Movie Review: “Nightbitch” — Howling at the patriarchy

By Peg Aloi

Director Marielle Heller may have decided that Nightbitch‘s unusual premise had to be balanced with a decorative narrative trope.

nightbitch, directed by Marielle Heller. Screening at the Coolidge Corner Theatre.

Amy Adams in Night bitch. Photo: Searchlight images

Marielle Heller’s debut as a screenwriter and director began with 2015’s critical acclaim Diary of a Teenage Girla darkly comic coming-of-age tale based on the graphic novel by Phoebe Gloeckner, who co-wrote the adapted screenplay with Heller. Next came 2018 Can you ever forgive me? The film is adapted from Lee Israel’s autobiography by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty and received three Academy Award nominations. Heller received even greater recognition the following year with A beautiful day in the neighborhoodwith Tom Hanks in a career-high performance as Fred Rogers and Matthew Rhys as the reluctant, troubled journalist who interviews him. With her latest film, Heller continues to explore themes found in her previous work: messy human behavior, the limits and struggles of living a creative life, and redemption overcoming feelings of regret.

Adapted from Rachel Yoder’s novel, Nightbitch Amy Adams stars as a 42-year-old woman who has chosen life as a stay-at-home mother over her former career as an artist. The film opens with the unnamed “Mother” (Adams) standing in her kitchen drinking coffee while her adorable son plays at her feet. As she stares into space as she prepares breakfast, a voice-over monologue suggests a rich inner life as it laments a daily existence marked by exhaustion and boring routines. “Husband” (Scoot McNairy) is a good guy, but he travels a lot for work, isn’t quite sure how the coffee machine works, and doesn’t help around the house as much as he could. The husband also doesn’t notice his wife’s existential crisis until things come to a head. As Mom goes about her days – punctuated by cooking, cleaning and running errands – her internal monologue includes elements of frustration, anger, regret and increasingly morbid fantasies. She spends most days alone with her little son. Her other social contacts are limited to being with other young mothers and their children, along with occasional chats with the local librarian (a great cameo by Jessica Harper), who may know more about the mother’s predicament than she initially lets on. Mother finds the other mothers quite boring, and despite being desperately lonely and hungry for stimulating conversation, refuses to befriend them: all they have in common is being mothers. Mom starts to think she might be losing her grip on reality. Then she begins to feel connected to dogs in the park and eventually begins to believe that she is turning into a dog.

At this point, the film can’t quite decide whether it wants to be a socially provocative drama or a domestic comedy with touches of magical realism. It can’t quite achieve the former because its cultural commentary is compromised by the rather bland, upscale suburbia. If it’s the latter, I would have liked to see it venture further into the realm of fantasy and delve deeper into the beastly implications of the mother’s transformation. I wanted more of Heller’s metaphorical juxtapositions of creativity and wildness, of family life and oppression, to explore what drove the woman-becomes-dog trajectory. Instead, the narrative was contrived and clumsy, with the human/animal overlay calling for attention without having much to say. Still, the dialogue is well written, despite how flawed and underrealized the vision is. Mother’s voice-over speeches are often very funny, thought-provoking and sometimes shocking. The bond between mother and son is tender and sweet, making the main character’s dilemma all the more heartbreaking (though it keeps the film from straying into darker emotional territory). The parallel mother/child and human–dog connections were also underexplored; motherly love is also nonverbal, unconditional and wild in its strength. Yet there is a palpable emotional tension on screen, intertwined with a sense of destiny, of roads not taken. Mother must be present during the child’s formative years as she feels her own youth fading, sees opportunities pass her by, fears that her artistic talent may leave her. In the end, she chooses to follow her creative path, and the catharsis is liberating.

Amy Adams gives a bubbly, nuanced performance as an intelligent, living artist who consistently sticks to what she thinks in order to keep the peace at home. The escalating tensions between mother and husband are well played by Adams and McNairy, an Everyman kind of actor who effectively channels this character’s endearing cluelessness (McNairy was also terrific as a nearly speechless Woody Guthrie in A complete unknown). By its end, the film devolves into a sort of Hallmark vibe, and that’s disappointing. Maybe Heller decided that Nightbitch‘s unusual premise had to be balanced with decorative narrative tropes. That said, the film is funny, inspiring, witty and sometimes quite bold in its exploration of contemporary motherhood. But I wanted to Nightbitch to dig a little deeper, to run a little farther, to break free from its chains, to loosen its collar and howl, unrestrained, unleashed, instead of being held at heel by convention.

Point to Aloi is a former film reviewer for Boston Phoenix and a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Critics Choice Awards, and the Alliance for Women Film Journalists. She taught film studies in Boston for over a decade. She has written about film, television and culture for web publications such as Time, Deputy, Polygon, Busyness, Fear Central, Mic, Orlando Weekly, Refinery29and Damn disgusting. Her blog “The Witching Hour” can be found at understake.