I was a bit disappointed with this movie. Sure, it is great that Halina Reijn had her director's debut and I realize this story is based on a screenplay by Esther Gerritsen, but the overall movie reminded me a lot of 'Elle', by Paul Verhoeven. And within that comparison, Elle is the better movie. Carice van Houten is a good actress, but she suffers sometimes from playing the same way over and over. This character of Nicoline was no exception. The same mouthy yet fragile woman with a lot of big staring eye moments and inner turmoil as we have grown used to from Carice. But when comparing the two movies, she does not compare favourably with Isabelle Huppert. Although I had the feeling while watching 'Instinct' that she gave it a try. Marwan Kenzari (Idris) was very good though, a really convincing and natural actor.

Everyone can read the synopsis online, but what stood out for me most was the shaky ending.

spoiler: Just like with 'Elle', we're dealing with a female character here who flirts with disaster and of whom we cannot easily judge whether she is a victim or a villain here. The ending made no sense to me, because there is no way in the real world that Nicoline, dressed provocatively and with heavy make-up on, wouldn't have been recorded by cctv when going intoIdris' cell. She supposedly positions herself just under the camera in his room, as to blank what happens, but Idris' actions are videotaped and the overall picture would cast a lot of doubt on her 'rape' claim, if I were an investigator. She made it clear in a team meeting that she was the only one who wanted him locked in and not sent on release. People also must have seen how she lingered around him, not least Marieke, who was sent for transparent 'chores' more than once, so that Nicoline had her alone time with the subject of her affection. Plenty of motives, in other words. So to have her walk out of the movie like some Hollywood villain, towards the light, was just a weak ending in my opinion. One of those easy twists many movie goers seem to like, though.

Missed some Interaction and depth. Acting it self was strong.

A psychologist is treating a serial rapist and starts to be receptive to his manipulations and even has fantasies about being raped, and then that happens in the end. The film is exactly going where you expect it to go, which makes it utterly boring to watch. There is certainly tension as you don't want it to happen and Kenzari is great in this film by Halina Reijn - scary and dangerous. But as an audience you're put in this abhorrent position and you just don't want to watch it any further. Rape and fantasies about rape are probably artistic hip subject matters. We've seen this before, like in Irreversible, which I would call mind pollution, as it is there just to impress the audience: look what I dare to show you - all for a quite empty artistic statement. Or like in Happiness, where we had to be part of a child rapist practices. Happiness is full of masterly scenes and ideas, but the child rapist part is really abhorrent. Instinct suffers from too many cliches, mediocre or even uncredible scenes. The dog in her bed felt like a filmschool solution. The psychologist joining him in the dunes - really? Carice tries to perform her well, but the script is so uncredible and superficial that even Carice cannot entirely convince. And a 40-year-old psychologist lying in bed intimately with her mother half naked?? That was an artistically low point in the film. Instinct sends us away with the message: men are manipulative and try to overpower women, and us women are weak and dependent. We need to draw a line and the only way is to trick them into prison. Well, how groundbreaking! Instinct had a mixed reception, but the ones that gave this film five stars out of five didn't look behind the curtain.