With A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, director Marielle Heller established herself as one of Hollywood’s most promising emerging voices. So, when news broke that she would be adapting Rachel Yoder’s novel Nightbitch, with Amy Adams attached to star, hopes were high Heller would use the creative freedom that comes with genre cinema to deliver a poignant analysis of the burden of maternity. Unfortunately, Nightbitch never fully embraces its fantastical concept, preferring the safety of easy platitudes to deliver its message.
On paper, Nightbitch sounds deliciously weird. The movie follows Adams as a stay-at-home wife who struggles to keep her identity beyond the role of a mother. Appropriately identified as Mother, Adams’ character represents the complex relationship many mothers develop with their children, simultaneously a source of joy and why so many women forego their dreams and independence. Cornered like a wild animal in the dullness of a repeating routine, Mother slowly realizes her body is changing. As days pass, Mother discovers the incredible ability to turn into a dog, running through the streets while her husband and son sleep, unaware that the housewife releasing the primal energy she bottled up for so long.
Just glancing at Nightbitch’s premise reveals a rich tapestry of inspired ideas, as Adams’ feral dispositions speak volumes of the anguish mothers deal with alone and in silence; however, as critical as the themes weaved into Nightbitch’s script might be, the slow pacing, unnecessary voiceovers, and refusal to put the wacky concept front and center drain the movie’s potential to become a new feminist classic.
Let’s get something clear: Nightbitch is an important movie. In the past couple of decades, the feminist movement has regained new strength as a record number of women reclaim ownership of their bodies and refuse the notion that they have a specific role to play in the world, that of procreators. Yet, recent political developments underline how the battle is far from won. The idea women were born to be mothers persists. Even worse, there is pressure for mothers to be nothing but happy, as any sign of discontent leads to questioning their love and dedication to their children.
In reality, human beings are complex creatures. There’s more to us than the basic need to eat, sleep, and contribute to preserving the species. Our relentless quest for meaning shapes our relationship with the world around us. So, more often than not, this results in contradictory ideas sharing the same place inside the mind. Case in point, it’s perfectly normal to love your children and still resent the lack of time and energy that comes with parenthood. Plus, in the case of women, the fact that caring for children is viewed as an instinctive vocation often leads to the abandonment of careers, hobbies, and even friend circles.
It’s this net of conflicting feelings that fuels Nightbitch’s narrative. In the movie, Adams’ Mother clearly has a genuine connection with Son (played by Arleigh and Emmett Snowden). They share quality time together, and she’s often in awe at her child’s ability to evolve and become a layered person, one day at a time. Even so, that’s not enough for Mother. She wants to be more than the caretaker of her son. She needs to find spaces she can fill with desires that belong to her and no one else. That’s why she eventually turns into a dog, a violent transformation unleashing the rage she locks in her heart.
The importance of Nightbitch only makes its script more disappointing. Even though the movie’s marketing has focused on the dog-turning aspect of the plot, the final cut is surprisingly tame regarding supernatural elements. Mother’s secret canine life takes the backseat of the story, only popping up occasionally in between long sequences in which she struggles with her everyday life.
Heller deliberately chose to keep things as grounded as possible to underline the distress that comes with motherhood; however, without a proper magical realism approach, Nightbitch becomes too mundane for a larger audience to get hooked on its plot. People who have given birth can identify with Mother’s woes on an imitate level. For everyone else, though, Nightbitch offers little else after its first half hour. Once the point has been made, there’s nothing left to say, as the same message will just get hammered down until the movie comes to an unsatisfyingly banal conclusion.
The questions Nightbitch raises are not simple to answer. Yet, the movie tries to resolve all the conflicts in a bland ending that resembles a rom-com, a disappointing writing choice. Plus, Heller wants to ensure everyone gets what Nightbitch is about, so the narrative flow is frequently interrupted by Adams’ voiceovers in which her exact feelings are described in detail. To make things worse, these voiceovers sound underwhelmingly ready-made, preachy, and sometimes even shallow. If the movie more or less works despite all of this, that’s largely thanks to Adams’ commitment to the role.
It’s fascinating to watch Adams navigate Nightbitch’s turbulent waters, and if for nothing else, her brave choice to play such a raw character is enough to give Nightbitch a go. Like Demi Moore in The Substance earlier this year, Adams is unafraid to use her body as a storytelling tool, showing scars and changes that reflect the damage maternity inexorably causes women. In an industry where unobtainable beauty standards are expected to be pursued by actresses, it’s commendable to see Adams swim against the flow and use her inhibited talent to make such a controversial character come to life.
Nightbitch is also aided by its impeccable technical aspects. Heller repeatedly proved that she is an outstanding director, capable of giving intention to every frame of her movies. In Nightbitch, the editing is also a marvelous tool, capable of presenting the monotony of Mother’s life in an unnervingly suffocating way that reflects how motherhood can become a prison. This might not be enough to turn Heller’s latest into the hit it deserved to be, but it prevents the film from fully sinking under the weight of its unfulfilled ambitions.
That’s not to say Heller should stay away from genre productions. On the contrary, Nightbitch shines the most when exploring the dark corners of its premise instead of being self-righteous about its message. These scenes make us wonder what a Heller movie would look like if she went all in for the uncanny instead of constantly backpedaling in the name of well-intended but ultimately misguided didactics.