by Miguel E. Rodriguez
DIRECTOR: Marielle Heller
CAST: Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy, Jessica Harper
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 59%
PLOT: A woman pauses her career as an artist to be a stay-at-home mom, but her domesticity takes a surreal turn.
[SPOILER ALERT…if you plan on seeing Nightbitch, avoid this review. This movie, like most movies, works best on the viewer if they have no idea what’s happening or what’s about to happen. Consider yourself Spoiler-warned.]
Nightbitch shoots out of the starting gate like a thoroughbred – or a greyhound, if you will – but about halfway through, it runs out of narrative steam. I felt like a gambler watching a horse race, watching my horse lead the pack around the first turn, already spending the winnings in my head, and then my horse fades a bit, then a bit more, and by the time we get to the finish line, I’m tearing up my ticket in frustration. I needed a WIN, not a PLACE. There goes my trifecta.
Amy Adams plays an unnamed Mother who has put her promising career as an artist on pause to be a stay-at-home mom while her also-unnamed Husband (Scoot McNairy) pursues his career as a…um…well, whatever it is, he has to travel a lot, leaving Mother at home with, you guessed it, Son (played by adorable twins Arleigh and Emmett Snowden). Referred to throughout the movie as “my guy” and “sport” and “little buddy,” Son is a typical toddler in the throes of the terrible twos: cute for long stretches, maddeningly frustrating for longer stretches. [Ed. Note: the author is not a father, has no plans on becoming a father, and will never possess the immense dedication it takes to rear a child, so don’t expect him to embrace the chaos of toddler-hood because it ain’t gonna happen.]
Mother is going through an identity crisis, set up in a brilliant opening scene where Sally, the woman who assumed Mother’s job at an art gallery, asks her, “Do you just love getting to be home with him [Son] all the time?” Mother answers the question with a little more honesty than Sally or anyone had a right to expect, including this tidbit: “I am deeply afraid that I am never going to be smart, or happy, or thin ever again.” I am a straight Hispanic cisgender male, so I’m here to tell you, I will never understand that mindset, but I am reasonably certain there are untold millions of moms out there who, if they listened to Mother’s opening statement, would say, “AMEN, sister.”
A little later, Mother delivers an internal monologue where she reflects that, as a mother, you can squeeze someone into the world “who will one day pee in your face without blinking.” Again, I’m not a parent, but I know that’s truth in cinema right there.
After a few more establishing scenes of Mother interacting with Son, who absolutely REFUSES to go to sleep at night or eat anything for breakfast except, apparently, hash brown patties fried in butter, some odd things start to happen. At the playground, some stray (?) dogs approach her as if she’s their best friend. Mother notices her sense of smell has become much more acute. Son helpfully points out that her back is hairy. And, in a creepy Cronenberg-y moment, she notices a lump growing at the base of her spine just above her rump. Curiosity gets the best of her. She heats a needle, lances the lump, and…well, if you remember the title of the film, you have an idea of what pops out of that lump.
This was all wonderfully thrilling stuff as a movie lover. I’m thinking, “My god, this is a Spike Jonze movie told from a woman’s perspective! I’ve never seen anything like this! This is gonna be GREAT!” Mother starts to enjoy eating a lot of meat. She starts to play “doggie” with Son, growling and barking at each other like two puppies. The two of them eat their lunch at a deli with no silverware…or hands, to the consternation of other diners. Son doesn’t sleep at night, so Mother, in a genius parenting move, buys a dog bed and gets Son to play “doggie” and sleep in the dog bed at night. Presto, problem solved!
And more and more dogs start showing up at her door, at night, sometimes bringing gifts: small dead animals. One night she walks outside, starts digging around, and an astonishing transformation takes place…
I know, I know, SPOILERS, I get it. But it’s important to get across just how brilliantly original the first act of the film is, because the second act is, alas, all downhill. I am not saying that the film’s message is unimportant, not at all. I admire the film because of its message, and because it was being delivered in such an original way. But then we get into conflict with Husband, who is desperately trying to understand why their 2-year-old is now sleeping in a dog bed on the floor, or why their cat suddenly turned up dead on the front porch, or why his wife suddenly wants a separation. It must be said, Nightbitch is remarkably even-handed with the Husband’s dialogue. He is not reduced to a 2-dimensional sitcom husband. When she lays into him for not supporting her career, he fires back with a well-reasoned argument. Their dialogue could be turned into a first-rate play.
But instead of exploring the surreal nature of Mother’s new condition, the movie settles into soap-opera territory, with only the occasional nod to the mystical incidents in the first act. I distinctly remember, in the middle of the second act, feeling as if a balloon had deflated in the plot. I imagine defenders of the film might say, “Well, the second act is where the weird stuff has to take a back seat to deal with the real issues at hand.” Okay, maybe that’s true from a real-world perspective, but to me, it felt as if the filmmakers were on the verge of showing us something mindboggling, then backed away from the precipice at the last minute.
Does that make me guilty of critiquing a movie for what I wanted as opposed to what I got? I guess it does, as much as I dislike that tendency in myself. I feel there are so many different ways the movie could have gone in act two, could have leapt gleefully over the edge of convention and truly broken the mold with this movie. When it became clear what they were doing instead, my elation evaporated.
I give Nightbitch a generally favorable score, though, based on the mad inventiveness of the first act and the plot in broad strokes, and also on the incredibly brave performance from Amy Adams, who maybe has two scenes in the entire film where she seems to be wearing any makeup. She also appears to have to put on some weight for the role, which is not something I can ever recall seeing a female actor do. Male actors have turned that kind of thing into a cottage industry, but when was the last time you saw a woman do it? That took guts. Watch Nightbitch for Amy Adams’ performance and for the story, even if the movie doesn’t follow its own plot to a satisfying conclusion.
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 