‘Nightbitch’ Is ‘Barbie’ for Moms (Derogatory)

The following contains spoilers for Nightbitch.

Mothers can be all kinds of marvelous things: Beacons of light; anchors in storms; roots of strength; Cate Blanchett. The majority of us (even those lucky enough to like our mothers) would agree they can also be a real bitch. It isn’t always their fault. There’s generational trauma gone untreated, gendered expectations, and perhaps even jealousy to contend with. Hell, they’re only human. Until one day, they’re not. Such is the case in Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch.

In the film adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s 2021 novel of the same name, Amy Adams is known only as Mother. Her name, as is the person she was before she gave birth to her toddler son and became a stay-at-home mom stranded in suburbia, is unknown. Instead, we’re fed clues like individual pellets of kibble via her own narration and interpersonal relationships — namely, with her husband (who’s noticeably absent until at least 15 minutes in), and a handful of fellow moms who clearly aren’t her usual pack. Not so long ago, Mother was a city-dweller, a successful artist, and a woman whose wardrobe probably didn’t include an elastic waistband or a kaleidoscope of stains. She does her best, but each day’s mundanities — from frying frozen Trader Joe’s hash browns to suffering through library kiddie sing-a-longs — serve as reminders she’s become the mother, and person, she never wanted to be.

It’s a tale as old as time, but Yoder’s novel puts a surrealist spin on it: Mother welcomes her wrath, then succumbs to savagery. It’s compelling on paper but on screen? Her metamorphosis from human to dog is abrupt if not totally incoherent. Apart from bolting down food, barking, and noting more body hair — and one ghastly sequence where she grows a tail that rivals the body horror seen in The Substance — we don’t see much of a physical transformation. And the why of it all is only lazily explained in terms of ancient folklore found in a book at her local library.

Is becoming a dog simply some kind of mythological metaphor? Or, is it dissociation to cope with the doldrums of life? Given the tail and whiskers go away during the day, is Mother just imagining it all? We don’t get any semblance of an answer until the third act when she — in dog form — tears into the family’s cat and tosses its carcass on the doorstep for her son to discover the next morning. You read that correctly. This moment leads to a heart-t0-heart with the moms she once hated in which they validate her ferocity over a glass of wine. It’s enough to make you wonder if that New York magazine psychopath was also invited. The lesson, I guess, is that mothers — even empowered ones — make mistakes? No way!

By the end, Mother’s psychological transformation is dubious, too. Mother separates from Husband, only to reunite with him after he validates that she’s a human being as opposed to a sperm carrier, chef, housekeeper, and teacher. Then, they decide to have another child — you know, because they were having so much fun with the first one. The bottom line seems to be that domesticity isn’t so bad as long as you get to attend wine nights with the neighborhood busybodies and your husband can be bullied into being more than a glorified babysitter. Frankly, it’s reminiscent of Barbie in that its apparent celebration of women’s anger and autonomy just feels like a pat on the head — especially as another Trump term looms.

Adams, for her part, does her best with the source material. Anyone familiar with her repertoire — from Sharp Objects to Doubt to Drop Dead Gorgeous — is well aware of her talent. Unfortunately, very little of it is on display in this stylistically inelegant, borderline sitcom approach to entry-level feminism. Nightbitch had the makings to go all the way there in its depiction of distinctly feminine chaos and catharsis, rage and release. If it had been more grotesque, it could’ve been an effective horror film. Hell, it might’ve been an Oscar contender if it made a little more sense.

Instead, it’s almost as if Nightbitch is suffering the same burden the average mother is: how to be a little something marvelous for every kind of audience rather than the one that matters. The result is a rather shallow piece of cinema — rife with pedestrian commentary on the supposed magic of motherhood — that says a lot without saying much at all.

Frankly, all bark and no bite might even be too benign to describe the most unforgivable folly of Nightbitch. It’s been a month since I’ve seen it and I still find myself wondering: For fuck’s sake, it’s 2024. Why become a dog when you could just be a divorcee?