Brave, Mesmerizing Amy Adams Triumphs Over Frustratingly Odd Script in ‘Nightbitch’

The question sounds so basic and friendly. But it’s actually loaded, as many mothers can attest. “Do you just love getting to be home with him all the time?” asks the younger, more put-together woman in the supermarket. “Must be so wonderful.”

Wonderful, of course — and sometimes brain-numbing and soul-draining too, some exhausted fulltime moms might reply. Especially if, like Amy Adams’ character in Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch, they’d left their prized art gallery job to this other woman.

And so Adams responds, twice, showing in this very opening scene exactly why her typically brave, brutally frank performance lifts this movie from an oddly uneven script to something unequivocally worth seeing.

First we get the honest answer, the one no one really gives until later in the shower: she feels “stuck inside of a prison of my own creation,” where she torments herself and ends up binge-eating Fig Newtons to keep from crying. She is angry all the time. Oh and, she has gotten dumber.

Then we rewind and director-writer Heller has Adams give her real answer: “I do, I love it! I love being a Mom.”

Somehow Adams, who also produces here, makes these things seem, if not quite natural, then logical. What’s happening is that Mother’s frustration is becoming ferocious. Dangerously ferocious. But also — empowering. At night, or so she thinks, she is a wild dog.

Aspects of the film work wonderfully. Mother’s relationship with Son (twins Arleigh and Emmett Snowden) is lovely, largely due to a decision to let the young boys talk freely, with the adult actors reacting to their words. It lends a grounding realism to a film that quickly veers surreal.

Less successful is the relationship between Mother and Husband (Scoot McNairy), which takes on too much importance as the film goes on, in a baffling way. (Also, just asking, has anyone in this movie ever heard of a babysitter?)

More importantly, a story that posits itself on such a tantalizing idea — that by transforming into a dog, Mother discovers her true nature and power — resorts late in the game to a safer story about a marriage that never seemed appealing enough for us to care about anyway. It doesn’t help that it’s hard to grasp the distracting subplot about Mother’s own mother.

None of this takes away from the strength of Adams’ performance. You believe her love for her child as much as you believe her resentment for what he is taking away from her. And Adams can make almost any line work, including one about a walnut. But we digress.

It’s an irony that for reasons of storytelling, characters have generic names — because Adams is such a singular and particular talent. The journey she embarks upon is bizarre indeed, but you won’t regret taking it with her.

‘Nightbitch’ is released nationwide on Dec. 6, 2024.