Nightbitch
Directed by Marielle Heller
Written by Marielle Heller (screenplay) and Rachel Yoder (novel)
Starring Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy, Arleigh Snowden, Emmett Snowden, and Jessica Harper
Runtime 1 hour and 38 minutes
MPAA Rating R
In theaters December 6

by Rosalie Kicks, Editor in Chief and Old Sport

Everyone has been asked what they want to be when they grow up. As someone that has lived forty-one years on Earth, I still do not know. Sometimes I think I do. But then I go ahead and I try it out for a while and realize that I want to try something else. Which is why I have taken to calling myself a Dabbler Extraordinaire. I do a bit of this, a bit of that. Now if someone asked me what I do NOT want to do with my life, I can emphatically rattle off a laundry list of careers that in no way strike my fancy. I may talk a big game about my love of vampires, crypts, and coffins but pretty much any job within the medical field is off the table; I can’t even watch my own blood be extracted during a lab test. On the other hand, I am the type of person that will do whatever needs to be done in order to survive, even if that means taking on a role that makes me uncomfortable — which is how I ended up being a Human Resources Professional for sixteen and a half years. I digress. Even with all the terrible roles I have taken over the years, there is one in which I was certain to never consider: Motherhood.

Marielle Heller’s latest film, Nightbitch centers around the idea of losing one’s life and themselves when participating in the act of parenting without the support of their partner. When we meet Mother (Amy Adams) she is at her wits’ end with her son (Arleigh and Emmett Snowden) and man child, Husband (Scoot McNairy). Due to her spouse’s demanding work schedule, he travels Monday to Friday while Mother is subjected to giving around-the-clock care to their child and home. These responsibilities do not afford her any quality time to herself. All of the parenting duties and household chores lie on her shoulders from cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping to laundry. It is apparent that her existence is no longer her own. Instead she has been lost within the world of child rearing while Husband considers his full time job to be the limit in terms of his responsibilities.

The screenplay, penned by Heller, was based on the 2021 novel of the same name, written by Rachel Yoder. Despite not particularly enjoying the source material, I found that Heller managed to elevate the story tenfold. There are numerous cringe moments throughout the runtime of Nightbitch that inevitably left me with the thought that children are indeed the product of hell. This feat was mainly achieved due to the convincing and powerful performance given by Amy Adams. As a viewer, it is hard not to feel her frustrations about the situation she finds herself in. She describes her previous life as “the before times,” meaning the time without her son, a time when she was a creative, ambitious artist with aspirations and dreams. With motherhood, she finds herself entrenched in a living nightmare with a husband that chooses to play video games rather than interact with his son. Even as a childless human being, I could not help but relate to her character in terms of the way her true identity has gone missing. To me there is no question about it, this motion picture is horror.

I will not bore you to tears with my entire timeline and journey to Dabbler Extraordinaire but know this, much like Mother, I too had a moment where I almost threw in the towel. However, unlike Mother, I had a partner that supported me. When I was on the verge of quitting my dreams, my spouse stepped in and reminded me that the moment in time which I found myself was not forever and I could not allow the quicksand that is corporate drudgery to put out my spark. Together we I devised an escape plan. An escape plan that may have taken years to fully enact, but served as a light at the end of a grim tunnel. He has and continues to stand by me every step of the way. In terms of Nightbitch, I believe the lack of partnership that Mother and Husband have is key messaging throughout. To have a child is a life altering decision that, more often than not, sees the burden of the required change laid solely on the maternal figure. Heller puts the typical gender roles on full display and shows the unbalance that occurs in relationships is often due to preordained societal norms, specifically in raising children. Sure, one can get lost in Amy Adams transformation into a dog and the hilarity of her outlandish behavior in the supermarket or at book babies playgroup, but these are just simply moments that ultimately serve as the catalyst to her rediscovery: the heart of this tale. Frankly, if one is looking for a more gnarly take in terms of dog metamorphosis, I recommend checking out Marianna Palka’s 2017 flick, Bitch which strangely has a very similar plot, despite being made seven years ago.

I was not expecting to get as emotional as I did about this film, especially given my lukewarm feelings on the book. I may not have offspring of my own but, from what I can tell, motherhood is brutal. It is not something that I am willing to partake in, but if I even had the slightest urge to do so, I would expect my partner to show up ready and able for the adventure. At one point Husband asks Mother, “What happened to my wife?” in which she candidly responds, “She died in child birth.” This particular scene hit me like a ton of bricks given the audacity of him to not understand that, when their son arrived, things were forever changed. With each new journey that life brings, we have to be willing to sacrifice something in place of another.

A few weeks after watching this film, I had a run-in with a dude that walked away from the picture with the view that this was a story about a woman that could not grasp that she was aging. I was speechless. To sit through the film and not witness the unbalance within their relationship was mind boggling to me. It is so important for women to tell their stories and give their perspectives, but one truly has to be open to listen to them.