# Instinct (2019 film)

Instinct is a 2019 Dutch drama film directed by Halina Reijn from a script she co-wrote with Esther Gerritsen and it stars Carice van Houten and Marwan Kenzari. It follows Nicoline, a prison therapist who becomes obsessed with a patient, who is a serial rapist. It was screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. It was selected as the Dutch entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.

## Plot

A prison therapist becomes obsessed with her charismatic patient, a violent serial rapist on the verge of being paroled.

## Cast

* Carice van Houten as Nicoline
* Marwan Kenzari as Idris
* Marie-Mae van Zuilen as Marieke
* Pieter Embrechts as Alex
* Ariane Schluter as Directrice

## Production

The idea for the film came when Reijn was watching a documentary programme called "Liefde in de TBS" (Love in the TBS) broadcast by EO, how about how relationships happen between therapists and their patients in a prison psychiatric hospital. She wanted explore intimacy about a woman who was unable to be intimate with others due to being hurt in the past, she who doesn't trust her own instincts anymore in regards to her own sexuality and desires. She wanted to examine her own confused feelings around her own sexuality and alongside wanted to explore themes of power, sexuality and intimacy.
Reijn pitched the concept to producer Frans van Gestel, about a psychotherapist who falls for her worst enemy. Van Gestel contacted five screenwriters for the project, of the five, Esther Gerristen was the one hired. Reijn viewed it as an important step at the time, She viewed having a second writer as necessary. The writing of the script, she co-wrote with Esther Gerristen, started before the #MeToo movement, but they get more motivated to actually realize the project after the movement took off. They researched anything they could find about tbs, including a visit to a tbs-clinic in order to fact-check their own work. Michel Schöpping was brought in by van Gestel for the sound design. He also surrounded Reijn with other experienced professionals, including cinematographer Jasper Wolf and editor Job ter Burg.
In one of their first meetings they decided to include less female nudity, with a focus on the female gaze. Van Houten, recalled in hindsight asking herself the question regarding her previous projects, "Why am I even naked for this scene?", they also wanted to avoid the objectification of women in the film and wanna show off sexuality without immediately adding female nudity. The movie does contains male nudity, and they wanted include full frontal nudity, but they were overruled, even though Kenzari was up for it.
Writing and filming happened under the working title of Locus of Control. Carice van Houten and Marwan Kenzari were cast in the lead roles. They decided to keep the production small-scale with a modest budget, the filming took only 23 days. The shoot took place in May 2018.
They changed the name from Locus of Control to Instinct, realizing most people wouldn't know the term locus of control.

## Release

Instinct premiered at the 72nd Locarno Film Festival. On September 19, 2022, it was announced that A24 had acquired North American distribution rights to the film, exclusively screening it as double feature with Reijn's Bodies Bodies Bodies in the company's screening room three days later on September 22.

## Reception

Instinct has an approval rating of 80% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 15 reviews, and an average rating of 7.4/10. Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 66 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews".