Nightbitch
Updated: Feb 23, 2025
Howling return to screens from Amy Adams in this more bark than bite surreal comedy about the sacrifice of motherhood.
Mother (Adams) is two years down the line in being a stay at home mum to her toddler. Spending every second of the day playing, cooking, taking him to the park, baby groups, and battling to get him to sleep, meanwhile Husband (Scoot McNairy) spends the week working away and having comfortable nights in hotels. Mother experiences the overbearing strain that her role brings and mourns the free life of being an artist in the city she used to have. Her frustrations, resentments, and tiredness come to life in imagined outbursts with other mums, but most strangely an ancient instinctual transformation begins to turn her into a dog, becoming an explosive expression of her rage and power.
Based on Rachel Yoder's 2021 novel, Nightbitch plays out like the Shaggy Dog mixed with the Fly with bits of Marriage Story, though resulting probably closer to the playful touch of the former. Nightbitch is more fun and gentle than extreme with its premise. Amy Adam's bursts out with an impassioned performance from the get go that doesn't hold back from confident gut punching internal narration. Adams perfectly embodies the warmth and love of Mother while equally exhorting all the mental, emotional and physical tolls it takes. Her never absent presence carries the heft of the film through all the things that work and everything doesn't quite jell. Adam's commitment and investment to the subject feels raw and lived in. Mother's story is about sacrifice and how much she has given up to be one, once a talented intellectual artist has now become a restless, exhausted child bearer. She finds her once insightful and creative urges have been replaced by a constant desire for rest. Her primordial changes come to exhort her built up tension but also an empowering Goddess, since the mother has new life growing inside of her, doesn't that maker her like a God?
Opposite Adams is Scooty McNairy who plays a typically clueless Husband who is blinded by his own self interest to see how much his wife is dealing with. McNairy has some mostly laugh out loud quips and punchable moments, though doesn't live up to much more than just being a bit of moron.
It's a story about compromise, yet writer, director Marielle Heller never quite compromises the tonal shifts enough to let the film fully unleash itself. Heller settles on a pretty satisfying and easy note which lacks the dramatic weight that the film has been driving at. That being said Nightbitch still demonstrates that Heller is nothing if not an adventurous director.
Teasing a full on Cronenbergian fury transformation to come as spouts of hair, sharp teeth begin to form in Mother's body, however the film holds back a bolder animalistic metamorphosis spectacle and leans into the surface metaphor of the idea, which unfortunately plays it a little too safe. Instead of allowing the thesis to exclusively exist in physical form, Heller let's Amy Adams have multiple bursts of angry monologues over all the stresses and frustrations that her sacrificial life of mothering brings.
The balance between the magical primordial change and domestic drama, mostly blends well and lends to a truthful conversation about the mental health journey of motherhood. The moments of down to earth honesty and tenderness feel like as a reassuring comfort to all the mothers in the world to says 'you are not alone', and the aggressive cry of frustration feels targeted towards the oblivious fathers of the world to say 'look at how much she has given up for this'. Though I can't help but feel there should be a darker larger beast born from this.
What works in Nightbitch only does so due to Amy Adam's carrying the load of the film in full force, but you are still in for an enjoyable satirical ride, which could just do with more bite.
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