For the sake of this review’s purpose, it would be senseless to try to persuade anyone that parenting (and motherhood in particular) is not hard. Spoiler alert: it is. For all the beauty and joy of seeing a child grow up, at times being a mother is nothing but a thankless job. With little appreciation most, if not all, of these expectations (most usually patriarchal) no way are fulfilled. One of the points summarized in the words of Marielle Heller who adapted Rachel Yoder’s bestselling novel, Nightbitch. There is no such thing as a furor against motherhood in the film, rather, it is the contrary.
Nightbitch champions several ideas at a time – yes, seeing a baby do literally anything can be exhibits of wonder but going through motions in a day may feel like sacrifice of everything that’s given up to them. Hysterical overreactions of the actors are often supported by comments made directly to the audience which were present in movies but aren’t usually seen in realistic genre; visions of body horror and even fantasy illustrations are also included. Nightbitch has its moments when it crosses a line in an appropriate way, and then leaves that level of weirdness too soon, the levitating beast mode absolutely dropped. It is as if it suffers from a sort of ‘new boringness’ where it abandons the fantastically engaging graphic images it has invented and ‘computerizes’ its exposition instead.
The character of Amy Adams has no specificity and is addressed as Mother. It would not be an exaggeration to say that she has lost it completely. There was a time when Mother was an up and coming the artist. And now, more and more of those drawings and paintings are sitting in the storage room. During a grocery shopping trips, she is asked by a fellow mom about her new role strangely (brings to mind stay at home mother). At that point, Adams provides a rather vivid picture of what how “glamorous” that may be, and that might be an understatement. This is followed by Heller letting the audience to watch how routine Mother’s stay-at-home activities are.
Her little son (played by twins Arleigh Patrick and Emmett James Snowden), is adorable, and one can spot Mother’s affectionate bond towards him too (when the unrelenting baby and house chores are not getting to her). In her spare time, when she isn’t taking care of their son, it is a repetitive same thing of cooking, cleaning up after messes, taking a stroll and going to the library for a music session (which Mother hates). Her spouse (portrayed by Scoot McNairy) is frequently away and on the phone and when is not on the phone tends to put his foot in his mouth. He is a bit detached when it comes to their son, and more so, he does not see the resentment growing in his wife.
Amy is superb how she handles the meta-level language and other multiple interactions in the performance, including the silent parts. Adams swings between arbitrary Sorrow and outright Disdain very well. Where all of those summed up points reach their peak, in comes the Heller’s word vomit with the body horror and dog urges that Mother receives. It begins with some transformation – There are instances during which Mother believes that her teeth are becoming more pointed and that in some ways she may be getting a tail. These transformations and some night episodes of running in suburban Gypsy moonlights allow priced performance of Adams, inject the film with energy and laughter.
Here is a woman contemplating whether any vestige of the ambition and the looks she possessed in her youth can be achieved — it is a deadly emotion. The director brings up that discomfort in some very good pictures and particularly silent but intense sequences such as the gathering of Mother’s college friends. This scene is among the finest in the film and captures the civics of feminism as well as brings the theme of motherhood in a very careful pace, slow creeping horror intertwined with dark notches of humor.
Nightbitch tries its best to create an elaborate pantheon, complementing its own action with such gripping mystical backgrounds and supporting characters, who also harbor such obsessions, and even proposes some rather intriguing though biological, psychoanalytic facts. However, insight as an infiltration of creativity is not further cultivated and discerned enough in the ‘safe’ method taken by Nightbitch for its more complex adversions from the start. Many of them reach this neat point of resolution where there can be so much more done.
Instead of concentrating on world-building and allowing the pretty pictures to take over, Nightbitch chooses the easy way out and provides a happier conclusion than many would have wished. Certain segments learn from their mistakes and happiness and satisfaction all around are achieved. But being a mother can’t simply be bundled up like that. The society is understood by the film to be a huge part of these metaphorical psychopaths’ lives and so effectively minimizes the way they try and reduce mom to the “essence” and fold her up in many of the traps that society has set. Nightbitch opts to go around the places we know, until the point when the page begins to fray.
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