The question sounds so basic and friendly. But it鈥檚 actually loaded, as many mothers can attest. 鈥淒o you just love getting to be home with him all the time?鈥� asks the younger, more put-together woman in the supermarket. 鈥淢ust be so wonderful.鈥�
Wonderful, of course 鈥� and sometimes brain-numbing and soul-draining too, some exhausted fulltime moms might reply. Especially if, like in Marielle Heller's they鈥檇 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 鈥渟tuck inside of a prison of my own creation,鈥� 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: 鈥淚 do, I love it! I love being a Mom.鈥�
There we are, two minutes and 13 seconds into 鈥淣ightbitch鈥� and you may already find yourself wowed by Adams. If not, just wait until her Mother is sitting at a chic restaurant with a bunch of colleagues from the art world, and her fangs come out.
And we don鈥檛 mean figuratively. We mean literally.
Let鈥檚 go back to the beginning, shall we?
鈥淣ightbitch鈥� is based on the 2021 novel by Rachel Yoder, a feminist fable that the author has said came from her own malaise when pausing work for child-rearing.
She sets her tale in an unidentified suburb of an unidentified city. Mother (characters all have generic names), formerly an admired installation artist, spends her weekdays alone with her adorable, blond 2-year old Son. Husband has a job that seems to bring him home only on weekends.
The early scenes depicting Mother鈥檚 life are tight and impactful, a contrast to the confused havoc that will come toward the end of the film. Life revolves around the playground and the home, with occasional trips to storytime at the library where she notes, in narration, that she has no interest in the company of other moms 鈥� why should they be friends just because they're moms?
In fact, Mother lives in solitude, and director Heller does a nice job illustrating how that feels. You can almost feel the weight of the afternoon coming around, at this comfortable but hardly ostentatious home, when it鈥檚 too early for dinner and you鈥檝e done all the activities already and you wonder if you can make it through the day.
Then things start to get weird. In the bathroom mirror, Mother starts noticing things. Her teeth are getting sharper. There鈥檚 something weird coming out of an apparent cyst at the bottom of her spine. She finds extra nipples. And that鈥檚 before she starts eating rare meat. (Also, if you love cats, you may want to close your eyes at one point.)
Somehow Adams, who also produces here, makes these things seem, if not quite natural, then logical. What's happening is that Mother鈥檚 frustration is becoming ferocious. Dangerously ferocious. But also 鈥� empowering. At night, or so she thinks, she is a wild dog.
Aspects of the film work wonderfully. Mother鈥檚 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 鈥� that by transforming into a dog, Mother discovers her true nature and power 鈥� 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鈥檚 own mother.
None of this takes away from the strength of Adams鈥� 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鈥檚 an irony that for reasons of storytelling, characters have generic names 鈥� because Adams is such a singular and particular talent. The journey she embarks upon is bizarre indeed, but you won鈥檛 regret taking it with her.
鈥淣ightbitch,鈥� a Searchlight Pictures release, has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association 鈥渇or language and some sexuality. 鈥� Running time: 98 minutes. Two stars out of four.
Jocelyn Noveck, The Associated Press
