NIGHTBITCH - Mark Reviews Movies

Nightbitch, Searchlight Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | December 5, 2024

Being a mother is tough, to say the least, and it's especially difficult for the main character of Nightbitch. She's a stay-at-home mom, who didn't want to give up on her career as an artist but essentially ended up doing so, simply because there's no time to spare for anything she might want or need to do.

It doesn't help that her husband, as he's appropriately named in the credits, isn't much or any help in parenting department, so this poor mother, played with plenty of strewing frustration and easy sympathy by Amy Adams, has to do it all on her own. Is it any wonder that she starts imagining herself transforming into a dog?

Well, it is a bit of a curiosity, actually, in writer/director Marielle Heller's movie, an adaptation of Rachel Yoder's novel. The story of this woman—trapped in the same old routines, feelings of being completely ignored by everyone, and doubts that her decision to be a full-time mother was the correct one—is strong enough without the flourishes of fantasy and this strange central metaphor. Not every story requires a high-concept hook, and one such as this, grounded in the tricky and complex realities of motherhood, suffers a bit too much from the added and seemingly unnecessary gimmick.

It feels unnecessary, at least, considering that Adams' character is already struggling with a kind of fantasy before she even starts to suspect she might be turning into a dog. The opening scene, of Mother shopping at a grocery store with her 2-year-old son (played by twins Arleigh Patrick and Emmett James Snowden) in tow, gets at that idea pretty clearly. She bumps into an old co-worker, who has since taken over Mother's job at the art gallery where she worked until giving birth. The woman asks Mother how she's doing and how motherhood is going for her, and Mother unleashes a lengthy diatribe of worries, complaints, pains, uncertainties, and miseries.

It's all in her head, of course, but there it is for us, at least—put plainly and unmistakably that Mother regrets and resents her choice to give up everything to be a mother. In reality, she doesn't say a single word of that speech, obviously, because Mother is already pretending to be someone and something else: the picture-perfect idea of the happy, uncomplaining, and wholly fulfilled mom.

Maybe that's why the entire dog angle of this story feels so extraneous. Mother is already playing make-believe, essentially, putting on a smiling face and a chipper attitude in public, while she's privately filled with bouts of anger that are only tempered by long stretches of malaise. Heller gives us a montage early in the movie—of Mother cooking the same food, sitting to eat at the same little table with her son, reading the same kind of stories to help but that fail to put the kid to sleep, and doing it all and more over and over and over again—that tells us everything in simple, straightforward, and exhausting terms.

Why does she start imagining herself as a dog? Well, she starts noticing hair growing in places it hadn't before and that her sense of smell seems heightened. While giving her son a ride on her back, the boy laughs about some fuzz growing on her lower back, and adding literal insult to lots of physical and psychological injury, Mother's husband, played by Scoot McNairy, almost calls her a certain word the morning after she tells him she doesn't feel like having sex at that moment. Mother fills in the blank, and if Husband sees his wife as a female dog, why shouldn't she become one?

That seems to be logic behind the story's eventual turn toward occasional fantasy, as the daytime mundanity and irritations continue, while Mother has visions or dreams or sleep-deprived hallucinations of becoming a literal dog at night. Some other things start happening, too, such as a trio of dogs following Mother wherever she goes, Mother encouraging her son to pretend to be a dog with her (which has the added benefit of him sleeping on his own, if in a dog bed), and her finally saying aloud what she's feeling and standing up for herself. She makes some friends at the library, including a librarian (played by Jessica Harper) who helps her find a book on women transforming into animals and a group of mothers who find her fascinating, and makes sure no one can ignore her at a dinner with old art colleagues, who seem to forget she's at the table.

The point of the story, of course, is empowerment and understanding, and in its moments of down-to-earth realism, the movie, especially with Adams' strong performance at the center, gets at those ideas in admirably frank ways. Mother has another speech, which she actually says, about the contradictory nature and perception of being a mother—how content a mother is supposed to be but how draining it is, how much sacrifice is expected but how little is offered in return, how vital it is to continuation of the species but how constantly unappreciated it is by society at large.

When Nightbitch puts it all that plainly, is there really any room or need for a metaphorical transformation to force the notion even further? It becomes a distraction from an otherwise genuine and potent examination of motherhood.

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