Words by JANE CROWTHER
You don’t have to be a parent or have been part of raising a child to feel the vibes of Marielle Heller’s adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s novel. But anyone who has ever played the hundredth mindnumbing toddler game in a day, cleaned up ankle-biter messes on rinse and repeat or prayed that the little darling goes to sleep in hour four of lullabies will feel seen watching Amy Adams, as an unnamed mother, lie facedown and aghast on the carpet of her living room while her child jumps on her.
Following the internal monologue of our nameless protagonist, Nightbitch introduces us to a woman who used to identify as an artist with a vibrant life in Manhattan and now struggles to find a clean shirt in a daily suburban routine of caring for her child while her sweet, feckless husband (Scoot McNairy) works away during the week. Heller depicts this as a relentless, machinery hum of monotony – the same hash browns for breakfast, the walk to the park, the fraught bathtime, the wind-down routine, the sleepless nights. The Mother dreams of shouting her real thoughts at former colleagues she meets in the supermarket who ask ‘Don’t you just love being a Mom?’, of running away from the sunny mums she meets at baby book club, of ripping her husband’s throat out when he returns to complain about his room service and tell her that ‘happiness is a choice’. Which is when a pack of dogs start showing up at the Mother’s door, when she starts to grow hair, likes eating a raw steak, when a nub protrudes from the base of her back like a tail… Is the Mother becoming something else?
With its flirtation with body horror (pus-filled sores are poked with needles), transformation and society’s rigid view of ‘good’ women, Nightbitch shares similar themes with The Substance. Tonally though, it’s a gentler rage against the machine. Fans of the book will perhaps feel that a certain cat incident lacks, ahem, bite, while the ferocity of Yoder’s societal critique is softened. But while the satire might be less savage, the commitment of Adams is not. In a truly vanity-free portrayal, she sticks the landing of playing a believable messy woman trapped in a maternal Groundhog Day and wracked with guilt for having wished for it. And when she’s digging into the back garden earth, nose pressed to soil and nails seamed with filth, she’s a feral, joyous creature that you’ll want to run the streets with.
Though it wants its doggy treat and to eat it, Nightbitch is nevertheless another encouraging step towards a world in which every type of woman and female experience is represented onscreen – and will certainly play like gangbusters at mother and baby screenings.
Words by JANE CROWTHER
Nightbitch is in cinemas now
