Nightbitch
Director: Marielle Heller
Writer: Marielle Heller
Based on: Rachel Yoder’s novel
Cast: Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy, Jessica Harper, Zoë Chao, Mary Holland, Archana Rajan
Seen on: 8./9.10.2025

Content Note: animal death

Plot:
The Mother (Amy Adams) feels trapped. Having left her job as an artist behind to take care of her young son, her husband (Scoot McNairy) traveling for work a lot, there is nothing for her but boredom and confinement. She loves her son, but it seems that she can’t adjust to this life, at least not like the other mothers around her. Constantly dirty and tired, her creativity stifled, she finds some freedom when she starts to turn into a dog.

I really enjoyed the novel Nightbitch and I like Amy Adams, so I had high hopes for this film. Unfortunately, they were only partly fulfilled as the film feels much tamer than the book.

It doesn’t come as a surprise, really, that the film isn’t quite as daring or “out there” as the novel. While it is tough to publish a novel and you need to convince a lot of people that your novel should be published, a novel is still a smaller, less costly, less risky affair than a movie that (usually) involves a lot more money and more people than any book. Unfortunately, in our current movie-making landscape this means that making risky films gets more and more difficult. In that sense, Nightbitch the movie being fluffier, easier to swallow, less angry than Nightbitch the novel seems almost inevitable, but it is still disappointing.

The intensity Amy Adams brings to the role certainly would have fit an angrier version of this film. But whenever this anger is allowed a place in the film, it is shown to be just a thought, and almost played for laughs. I understand the intent – because it is not socially acceptable to behave angrily as a woman and especially a mother – but it made the film to light, to easy to brush off and away.

There is a physicality to Adams’ performance that is very impressive and has very little to do with the body horror moments (few and light, this is not a horror movie by any stretch). I would have loved to see the film take this and go into the performance art direction that the book took. The film doesn’t dare to be that strange (or bloody), though, which is a great pity. There is one change from the book that I appreciated: the ethnologist doesn’t make an appearance. (Instead we get a mysterious librarian.)

Despite my gripes with it, it is a good film. It is entertaining, there are cute dogs and it explores motherhood in a way we rarely get to see on screen. I liked watching it, but I will remember the book more, that is for sure.

Summarizing: good but not great.