Nightbitch

A young stay-at-home woman’s tedious maternal routine takes a surreal turn when she finds herself finding a sense of freedom in her newly-developed feral tendencies. Simply and bluntly put, the appropriately-named Nightbitch has its protagonist — who remains unnamed — develop into a dog every night and run amuck through the neighbourhood, after a day of intense drudgery and monotony. Sounds crazy? It sure is. Based on the 2021 novel of the same name by Rachel Yoder and directed by Marielle Heller, whose last outing was the critically-acclaimed 2019 film A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, Nightbitch stars six-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams in the lead. Adams is more than a few pounds overweight, dressed dowdy throughout the film and perpetually exhausted in the way a lot of us can relate with. What we can’t, of course, is the extreme spiral the character undergoes under the load of stress and mental anguish. With ‘Husband’ away on office work on weekdays, ‘Mother’, which is what Adams is referred to in the description of the film, functions on a daily basis as a single mother. That includes taking care of her infant ‘Son’ with not a minutes’ rest, even as she ruminates on what could have been if she had not paused her career as an artist to take care of her baby full time.

Despite being a six-time Oscar nominee, Amy Adams’ career in the last decade or so resembles that of someone who has lost the ability to say no. Her latest film is Nightbitch, a dark comedy about the horrors of motherhood, in which she plays a nameless woman who finds herself transforming into a dog. Literally. The movie is directed by Marielle Heller, whose last feature was A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood. Nightbitch is, in many ways, the cynical sister to that stubbornly saccharine film. It’s also a fantastical reality check for anybody contemplating parenthood. In addition to repelling audiences with its weirdness, however, Nightbitch could possibly cause Suniel Shetty to reconsider his views on gender roles.