In the opening moments of Nightbitch, director Marielle Heller appears alongside her star Amy Adams, both playing frustrated mothers in a grocery store. Both Heller and Adams are themselves mothers, and Adams’ unnamed character, credited as Mother, is also an artist. Mother, though, has put her career on pause to raise Son while Husband (Scoot McNairy) works, often disappearing for days at a time on business trips. As the film opens, these days with an infant are a bleed of cooking, cleaning, and sleep training — though Mother doesn’t manage much actual sleeping herself. When she tries to break up the monotony by bringing her son to story time at the library, she can’t believe the other mothers submit to the cloying songs. But when she tries to consider her art, she can’t, feeling “dumb” since giving birth. If this seems like an extreme arrangement, at least by the standards of 2024, that’s the point. Mother’s life has become unlivable, but she can’t stop living it.
Rather than seeing Mother succumbing to depression, however, Nightbitch follows her as she begins to believe she’s transforming into a dog. Though Heller literalizes this psychosis through spurts of body horror, it’s often tangential to Mother’s actual attempts to affect change. Initially, simply considering the possibility of transformation is enough to energize her; later, it spurs a physical outlet for her frustration, as well as absurd efforts toward resocializing her son. Though this bold conceit is what the film is obviously advertising to viewers, in execution it’s a more subtle break from realism that effectively conveys her interiority. Several scenes play out twice, first allowing Adams to communicate her desperation before defaulting to submission, and it’s here that we see her flail for a solution to a problem she can’t admit she has. Eventually, one of Mother’s more violent fantasies turns out to have been actualized, and some viewers may struggle to empathize with her past this point. It helps, though, that even the reality from which she diverges is heightened, and that her desperation is so palpable.
Because, again, it’s clear this is a personal project for both director and star, beyond a generic exploration of motherhood. Adams gets across a very real sense of loss, without ever placing into doubt her love for her son. Mother struggles to reclaim not just her life, but her intellect, her femininity, her identity. The paradox, that nothing could cause her to give up this life she can’t stand, is one that resonates far beyond the confines of motherhood. As the film moves past its climax, it approaches a resolution teetering on the wrong side of neat, particularly given the lack of neatness that is essential to the preceding narrative. But it’s nonetheless refreshing to see Adams play a mother who is at various points genuinely contemptible. So while Nightbitch doesn’t get all the details right, Heller’s approach is wonderfully unapologetic, and gives both director and star the space each needs to navigate the messy path of Mother’s ultimate return to reality.
Published as part if TIFF 2024 — Dispatch 2.