A film deserves better than to be judged by its choice of title. But considering Nightbitch, an adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s 2021 novel, is quite literally about a stay-at-home mum convinced she’s turning into a dog, it seems fair to ask for a little wildness, a little bite. Nightbitch is as tame as can be.
And this is surprising, considering its director Marielle Heller has already made two refreshingly thorny stories, The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015) and Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018) – both about female characters claiming their space in the world, even if their paths veer towards self-obliteration.
“I want to stink,” Mother (Amy Adams) cries out. “I want to be a monster.” She loves newborn Son dearly (played by both Arleigh and Emmett Snowden), and Heller and Adams are careful to preserve the purity of that connection, but she’s also trapped in an endless cycle of scream, clang, squelch. She’s set aside her career ambitions, her achievements as an installation artist, while Husband (Scoot McNairy) – have you figured out the naming convention yet? – is able to roam from work to pleasure, barely contributing to the care of Son.
Mother, after a full week, finally has the opportunity to shower. Almost as soon as her hair is wet, Husband is there tapping on the glass screen, demanding to know why they’re out of milk. The kind of rage that behaviour would induce, without a proper outlet, would make anyone want to start howling at the moon.
Yet Heller, in her adaptation, has shed much of the book’s horror, bodily or not. Thick strands of hair grow out of a butt pimple, a new set of eight teats make an appearance. But when Mother’s eyes start to glow, it’s a little too much like the werewolves in Twilight (2008), not enough like the werewolves in the cult coming-of-ager Ginger Snaps (2000), or the classic An American Werewolf in London (1981). There’s no sense of repulsion there. Instead, Nightbitch is largely a series of monologues about the “brutal” reality of motherhood, the violence of birth, the irreversible changes to a woman’s physiology and psychology. Its core points are relatively few, so we end up trapped in Mother’s circular thoughts.
Adams is far too talented to require all this material. I couldn’t help but think of the Diablo Cody-written Tully (2018), and how everything Nightbitch tries to say can be summed up in the single image of its star Charlize Theron sitting silently in her bra at the dinner table, looking like her soul’s just been sucked out through her nipples. It’s the difference between a film telling us what we should feel, and allowing us to feel it.
Mother is then made to deliver vague entreaties about the primal, ancient nature of her existence, arguing that all mothers are, in fact, “gods”, because they create life. But that’s Instagram-grid, motivational-poster, superficial stuff – seeing motherhood as divine isn’t particularly helpful when said mothers are fighting to be seen as humans, worthy of human rights. Heller’s film is a fairytale, it’s not here to point fingers towards economic and political shifts. But when its conclusions end up so tidy and emotionally pat, you can’t but wonder what it’d be like if Nightbitch were actually allowed to run free.
Dir: Marielle Heller. Starring: Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy, Arleigh Snowden, Emmett Snowden, Zoë Chao, Mary Holland, Ella Thomas, Archana Rajan, Jessica Harper. Cert 15, 98 mins.
‘Nightbitch’ is in cinemas from 6 December
