Nightbitch

I don't remember where I first heard of Nightbitch, but I remember loving the idea of right away. A suburban mom, feeling the weight of the pressures of motherhood, starts to believe she may be turning into a dog. The possibilities were endless here; an examination on internalized anger coming out as literal animalistic tendencies, the horror of a woman's frustrations over life turning her into a beast, and all anchored by Amy Adams, an actor incapable of giving anything less than everything she has to a performance. This was one of my most anticipated movies of the year. Sadly, it also turned out to be one of my biggest disappointments. I have to go into detail on the positive first for the negative to make sense, so we'll start there. To start with, Amy Adams. I feel like I shouldn't have to sell her performance, but I will, because it so much better than the material. Her character (who is never named, and just referred to in the credits as Mother) was once a successful artist, but gave it all up to be a mom. She has a two year old boy that doesn't sleep in his own bed (and barely sleeps at all), a house in constant disarray, she has constant pain in her back, her husband is often on working trips so he barely pitches in, and their sex life is non-existent. The Amy Adams of movies like American Hustle or Enchanted -- glamorous, sexy, beguiling -- is nowhere to be found here. She's frumpy, wears no make-up, looks like she hasn't slept or showered in a week, and acts the part. She misses her old career, but feels guilty for missing that old life, and has resentment towards the agreement she made to give it up and become a mother to a creature with as little impulse control as a tornado, but also wants to love him and appreciate the moment she's in. She harbors a jealousy and resentment of other mothers, assuming they're put together and have it all figured out; she feels so removed from her old art world friends that she feels worthless. Having a child has given her this whole world that, somehow, feels empty and detached. The non-stop flurry of emotions Adams displays compliment and contradict each other, and they are as real as they get. My wife said after it was over that every woman thinking of having a baby needs to watch this to understand what they might be getting into. Adams' portrayal here is real and raw and uncomfortable and honest. There is no trace of a performance here. It feels like we're following around a real mom with a secret camera. When she sees other moms at the library and assumes they've got it figured out, or when her husband says (with love, but also cluelessness) that maybe she just needs to create a schedule and she'll feel more put together and she imagines slapping the taste out of his mouth, or when she feels unbridled joy when she's found a way to get him to sleep separately so she can now sleep, but also when she panics because her son has wandered away on the playground and the thought of losing him is legitimate terror ... it's all as real as it gets. It doesn't do Amy Adams enough justice to say she nails it. I've mentioned a lot of the movie's themes as well, so I won't belabor them and how they're presented, but I do want to compliment other aspects of them. The movie manages a nice balancing act between the Mother and the Father, never turning him into an outright villain. When he suggests writing down a schedule, it's coming from a place of love. He believes he's offering up good advice. When he questions the Mother about letting their son play as a dog and eat out of dog bowls and sleep in a dog bed and points out how weird it is and that it may damage him in some way, he's not entirely wrong. And when they finally have the blow-up fight that has been brewing for a while now and both air their grievances, they're coming from the same place -- a place where they went into parenthood with an agreement that they didn't fully suss out, and doesn't begin to cover the individual wants and needs of both people, and neither is wrong ... but neither can fully understand the other side either. I mention all this because Nightbitch could've easily slid into disguising misandry as female empowerment, pushing down to create equality instead of lifting up, but it doesn't. Yes, this movie is about mothers and women, so the theming and messaging are more geared towards the woman's side of the table, but it was also made with the understanding that just because there are two sides doesn't mean they have to OPPOSING sides. It is far more reflective of the dynamics of real life and real relationships and the realities of parenthood than most Hollywood productions. There's a scene later in the movie where the Mother is with some friends and admits she killed unintentionally the family cat. She feels like a monster ... until another mom in the circle admits to letting the family fish die because it was just one thing too many to take care of. And another admits to leaving the cage door open on the family parakeet so it could fly away, for the same reason. Nightbitch isn't interested in placing blame or taking a side in pointless gender wars. It wants to shine a light on the feelings women hold in secret out of shame or guilt and say "you're not alone". But this is where the problems come in. For as realistic as the portrayal of motherhood and feelings of imprisonment by one's own choices and the wanting of more are, Nightbitch's resolution to this is insultingly simplistic and borderline offensive. The third act involves the Mother asking for a separation and sending the child with the Father so she can do art. She makes a metric ton of art, enough so that she can put on a solo exhibition. The exhibition is a success. She buys a calendar and schedules out her week. With all that, she welcomes back her husband and son, and she is whole and complete. After being so painfully honest for much of the run time, the third act devolves into nothing more than a hoary "I am woman, hear me roar" platitude that tells women "you CAN have it all, if you just work hard enough!". Because apparently all your woes and insecurities and anxieties can be fixed by buying a Franklin day planner and threatening to nuke your marriage. It comes off as trite and glib, disposing of the rest of the movie's sense of realistic consequences to actions for a happy ending. Never mind that this ending is wholly insulting to anyone that isn't affluent enough to afford to live VERY comfortably on a single income, somehow that single income-earner taking the time off to take his child away from the other parent so they could pursue their dreams with no replacement income to speak of, AND rent the space for a massive art installation. Again, the movie dispenses its realism and honesty and suddenly becomes feminism only for well-to-do white suburbanites. The solutions this movie offers isn't for the single mom who has to leave her kids with her mom while she works two shifts at two separate jobs. This isn't feminism for the two-job households where the kids come home and do their own homework and the parents don't get home until dinner time. This is feminism for women who have a frequent buyers card at Total Wine and Liquor and own a crystal decanter. This is feminism for women follow the Real Housewives Of Wherever on Twitter because they're "role models". The third act is a gross betrayal of the raw realness of previous sixty minutes. You may be noticing a distinct lack of mentioning anything about the whole "turning into a dog" aspect of this movie. That's because there's little to say about it. It's a backdrop point. It comes up now and then when there's a need to fill time, but that's about it. Nightbitch does so little with it beyond having Mother occasionally turn into a dog and run through a park, it honestly could've been edited out and nothing about the movie would change. It shows how her frustrations and resentments manifest into a feral rage inside her, but it doesn't do anything with it. If she had gotten out that anger by going to a gun range or taking up kickboxing or going to primal scream therapy, it would've accomplished just as much. Hell, since the Mother is an artist, it would've made more sense to have her start and stop various art projects, so that when she has that massive burst of creativity in the end, it ties together. Nope, she's a weredog sometimes. She ends up developing six extra nipples and when she mentions it to her husband as a reason not to have sex, he doesn't even blink. Hell, when they have sex in the shower, there's no mention of it whatsoever. That's how insignificant it is. It pains me to give Nightbitch the rating I have given it. For the first sixty minutes, this movie is breathtaking in almost every aspect. But Amy Adams' Herculean performance here is in service of a script that abandons its ideals for a feminist message that's more elitist than elevating, and a gimmick that is wasted on run time filler. I would still recommend seeing it just for Adams' performance, but just know that when the third act hits, this dog goes from having bite to nothing but bark.