Amy Adams transforms into a dog in the big-screen adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s Nighbitch, a wickedly funny satire of modern motherhood.
Director: Marielle Heller
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Horror
Run Time: 98′
TIFF Screening: September 8, 2024
U.S. Release Date: December 6, 2024 (limited, theatrical)
U.K. Release Date: TBA
‘What fresh hell awaits you today?’ asks Amy Adams’ Mother (as stated in the credits, she is pointedly unnamed throughout the film) to the woman looking back at her in the mirror. The frustrated parent of a chaotic toddler is used to discovering unwanted surprises, but this one’s different: a tuft of white hair, or should that be fur, has sprouted from her back. Her anger towards the woman she has become, her lamenting of the life she has and the one she had to give up, take physical form as she transforms into the Nightbitch.
Based on the wildly popular novel by US writer Rachel Yoder, Marielle Heller’s new film doesn’t so much interrogate modern motherhood as rip it to shreds like a worn out chew toy. With her husband frequently absent with work, Mother is left to stew in the existence she has chosen over the successful art career that preceded family life. Limited to the home, supermarket, local park and library, her world has become so terribly small and interactions with anyone other than her fellow mothers of young kids are sparse.
But the animal inside cannot be caged for long. Adams is terrific as a woman experiencing a physical and spiritual metamorphosis; the exhaustion of solo parenting is palpable, but so is the rage still burning behind her eyes. For a Hollywood A-lister she looks fittingly dishevelled, a convincing image of a bourgeoise woman who has swapped exhibition openings for ‘baby book time’ and who seethes at the indignity of it all. When Scoot McNairy arrives unexpectedly as Husband, you’d be forgiven for having assumed Adams’ protagonist was a single mother; he is a brilliant foil, laughably clueless to her struggles.
While Adams unleashing her inner hound makes for great physical comedy, it’s her acerbic imagined responses to well-meaning inquisitors that gives us the biggest laughs. In a familiar but well-deployed device, we see the lead engage in long-winded feminist diatribes before snapping back to reality and giving her interlocutors the ‘life is a bed of roses’ reply they expect. Although there are a couple of comedic bum notes, such as when Mother’s creative life in the ‘before times’ is condescendingly contrasted with those of the other mums. The normalness of their lives is played for laughs, as if her identity crisis only has meaning because she, unlike for example one woman who previously worked as a stripper, used to be someone who mattered.
Like last year’s American Fiction, which also premiered at TIFF and won the People’s Choice Award, the satire of Nightbitch can be frustratingly lightweight. Many women will surely identify with Adams’ character, her howl of rage and the guilt she feels about not fully enjoying the gift of motherhood, but the social critique is paper thin. In this sense, it also recalls last year’s Barbie movie, with both movies’ one-note brand of Hollywood feminism proving far less engaging than the gags.
But for a lovely almost-final dolly shot, the denouement is quite forgettable; Mother’s canine antics clash with respectable society in predictable ways, and a flashback-driven sub-plot about her own mum limps to the finish line. Nonetheless, at its best, Nightbitch is a witty dose of magic realist escapism that will resonate with mothers across nations and generations. Beware of the dog.
Nightbitch was screened at TIFF on September 8, 2024. Read our review of Triumph!
