Nightbitch is a reductive maternal fable stretched thin
Being a mother is difficult. While I can’t personally attest to the difficulties of motherhood, I understand that to be objectively true. I’ve also seen many films across multiple genres that tackle the hardships of motherhood, from Freaky Friday to The Babadook. Many of these films depict how maternal hardships can be understood on deeper levels, or seen from a previously unexplored perspective. Facing the demands of motherhood, and depending on the genre, protagonists go on a journey of self-discovery through side-splitting humor, terrorizing horror, or tear-jerking drama. Nightbitch is a dark comedy that focuses so resolutely on the most fundamental difficulties of being a parent – losing sleep, social and professional sacrifices, too much to do and not enough time to do it – that the film’s creative supporting elements fail to make an impact.
Nightbitch is based on Rachel Yoder’s novel of the same name. The story takes place in a generic suburban setting, where a stay-at-home mom, only referred to as Mother (Amy Adams), takes care of her toddler, Son (Arleigh and Emmett Snowden). Over the course of a few weeks, while her absent husband, Husband (Scoot McNairy), embarks on numerous business trips, Mother begins to transform into a dog at night and behaves like a dog during the day. Fifteen minutes into Nightbitch, Mother’s motherly frustrations and pending canine transmogrification are clearly understood. Until the film’s final ten minutes, no new revelations occur. In between the film’s opening and ending, we’re left to witness a repetitive series of scenes where Mother struggles to find any peace, she behaves like a dog with Son, and Husband fails to assist and even makes matters worse with incessant favor-asking and whininess. The plot is all very on-the-nose. The script includes voice-over narration, and a few Kafka-esque body horror transformation scenes, but these creative choices lack risk-taking; the horrors aren’t graphic, the magical realism isn’t explored, and the humor consists primarily of dog-behavior jokes. Nightbitch, aside from its title, plays its darkly comedic fringe-horror story too safe. By the time Nightbitch’s final ten minutes arrive and Mother begins to discover a new sense of self-worth within a handful of scenes that introduce new ideas to the plot, it’s too little, too late.
Amy Adams is a great performer. She handles the physically awkward demands of the role well. But, as has been the case since her 2019 Oscar-nominated role in Vice, her chosen materials have not matched her talent: Hillbilly Elegy, Zach Snyder’s Justice League, The Woman in the Window, Dear Evan Hansen, and a few more disappointing entries. At least in Nightbitch, with writer/director Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me?; A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood) at the helm, the film ably captures a sense of suffocating suburban domesticity. Perhaps many stay-at-home-moms will closely relate to Nightbitch, or find themselves rolling their eyes and sighing, “duh.” Adams and Nightbitch, and viewers, would have benefited from the script having more bite.
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Nightbitch opens in theaters today.
