay for their first musical feature (“Dandana”) was shortlisted in the second round of Sundance’s Screenwriters Lab 2020. Their first short, “A Human,” was funded by Google and premiered in Riyadh.
The sisters reiterate that their filmmaking career is closely tied to the history of cinema in the Kingdom.
“We put ‘A Human’ up on YouTube in parallel with Saudi Arabia opening its cinemas again,” Raneem said. It went on to become one of the first 100 films to be shown in cinemas after they reopened in the country and, according to Raneem, the very first short film.
In 2022, the pair wrote and directed the musical short “A Swing,” which was selected for the official competition at the Saudi Film Festival and was screened as part of the Kingdom’s participation at Cannes in 2022.
Despite the eight-year age gap between the two sisters, the duo say they have a seamless working relationship.
“We sometimes fight, as all sisters do, but we have telepathy most of the time,” said Raneem. “We are in sync in terms of ideas. Filmmaking is all about communication.”
Working as two young women in the Saudi film industry is, Dana said, “magical.” Raneem agreed.
“It’s overwhelmingly beautiful, because the support is magnificent,” she said. “Each and every project and idea that we’ve had, we knew for a fact that if we approached the right decision maker, it would happen.”
British historian explores Nabateans’ ‘cool culture’ in documentary
Bettany Hughes’ series ‘Lost Worlds’ travels through AlUla, Europe and Petra
Updated 19 December 2024
Shyama Krishna Kumar
JEDDAH: For British historian Bettany Hughes, the story of the Nabateans is as vital as those of the ancient Greeks, Romans or Egyptians.
In a new three-part series, “Bettany Hughes' Lost Worlds: The Nabataeans,” Hughes traces the titular civilization’s incense trade routes from the Arabian Peninsula to the Mediterranean, accessing newly revealed research across Saudi Arabia’s Al Ula, Jordan, Greece, Italy and Oman.
“For me, you can’t understand the classical world unless you understand the Nabataeans — they are the missing link in the story of society, because, in many ways, they were the engine that drove many other civilizations. They connected the far edges of the Arabian Peninsula with the center of Europe, and without them, that line of connection wouldn’t have happened,” Hughes told Arab News on the sidelines of this month’s Red Sea International Film Festival, where the show’s first episode was screened.
Her decades of research have revealed that Petra, the Nabateans’ iconic capital, was just a small part of a vast empire that is only now revealing its secrets.
“When you say, ‘These are the guys that built Petra,’ then people go, ‘Oh, yeah. I always wondered.’ But that’s why we’re doing this series; to remind the world that they have this whole other story, whole other centers of operation. And to try to write them back into history. They’re a very cool culture. I’m very impressed by them.
“They love happiness. They love liberty. Women seem to have a really strong role in their society. They’re all about trade and communication — and therefore understanding people beyond borders and boundaries. So, I think there’s a lot that we can learn from them as a culture,” she continued.
Hughes’ entry point to the Nabateans came almost three decades ago.
Hughes with local desert guides in Wadi AlFann, AlUla. (Supplied)
“It was initially through trying to do detective work on the trade network,” she explained. “I knew that the Romans were obsessed with incense. I knew that Tutankhamun was buried with incense balls in his tomb. And I thought, ‘So, who’s delivering that?’ Because I also knew that incense came from that southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula. So, who was in charge?
“And then I saw this coin of Aretas IV, who was probably the most powerful of all the Nabatean kings. And Huldu, his queen, was also on the coin. And I just thought that that doesn’t happen often. That’s really interesting, so I needed to get to the bottom of their story,” Hughes added.
And since Saudi Arabia’s AlUla has been opened up to the outside world over the past few years, Hughes jumped on the opportunity to learn more about the civilization that’s recurrently appeared on the edges of her research efforts.
She first travelled to the historic site in 2022, heading deep into the deserts of AlUla, even spending time with the still-existing Bedouin communities there, tracing how the Nabateans traversed the harsh landscape with their camels and the stars as guides.
The first episode of “Lost Worlds” is dedicated entirely to AlUla, in the second episode they visit Europe, before heading to Petra in the third and final episode.
Hughes credited her love for history to one of her schoolteachers.
“When I was growing up, history wasn’t fashionable. People would say, ‘Oh, it’s irrelevant. All the answers lie in the future.’ And I just knew that couldn’t be true — that there was this reservoir of ideas and inspiration and understanding that came in the past,” she said. “And then I had a brilliant teacher who said, ‘Go for it. Even if you’re unpopular, even if people are saying no, make it happen.’ That kind of gave me the confidence to plow ahead.
“I then went to Oxford to study history, and I was very aware that in the official stories of the world that I was reading as a student, women didn’t feature very much. Even though I knew, obviously, we’d been 50 percent of the human population forever, we only occupied a tiny percentage of recorded history. So I felt that was something I could help with,” she continued. “I don’t just write about women’s history, but I’m always looking for the gaps — and the story of the female role in history is one of those gaps that needs filling.”
Review: ‘Carry-On’ fails to deliver on its festive promise
Netflix thriller with Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman starts strong, but fizzles
Updated 19 December 2024
Matt Ross
LONDON: Netflix has absolutely missed a trick with the marketing for new thriller “Carry-On”. Instead of billing it as a slick, tense action-adjacent movie starring Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman, the bosses at the streaming giant should have pitched it as a modern interpretation of the greatest Christmas movie of all time — because for the first 45 minutes or so, “Carry-On” feels like the spiritual successor to “Die Hard” (or maybe “Die Harder,” given the airport setting).
Egerton is Ethan, a disenfranchised TSA agent who dreams of being an LA cop. When monitoring bags at a packed Los Angeles airport on Christmas Eve, he is contacted by a mysterious traveler (Bateman) who gives him a simple choice: let a specific suitcase through the scanners, or the traveler will have Ethan’s pregnant girlfriend killed. What follows is a cat-and-mouse couple of hours with Ethan surreptitiously trying to raise the alarm and find out what’s in the bag, while his boss, colleagues, girlfriend and LAPD detective (Danielle Deadwyler) try to figure out why he’s acting so strangely.
And for that first 45 minutes, it’s an absolute riot – the sparky back-and-forth between Egerton and Bateman sizzles, and the sense of futility is palpable as Ethan realizes that the traveler has predicted his every move. Then, there follows one of the most ludicrously staged highway set pieces in recent movie history which, rather than upping the ante, turns “Carry -On” from a cagey, sweaty thrill ride into a zany, cartoony mess. Ethan goes from terrified everyman to buff action hero in a way that worked for Bruce Willis in 1988, but simply falls flat here. The plot, such as it is, just sort of gives up — Bateman’s villain insists that he doesn’t know the reasons for the bag caper because he doesn’t need to know, which feels a little lazy, given the effort put into the convoluted web of blackmail.
There is a positive though: despite coming off the rails in its second half, “Carry-On” is inarguably a Christmas movie. And as a result, it’s at least 10 times better than the majority of holiday dross currently cluttering up the streaming platforms. It’s just a shame that this isn’t going to be one of the best movies of the entire year— which seems like a possibility at one stage— rather than just the festive season.
