By Beth Nugent, Second Year Film and Television
If you were worried about not understanding the meaning of a struggling postpartum mother turning into a dog, then you’re in luck! The film, written and directed by Marielle Heller, gives you an entire 90 seconds before explaining the entire premise of the film in one monologue delivered by 'Mother' (Amy Adams).
When confronted in the supermarket by a friend who insists it must be incredible to be a stay-at-home mother, Mother replies with a lengthy speech: ‘I feel like societal norms and gender expectations and just plain old biology have forced me to become this person that I don’t recognise and I’m just angry all the time [...] And I would love to direct my artwork to become a critique of modern-day systems that articulate this but my brain just doesn’t function the way it did before the baby.’ And roll credits, because within the first 2 minutes of this movie, Heller has given you the entire plot.
Mother sacrifices her ambitions of being an artist to take care of her child, while Scott Mcnary, ‘Husband’ is away four nights a week for his job, causing inevitable conflict between the couple. Throughout the movie, Mother learns to somewhat embrace her anger and begins to develop canine qualities and a primal urge to run in the woods… and kill cats.
Nearly everyone involved in creative industries has heard the phrase ‘Show not tell’ before, and this film expertly demonstrates the consequences of not following this cardinal rule. This problem usually occurs when one of two things happen, a) the director/writer is insecure in their abilities to effectively communicate their desired subliminal message, or b) the director/writer thinks their audience is dumb. Nightbitch falls perfectly into the latter. From expository voiceovers detailing every thought in Mother’s head to the extreme close-ups of her changing form, the film leaves no room for the viewer to think for themselves. It's all handed to us on a silver platter resulting in a slow and boring movie.
Amongst the cringeworthy puns and not-so-subtle title drops, Amy Adams delivers an incredible performance with as much sincerity as this role allows. Fresh from a string of less-than-well-received movies such as Dear Evan Hansen (Chbosky, 2021) and Disenchanted (Shankman, 2022), Amy Adams reminds the viewer that every dog has its day through her raw talent and boundless creativity. A rare beautiful moment in this film is when Mother initiates a separation with Husband. Adams perfectly encapsulates the desperation and confusion needed in this scene and delivers it with the softest of tones allowing the hurt to seep through every crack in her voice - a gut-punching blow. She was this film’s saving grace, and I shudder to think of what it would have been without her.
The title, Nighbitch suggests that the entire movie will surround the idea of a woman turning into a dog at night, but the film left something to be desired in terms of the strange metaphor for postpartum emotions. At one point in the film, Mother, as a dog, kills the family cat, and as horrific as that may sound it was the first point since the film began that I sat up straight and had some kind of reaction to what I was being shown. I was excited for the last 30 minutes to explore the consequences of the rage and how far Heller was going to take it, but as soon as it was interesting, it was dropped. After this point, the film turned into a sentimental mush, the canine transformation left to be forever unexplored. This begs the question: why use this metaphor in the first place if you aren’t going to go truly feral?
Overall, the best thing to come out of this film is free birth control. And while Mother’s love for her child is clearly shown, it depicts the universal experience of a mother losing her identity and sacrificing everything to raise her child with no help from a husband who wields weaponized incompetence like a sword. While the film itself concludes with Mother - you guessed it - directing an art piece to critique modern day systems, the final scene of her giving birth to a second child leaves us asking - what’s going to change? Yes, her husband has agreed to help out more but as we all know, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
Have you seen Nightbitch?
