Nightbitch Movie Review

Content warning: this review contains spoilers.

After eight months of waiting, I finally had the opportunity to watch Nightbitch starring Amy Adams and directed by Marielle Heller on the big screen last week. Now reader, you’re probably wondering how I feel about this film adaptation of the book of the same name by Rachel Yoder. Well, it was fine. It contained good elements, but on a whole, it could have gone further with its premise.

In my review of Nightbitch the book, I was hesitant to give out many of the plot points due to fear of spoiling them. I don’t have to worry about that now since the movie is not a direct adaptation. Both contain the same plot and major beats, but they contrast quite a lot in some ways. For example, the novel contains a subplot, in which Mother (played by Amy Adams) tries to find Wanda White – the author who wrote the book about the mythological powers of mothers, so she can ask her about motherhood. In the film, Norma the librarian (played by cult actress Jessica Harper) gives the title in question to Mother. Then, the main character tries to talk to Norma for the same reason. 

Another major contrast between the book and the movie is how certain relationships were expanded. For starters, Mother barely has a relationship with her mom in the book because of how distant the latter is. In the film, it’s revealed that she is a Mennonite who died long before the events involving Mother. Various flashbacks revealed how much Mother’s mother was loving, but needed some time away. As a child, Mother encountered her mom out in the woods running like a dog. Afterwards, the latter assured the former that she will always come back. The core conflict of both is how Mother wants to find someone who could tell her the secret of being a good and balanced mother, so this certainly brings out more of the dynamics between her and her own mom.

Another example is in the relationship between Mother and her husband (played by Scoot McNairy). In the novel, he is essentially aloof due to his work. This doesn’t make him a bad parent, yet this reasonably frustrates Mother. Once she finally gets to express all of her feelings to him about being a stay-at-home mom, he magically gets it, which I felt was too neat. In the film version, the husband is portrayed more sympathetically, and the relationship is more complicated. They both wonder where the other has been, and during the second half, they separate. This leads to a scene, in which the husband gets to experience what it’s like to raise their toddler son by himself. It’s at the end when Mother is displaying her art exhibition that he realizes what she has gone through. Because of the more time spent with the husband, his discovery and willingness to help her out feels more earned in the movie than in the book.

One final difference is the tone. The book is a horror satire. Lots of gruesome things happen. It put me on edge because I wasn’t sure what was going to occur next. On the other hand, the movie is more like a typical horror comedy. It does well with the latter. I enjoyed watching the scenes, in which Mother tries to raise her son by herself. She obviously feels frustrated, but it still made me laugh because of how relatable it could be. This is especially true with the out-of-control fingerpainting scene. However, the horror was lacking. Since the book leaned into the darker elements of the premise, I wanted the film to do something similar because it was so chaste. I mean, it’s a story about a woman who thinks she’s turning into a dog, but it doesn’t fully commit to that. I get that some of the more ghastly parts of the book wouldn’t fly with a regular audience, so I understand why Heller sanitized it to some degree, particularly the scene involving the family cat (side note: my husband was terrified by that bit, so props to her for still making it scary.) The parts leading up to the canine transformation are handled decently, but when Mother finally changes into that animal, it’s done in a few shots. I would have preferred to spend more time on that like in the way The Wolf Man movies focused on Larry Talbot turning into that monster. It all felt neutered.

Another thing that bothered me about the movie that was actually in the book was its heavy-handed messaging. Both deal with the violent nature of motherhood and how mothers should find ways that naturally let out their rage. These ideas are shoved down audiences’ throats through Amy Adams’s monologues and narration throughout the film. I felt the visuals and the ending communicated that well without any dialogue. But, I bet Heller wanted to reach out to a wide audience, so she had to make the messaging extremely clear for everybody to understand. Yoder did something similar at the end of the novel, which made me roll my eyes as much as I did while watching the adaptation.

Despite my grievances with the movie, there’s one other thing that works, and that’s the acting. The actors in this are good. They play their roles well given the material, but there were clear standouts. The first is Scoot McNairy. As mentioned earlier, his portrayal of the husband is sympathetic. He genuinely doesn’t get what Mother is going through, but this comes out of ignorance. He can come off as a prick at times, but an unintentional one. When the husband finally realizes the suffering that Mother has endured by essentially their son by herself, McNairy conveys this quite naturally and sincerely.

Now of course, I have to talk about the main draw of this movie: six-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams. She is great in Nightbitch. Her strengths as an actress are her quiet femininity and how she conveys internal brooding. Both are on display in this flick from the beginning to the very end. I love how Adams paces herself as the rage grows inside of her character. She starts off as being able to mask her true emotions as she talks with other people, but slowly, that mask falls off. It helps that the editing lets audience members know when she’s masking and when she’s not, especially in the beginning. Moreover, Adams is absolutely convincing when she’s turning into a dog. She’s got the paranoia down and fully commits to the canine bits. Will Nightbitch get her 7th Oscar nomination? I’m not entirely sure, considering the mixed-to-positive reviews of the film, but it’s still early in the award season. Anything can happen.

Nightbitch is a neutered version of the book by Rachel Yoder. While it’s good with expanding certain relationships from the novel, and the acting is wonderful, it fails to capture the darker spirit of the source material. One would think that a story about a woman turning into a dog as allegory to the struggles of motherhood would be completely bonkers, but this isn’t. It doesn’t fully commit to the horror and fantastical elements. In spite of these, I would still recommend it to mothers of all kinds since it does communicate the struggles of motherhood well as well as to those who love Amy Adams. Other than those groups, stick to the book.

Before I go, I want to let everyone know that I have recorded the latest episode of the Adapt Me Podcast. My husband and I debut a new subseries called His/Her Reviews. In it, we talk about adaptations of books we just watched. And yes, we discussed Nightbitch the movie. Keep an eye out for the link.

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