New mothers will feel right at home in the magic realist world of Nightbitch. Sure, women who are exhausted from burping their babies or changing diapers might not morph into dogs or start snarling while in human form. They might not feel their maternal instinct overtaken by the sudden urge to kill or destroy. But they will recognise and identify with events in Nightbitch’s heroine.
She’s known only as Mother. She (Amy Adams) has set aside her career as an artist to bring up her two-year-old son. Her husband – known as Father, naturally – has a travelling job, which excuses him from the sleepless nights and dazed days that have trapped Mother.
Father (Scoot McNairy) is understanding in a meaningless way. Just hang on until kindergarten, he says. Happiness is a choice, he declares. But between the “Book Babies Reading Group” and “Tyke Treks’, Mother has lost all sense of her self – until she starts changing into a dog.
Fur and extra organs lead to the whole deal. Mother should be terrified but she isn’t. She announces: I never want to brush my hair, I want to stink, I want to be a monster.
The black comedy lampoons the fetishised parenting experience while also emphasising the loneliness and despair felt by women after they have fulfilled their biological duty. In one of the sharpest scenes, the book club members confess to deliberate neglect as a way to deal with their situation.
Nightbitch is out on JioHotstar. Marielle Heller’s 2024 film is based on Rachel Yoder’s novel of the same name. Despite being a bit repetitive and too lengthy to support its simple premise, the movie is a wild trip into womanhood undermined by social expectation and reclaimed by primal rebellion.
The film’s satirical tone is as consistent as its terrific heroine. Amy Adams piles on the kilos to play a shambolic woman who yearns to be free from responsibility. Her dedication to Mother’s every outburst, every bit of canine mimicry is unwavering.
Adams’s brilliantly judged performance transforms Mother into an empathy magnet, which makes Mother’s darker behaviour palatable. We might not want to be like Mother, but we are with her every step of the way.
Also start the week with these films:
In ‘Moonwalk’, Michael Jackson comes to Kerala
In ‘Kottukkaali’, a silence that speaks volumes
‘The Girl with the Needle’ is a superbly crafted, haunting fable
