‘Nightbitch’ Review
Stars: Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy, Arleigh Snowden, Emmett Snowden, Jessica Harper, Zoë Chao, Mary Holland, Archana Rajan, Nate Heller | Written by Marielle Heller, Rachel Yoder | Directed by Marielle Heller
Six-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams stars in Nightbitch, a lycanthropic motherhood allegory from Can You Ever Forgive Me? director Marielle Heller. Adapted from the 2021 novel by Rachel Yoder, it features a tour-de-force central performance and delivers a powerful message, though audiences expecting a full-on were-woman movie may be a little disappointed.
Adams plays Mother (none of the characters are ever named), a formerly promising artist who has given up her career in order to raise her young son (adorable moppets Arleigh Snowden and Emmett Snowden) in the suburbs, while her mostly oblivious husband (Scoot McNairy) has a job that frequently takes him out of town on business trips. Mother’s life has become a seemingly endless round of fried frozen hash browns, trips to the park, Book Babies sessions at the library (where she can’t relate to the other mothers) and general, all-consuming childcare, so she gets irrationally annoyed with Husband when he’s all excited about “Daddy Bath Time”, but can’t seem to manage it without interrupting her ten minutes of peace and quiet by asking her questions or to bring him things.
Consistently exhausted and exasperated, Mother is somewhat mystified when she discovers a patch of what seems like fur on her lower back. That’s followed by elongated teeth, six extra nipples and a hairy stump protruding from her coccyx, not to mention the fact that she’s suddenly commanding the attention of all the neighbourhood dogs. But is it all in her head, or is something more sinister going on?
The script goes extremely heavy on the general allegory, that motherhood has essentially transformed Mother from a promising artist with a bright career into a feral creature she barely recognises anymore, concerned only with protecting her brood. To that end, the dialogue contains a number of diatribes laced with simmering rage (most of which turn out to be in her head), which are certain to induce murmurs of recognition among parents in the audience.
It would have been easy for Nightbitch to have leaned further into the horror aspects, and go full were-woman, with a suitably high body count and everything. However, that’s not quite what happens – instead, Mother rather takes her transformation in her stride, and her reactions are consistently fascinating because they’re not what we expect.
Adams is terrific in the lead role, aided by some excellent makeup work, that’s as good at making her look downtrodden and dishevelled as it is at depicting the creature-related embellishments later on. It’s a deeply sympathetic, achingly relatable performance that highlights many of the questionable attitudes society has towards motherhood, in that you’re expected to just get on with it and ignore the fact that you’ve had to put the rest of your life (career, friends, freedom) on hold.
McNairy is well cast as Husband, who’s not actually demonised, just a little oblivious, and he brings warmth and humour to what could easily have been a far less sympathetic part. There’s also strong support from Zoë Chao, Mary Holland and Archana Rajan as the mothers at the library, while Jessica Harper has a fun cameo as an enigmatic librarian, initiating a plot strand that ultimately goes slightly underdeveloped.
In short, Nightbitch is an engaging and consistently entertaining would-be creature feature that’s worth seeing for an awards-worthy performance from Amy Adams, though it ultimately lacks bite and hardcore genre fans may feel a little short-changed.
*** 3/5
Nightbitch is in cinemas now.
