Marielle Heller’s early directorial career has certainly been eclectic. She debuted with the biting dark comedy Can You Ever Forgive Me? and followed things up with a big warm hug of a film in A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood. Now, with the fabulously titled Nightbitch, she makes another left turn with a magical realist satire examining the metamorphosis of motherhood.
The film stars Amy Adams as ‘Mother’, a former darling of the New York art scene who has migrated to suburbia to spend more time with her infant son. Now, with her paintbrush traded in for a baby bottle, she has the time she craved but is trapped in a Groundhog-style routine of monotonous hashbrown breakfasts and trips to a snot-infused mommy and me class. Things are not helped by the fact that her husband (Scott McNair) is regularly away and unable to empathise with her situation, leaving ‘Mother’ imprisoned by emotional lethargy and ticking off all the bored, dissatisfied housewife clichés cinema has fed us over decades. However, things quickly move away from the cliched when Mother notices tufts of fur sprouting from her body, develops cravings for red meat by the pound, and has animal carcasses winding up on her doorstep. It appears she is slowly turning into a dog.
This conceit then explores the primal nature of Motherhood and its curtailment by societal norms to mixed success. On the positive side, Nightbitch’s supernatural elements provide a fertile medium to explore the full spectrum of mothering emotions in all their messy, truthful contradictions. It is a film that allows characters to feel without judgement and carves out a heightened magical space for this, which sits detached from today’s social baggage. ‘Mother’ desires to break free and become more than a simple doting figure. However, this is never treated as some dereliction of her maternal duty but rather as embracing an innate part of herself through which she becomes both more satisfied and a better parent. It is a refreshing update on stories that so often pitch self-fulfilment and caring for a child as antagonistic entities. Adams is also having oodles of fun revelling in the odd comedic moments and subversive social pleasures the film’s lycanthropic narrative allows
However, Nightbitch fails to push any of this beyond its initial promise. Everything is played a bit too safe, and this potentially bonkers satire for the ages feels frankly flaccid. There is a lot of interesting chat about the brutality and violence of birth, which feels almost Cronenbergian in its discussion of the piss, blood, guts and ‘cellular’ change it involves. However, none of this is translated to the screen, which remains squeaky clean throughout. I was waiting for things to go fully feral and experience the full bite of Heller and Adams’ undoubtable powers- but this never happens. Things feel flat, and even Mother’s canine transformations are sleek and CGI rather than the squelchy and bodily affairs they deserve.
The film also resolves itself in too sleek a way, as its complex array of emotions are neatly packaged up by a few nice but empty platitudes about insisting on one’s joy and keeping the light of girlhood alive. In the end, Nightbitch promises a lot but is kept firmly on the leash.
Nightbitch is in Cinemas Now
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