Movie Review: ‘Nightbitch’

Opening in theaters December 6th is ‘Nightbitch,’ directed by Marielle Heller and starring Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy, Arleigh Snowden, Emmett Snowden, Zoë Chao, Mary Holland, Ella Thomas, Archana Rajan, and Jessica Harper.

​Opening in theaters December 6th is ‘Nightbitch,’ directed by Marielle Heller and starring Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy, Arleigh Snowden, Emmett Snowden, Zoë Chao, Mary Holland, Ella Thomas, Archana Rajan, and Jessica Harper.   

Opening in theaters December 6th is ‘Nightbitch,’ directed by Marielle Heller and starring Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy, Arleigh Snowden, Emmett Snowden, Zoë Chao, Mary Holland, Ella Thomas, Archana Rajan, and Jessica Harper.

Related Article: Amy Adams Talks ‘Nightbitch’ and Developing the Project as a Producer

Initial Thoughts

Movies where characters have no names, and only referred to as “Mother” or other archetypes, always make us suspicious. While it can work in book form, film is a much more visual medium and therefore a more specific one, and while that lack of specificity may make a story on the page more universal or metaphorical, the more concrete language of film may demand a little more out of its characters.

That’s especially true when you set them in a realistic – if also unnamed – time and place, as Marielle Heller’s film ‘Nightbitch’ does. An adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s 2021 novel, the movie stars Amy Adams as a stay-at-home mom (named ‘Mother’) who has given up a career as an artist and pretty much all of her self-identity to take care of her toddler (‘Son’). But Mother’s frustration with her choices manifests itself in some seemingly peculiar ways, leaving ‘Nightbitch’ in an uneasy and not super-successful limbo between satire, allegory, and body horror exercise.

Story and Direction

Mother (Amy Adams) has given up her career as an artist to stay at home and take of, as she puts it, “a person who will pee in your face without blinking.” Her daily routine with her son – walks in the neighborhood, trips to the supermarket, crafts and games in the house, the same thing every day for lunch – becomes soul-crushingly numbing; she showed her work “at the Modern” once, but is “just dumb now.”

She attends mommy groups at the library but confesses in voiceover that she hates the other moms, all of whom seem to be having a much blissful experience than she is. Meanwhile, the barely present Husband (Scoot McNairy) is off traveling most days for his anonymous job, leaving Mother to take care of Son, run the house, and listen to Husband’s whining about how their relationship isn’t what it was before Son came along. “What happened to my wife?” he asks at one point. “She died in childbirth,” says Mother bitterly.

It is those punishing early days of motherhood that ‘Nightbitch’ (the film) gets right, with director Heller saying that Rachel Yoder’s book impacted her just as she stayed home for several years with her own young children. But while Heller has a great eye for emotional and physical detail in the everyday lives of dysfunctional people (just watch her marvelous ‘Diary of a Teenage Girl’ or the brilliant ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’), she is less sure-footed when ‘Nightbitch’ takes a turn into surrealism with a touch of body horror.

Mother begins to notice fuzz growing on her back and face, while her teeth seem to sharpen; a bump on the end of her spine soon elongates into what appears to be a tail. Wild dogs begin congregating around her house at night, sometimes leaving her their kills. She herself craves raw meat. And finally one night, Mother changes into a canine form, running on all fours through her nameless suburban neighborhood as if she’s just been released from solitary confinement. She’s free, she’s an animal, she’s a primal force of nature – she’s herself.

Or is she? While such a transformation may work on the page, putting it on film makes it more literal and clunky. We’re never quite sure whether it’s all in Mother’s mind or not, and the earlier, emotionally truthful parts of the story simply don’t sit well with its flights of fancy. At one point, an enigmatic librarian named Norma (the great Jessica Harper) gives Mother a book called “A Field Guide to Magical Women,” suggesting that Mother is part of a long line of women who have “delayed their own greatness” (including Mother’s own mom). But just as things seem to come to a head – both in Mother’s own interior life and in her increasingly strained relationship with Husband – the story comes to a pat conclusion that seems to tie things up in simplistic fashion.

‘Nightbitch’ offers up some rich material for both Heller and Adams to mine, and hits upon some stark truths about motherhood – truths that often get buried in society’s rush to make it seem like it must be the ultimate achievement and defining moment in every woman’s life. But the film’s fantastical extension of those ideas doesn’t go very far, and the movie retreats from them almost as soon as it begins to explore them.

The Cast

We can watch Amy Adams in just about anything, and ‘Nightbitch’ is really a showcase for her. Although Mother is more an idea than a full character in many ways, Adams brings a complexity to this woman that provides the main drive for the film. Mother’s exhaustion, boredom, and inner tension is palpable, as is her barely suppressed – and fully earned – rage when confronted with Husband’s neediness. And when her animalistic tendencies take over, her sexuality comes out unexpectedly as well, simmering, raw, and long-buried but still powerful. Although Adams is hampered by the script’s queasy sort of twilight existence, she still delivers a well-rounded and poignant performance.

Scoot McNairy, playing his second insecure male this year after his turn in the American remake of ‘Speak No Evil,’ does not fare nearly as well as Husband, a one-dimensional punching bag who pretty much deserves every (symbolic) blow he takes. Husband is clueless, unsympathetic, and emotionally absent, which makes his abrupt character turn toward the end of the film feel hollow. McNairy is a good actor who’s not served well by this role, and while Husband certainly represents a certain kind of husband and father (not all, but a lot) who see their role as merely bringing home the bacon while leaving the parenting to their partners, the film’s portrayal comes up short.

Although they’re all pretty thinly-drawn in a way, the women from the mommy group that Mother reluctantly hangs out with are at least fun to watch in a comic sense, and it’s always nice to see our beloved Jessica Harper (‘Suspiria,’ ‘Phantom of the Paradise’) onscreen even if her narrative thread ultimately doesn’t lead much of anywhere.

Final Thoughts

With award season upon us, there’s a good chance that Amy Adams might land her seventh Oscar nomination for ‘Nightbitch,’ and it would certainly be well-deserved. Whether she can win or not in a field that’s already looking fiercely competitive – with ‘Anora’ star Mikey Madison, ‘Babygirl’ lead Nicole Kidman, and Angelina Jolie from ‘Maria’ all in the running, among others – remains to be seen.

We just wish the movie around her was better. While the more realistic parts of ‘Nightbitch’ are on target much of the time, the film’s more allegorical or fantastical elements just don’t mesh as well, at least on film, and the director is never able to solve that problem. And instead of committing all the way to one direction or the other, ‘Nightbitch’ just kind of quickly wraps things up. Amy Adams’ provocative performance deserves better, but in the end this ‘Nightbitch’ lacks bite.

‘Nightbitch’ receives 6.5 out of 10 stars.

What is the plot of ‘Nightbitch’?

An overwhelmed and frustrated stay-at-home mother (Amy Adams) begins to seemingly transform into a dog as she yearns to rediscover her own identity.

Who is in the cast of ‘Nightbitch’?

Amy Adams as MotherScoot McNairy as HusbandArleigh and Emmett Snowden as SonZoë Chao as JenMary Holland as MiriamElla Thomas as NayaArchana Rajan as LizJessica Harper as Norma

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