Welcome to the 31 Days of Horror Redux, a month-long celebration of genre filmmaking. Last time around, I made the recommendations. This time, I will be watching 31 days of films that are completely new to me. I hope you will join me on this journey of discovery.
Day 2: Nightbitch, directed by Marielle Heller
Amy Adams can truly do anything. I knew that before I caught the West Coast premiere of Nightbitch last night at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. But, in this film, she is asked to do everything, and she carries it off without stepping wrong once. One hopes the film catches on with audiences and perhaps even Oscars voters but, more importantly, with the industry.
Adams has not had the kind of career of late befitting the star of Arrival, Doubt, and Enchanted. She’s wasted as Lois Lane in the DC Extended Universe. Dear Evan Hansen is a misfire on many levels. And, the less said about Hillbilly Elegy in our current moment, the better. The last time she truly got to shine was in 2018’s Vice, but even that is a supporting role. So, if nothing else, Nightbitch puts a spotlight on an actress who deserves it.
As for the film, I am more mixed. I appreciate large swathes of the message, and I think this is a story worth existing in the world. But, it already exists in the world in the form of the bestselling novel on which this film is based, and Heller’s script does not quite do enough to justify the shift in medium. Between the voiceover narration and the lengthy to-camera monologues, there are sections of the movie that feel more like reading a book – or having a book read to you – than watching a film.
The major area where the film stands out as a punchy visual experience is in the editing and the way Heller designs sequences to emphasize the monotony of motherhood and how that monotony can build into its own kind of horror. The filmmaker communicates fully the soul-sucking nature of completing the same tasks day in and day out and the Sisyphean nature of raising a child – it feels neverending. These are the film’s best passages.
Thematically, Nightbitch wears its heart on its sleeve, and that’s mostly fine. Adams delivers several speeches about the pressures and expectations of being a mother, the failure of government and society to support families, and the pain and difficulty of balancing the needs of the self with those of this person you have brought into the world. All of these speeches are a little on the nose, but they all basically land because Adams delivers them with the necessary blend of self-awareness and emotional heft.
If you are unfamiliar with the plot of the film, it is about a harried stay-at-home mom (Adams) who believes she may be turning into a literal dog. I appreciated the ways in which the body horror elements are woven into the film and how the story does not treat the character’s concerns as irrational. Rather, it explores them through the lens of the mysticism and power inherent in all women. “You ever feel like the big secret is: We are gods?” Adams’ character proposes to the other mothers at a toddler book club. The movie agrees with this premise, and it does the work to bring you over to its side.
Where it falls flat is in its lack of specifics. The Adams character is designed to be everything to every woman, so much so that the story fails to dig very deeply into this one woman. The biggest flaw in the film is the way it fails to examine the main character’s privilege as an upper-class white woman whose family can afford to live on a single income. Heller’s film cannot critique this particular milieu because to do so would be to critique all of the women Adams is meant to be speaking for. If the film were more targeted, it could bear out such a critique without losing any of its feminist power.
Nightbitch is a good film with its heart in the right place and a great performance from its lead, but it is rough around the edges. Where it fits into a month of horror is a little suspect, too, but it is essentially a werewolf movie, and in my book, that’s close enough.
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