Nightbitch
Some of these attitudes may still exist depending on what kind of culture or location you live in, but thankfully, for the most part, we've started to accept that it's perfectly fine to admit that your kid is a little terrorist shit and you often struggle with the question of whether or not becoming a parent was a net positive for you. It's okay to mourn the loss of your individuality as a parent, and talk about the damage it's done to your personal goals, your hobbies, your friends, your body. Being a parent is (and always was) extremely difficult, and there is no reason we should have to pretend otherwise. That all being said, it's also completely normal to say all of those things and still love your child to pieces.
These are the themes at the core of Marielle Heller's "Nightbitch," an adaptation of the critically acclaimed 2021 novel by Rachel Yoder. Amy Adams stars as the intentionally unnamed "Mother," who starts to notice a strange transformation occurring in herself as she struggles to raise her young Son with minimal support from Husband (Scoot McNairy). Most of the marketing and pre-release conversation around this movie is about Amy Adams' aforementioned transformation, and it's not a spoiler to tell you (it's in the movie's title, after all) that she sometimes turns into a dog as the movie progresses. It's a bit of magical realism, a surrealistic touch of dark comedy that is meant to symbolize what being a mother can feel like. The movie embraces the silliness of the concept, and if you can't get on board with the tone and allegory of it all, you're probably going to have a bad time.
For the most part, it works very well. Mother is quickly shown to be caught in her routine, cooking the same meals, visiting the same parks and events at the library, constantly getting almost zero help from the cliched Husband, who is often away for work or playing video games instead of attending to the needs of the family. Mother clings to the smallest scraps of her former life as an artist, but doesn't have the time to keep up with what is going on the art world or even create anything herself anymore. The movie uses a decent amount of voiceover (likely to allow them to use segments of Yoder's book) to tell us who Mother thinks she is: she is a woman, a mother, an artist, but most of this is just Mother trying to convince herself that she isn't just operating solely on maternal, animal instinct, spending all of her energy trying to make sure her stupid kid doesn't off himself.
And so slowly, Mother notices strange changes in herself. Her back starts to grow a large amount of hair. She craves meat. Small packs of dogs start showing up at her back door with "gifts" for her. Mother doesn't really seem too alarmed by any of this, laughing most of it off, the movie clearly wanting you to find humor in it. She starts to bond with her "pack," which consists of three other mothers that she met at a library event. She starts to feel connection to other moms and even her own mom, remembering a night when her mother seemed to wander out into the forest like a wild animal. When Mother finally completes the transformation into a bushy, red dog, it's only for small periods of time; again, the movie is using the dog parts as metaphor, not as the means to tell a bizarre horror movie. The movie's message is a pretty straightforward (and perhaps disappointingly predictable) allegory for any mother who has felt themselves change after becoming a parent.
If anything, the movie probably doesn't go far enough. It often feels like it's on the verge of becoming something deeper, stranger and more dangerous, but mostly is unwilling to go beyond the surface level of its premise. It might even come across as a little pandering to parents, giving them a little wink that tells you the movie is on your side while also assuring you that it's not going to go into any real dark places as to avoid really upsetting you. Even the couple's rocky marriage, which operates with the same level of nuance as a 90s sitcom, is basically fixed with one conveniently cathartic apology. For better or worse, this is a movie that is more interested in having you leave the theater laughing with a knowing smile, as opposed to staring at your partner wide-eyed with a newfound hatred while simultaneously unlocking a new, profound level of realization into how fucked up your life as a parent is.
For me (even as a non-parent), it was enough to have the movie continue the public conversation about the difficulties of being a parent, and more specifically, a mother. It may not truly commit to being angry and strange, but I would suggest most parents are already aware of the struggles they are going through, and don't need to take a sledgehammer to the face in the form of a darker movie. Go with friends, have a laugh, share it with your spouse, feel seen.
