Amy Adams stars as the unnamed mother in Nightbitch, a film depicting the pains of motherhood with a canine element of magical realism, but it is unfortunately all bark and no bite. Nightbitch is Marielle Heller’s fourth feature film, most notably after Can You Ever Forgive Me? and A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, both of which were in the awards conversation. Whilst both those films were true stories, Heller takes a fictional tale in Nightbitch, adapted from the book by Rachel Yoder. A film that tackles postnatal depression and being alone with a toddler, as Amy Adams’s Mother begins to lose her mind and feels like she is becoming a dog.
The film plays on the animalistic tendencies that come from being a mother. As the Mother slowly loses her grip on reality, not showering in a week, wearing the same dirty clothes, and loathing her son’s Library sing-along classes, she begins to feel more primal in her frustrations. Early on in the film, we see her teeth sharpen, as if to show that she is losing patience with her son whilst her Husband, played by Scoot McNairy is absent, working for days without returning and when he does he is a teenager glued to his Xbox.
Although Nightbitch has the makings of a really interesting piece, it flatters to deceive. Whilst, its use of magical realism elements of Adams’s transformation should create a more surreal and primal depiction of motherhood, it often ends with cringe-inducing moments, in scenes similar to that of Eddie Brock jumping in a lobster tank in Venom. The film treats the Mother as buffoonish, delusional. At times, we don’t sympathise with her, we laugh at her, she is a lowlife of society who lets her kid eat like a dog at a restaurant, whilst resorting to letting him sleep in a dog bed at night. These are apparently the answers to curing a poorly behaved-toddler.
Although Amy Adams tries to give the mother figure as much nuance as possible, the film is enormously heavy-handed and contrived. Whilst the film attempts to show the female body as magical, it degrades the mother figure so much to the point I lost the will to live. Her answer is to become primal, animalistic, growing dog-like body parts in what feels like a bizarre way to take the narrative. There is not much in the way of reasoning and becoming an animal doesn’t feel empowering but rather disgusting. Yet, when this happens everything is conveniently resolved. Heller gives little in the way of empathy, resorting to long, strenuous monologues that are a cry for help, a pity party.
It is begging, but that is not how you create empathy, showing a struggle and how far she has fallen - her life before birth is notably absent. Although there are some neat moments, such as showing what the unnamed Mother wishes to say in contrast to what she actually says, or telling her husband that her former self died in labour. However, these brief moments are like needles in haystacks, only adding to the frustration of what could have been.
Whilst Nightbitch has an intriguing premise, focusing on the underrepresented theme of the early years of motherhood, the film abjectly fails in its mission to empathise with the mother. A delusional woman whose solution is to teach her son to be a dog in a bizarre film whose 90-minute runtime is excruciatingly long.
Comments