Mothers' Instinct (2024) review

Fragile housewife Alice (Jessica Chastain), who's been trying to convince her husband Simon (Anders Danielsen Lie) that she should return to work as a journalist, tries to warn her next door neighbor (and friend) Céline (Anne Hathaway) that her son Max (Baylen D. Bielitz) is in danger of slipping off the balcony of their house but is too late and the boy falls and perishes - afterwards, Céline continuously invites Alice's only child Theo (Eamon O'Connell) over to spend time with her, but Alice is convinced she has malicious intentions.  There's no denying the star power of both lead actresses, but as the story becomes more overheated with paranoia and suspicion - Simon doesn't believe his wife's fears and threatens to have her re-committed - the more zany it gets with its extremely rudimentary "understanding" of human psychology and emphasis on hysteria.  The "twist ending" is devilishly evil granted you don't think too hard about how it got there - apparently detectives in the 1960's didn't do much research into causes of death or anything like that: one glaring error is a character supposedly taking his life by slitting his own wrist ... except the cut is in the wrong direction.  Always remember (or don't): you go down the road, not across the street.