‘Nightbitch’ Review: Amy Adams Commits in Biting, Melancholic Motherhood Story

When the first trailer for “Nightbitch” dropped last week, the immediate reaction was one of nervousness for what the full feature would be, and some preemptive disappointment. The trailer was cut to look like a more disposable comedy of yesteryear rather than a true adaptation of the darkly funny novel on which the film is based, so it’s not hard to see where people were coming from. Still, moving to dismiss “Nightbitch” as dead in the water was premature. Could star Amy Adams not give a movie like this life? Was it possible that this was just a bad trailer? The answers to these questions are both yes and yes.

Writer/director Marielle Heller manages to get to the heart of Rachel Yoder’s bestselling book while putting some of her own spin on it. It’s no “Can You Ever Forgive Me? ,” which remains Heller’s best work, and doesn’t quite match the heights of the book, but this movie still has bite.

“Nightbitch,” which premiered Saturday at the Toronto International Film Festival, opens with a matriarch known only as Mother (Adams) who is going shopping with her child in a brightly lit supermarket. She catches a glimpse of another mother doing her best to keep her children from reaching out to grab things they want. She then runs into someone who has now taken the job she used to have before becoming an undervalued stay-at-home mom. As she gets told that she must love getting to be home with her young son all day, we hear what she would want to say about how it’s actually awful, with Adams giving the first of many great monologues. Not only does it set the tone for what’s to come, but it sees its lead sinking her teeth into the part.

We then cut back to the question and Mother gives a more agreeable answer before going about her day, which is the same as the day before and the day after. A montage blurs them together, taking on a maddening rhythm of domesticity. The only thing interrupting this is when her doof of a husband (Scoot McNairy), who travels for work during the week, comes home and expects her to do everything.

All this is starting to weigh on Mother, but she’s also discovering other things about herself. Namely, she thinks she’s turning into a dog as she’s growing what seems to be a tail and also has been noticing a hunger for meat. While the book embraced the body horror potential of this more, the movie is far closer to something like “ Your Monster ” than it is “ The Substance .” This is not a bad thing, as there are still some audacious moments here and there. It does capture the emotional core of the material, with Mother feeling isolated by being home with her son all the time, completely disconnected from the artist and person she was before giving birth, though some of the more bloody rough edges of the book are sanded off. It’s like we’re seeing a version of it that’s been slightly rewritten, maintaining most key emotional beats while losing others. There’s the same sense of playful weirdness, but this “Nightbitch” keeps things more grounded.

One could cynically say this is meant to give the film wider mainstream appeal by making it more straightforwardly accessible, but it more feels like Heller is making intentional artistic choices about what she wants to explore. The way sequences are cut together and the manner in which time slips away finds plenty of its own humor just as it does heartbreak. There is an interest the film has in moments of motherhood’s melancholy that then get left behind when we take to the streets with the canine brigade. Whether it’s when she’s become an actual dog or is still in human form, it’s liberating. It’s all part of the film’s desire for more subtle, delicately told developments rather than deadly ones. This requires pretty drastic revisions and excisions from the source material, though never once does it feel like it’s selling out. Even as it is unfortunately shot with starkly bright lighting like it’s a generic comedy, more complexity lurks in the shadows.

What makes it work more than anything is Adams who is, through the film’s flaws, giving a rather amazing performance. In addition to just being incredibly funny when delivering an all-timer of a withering stare, we see the pain, anger, sadness, and joy in her eyes even when she doesn’t speak a word she actually means to the world. Though there are plenty of goofs and gags that “Nightbitch” gets out of its premise, Adams is never treating this as anything to be ridiculed. She commits 1000% percent to the more silly bits, of which there are many, but is just as locked into her character. The expressions she gives in any situation, be it the nightmare of the library’s Baby Book Time or when her husband says something particularly oblivious, take us fully into her interior mental state. In many ways, the frequent moments of narration lessen this impact even as they feel designed to express some of what was playing out in the book.

For all the moments where it’s hewing pretty close to the source material, the conclusion and many moments throughout are a little strange as the film steps quite a distance away from the more macabre parts of the story. One critical death from the book was a messy description of blood and guts going everywhere, but the film doesn’t depict it. Her interests remain in teasing out the sly jokes and knowing looks, all of which may be subsumed by gore if it were to take this plunge.

It may not always come alive in the way Heller, or us, would entirely hope for, but one can still be glad “Nightbitch” exists, especially with Adams there to lead the way. In every facet of her performance, she paints a full portrait of a character herself figuring out who she now is.

Searchlight Pictures will release “Nightbitch” in theaters on Dec. 6.

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