There are two immediate takeaways from the movie “Nightbitch,” starring Amy Adams.
movie review
NIGHTBITCH
Running time: 98 minutes. Rated R (language and some sexuality). In theaters Dec. 6.
One, which I hope most viewers know already, is that motherhood is hard.
The other is that trailers can be extremely misleading.
The semi-fantastical comedy directed by Marielle Heller that had its world premiere Saturday night at the Toronto International Film Festival is much better than its widely mocked early clip would suggest.
I even heard a passerby telling actor Scoot McNairy, who plays the obtuse husband in the movie, the same thing on the street.
But Heller’s enjoyable film is not the cringe fest you walk in expecting it to be, even if the premise will be a hairy leap for some moviegoers.
The title tells it like it is. Adams plays a mother — called Mother — who turns into a feral dog after she goes to bed, a la a werewolf.
That’s a goofy and cool conceit. However, being based on the 2021 magical-realism novel by Rachel Yoder, it’s very much a literary one.
In movie form — particularly one that takes place in recognizably suburban kitchens and bedrooms — you quietly crave an explanation for why the main character turns into a canine. That clear-cut reason never comes.
Even though Mother heads to the library to search for some ancient myth or zoological basis for her kibble condition, this is not “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” The switcheroo is emotionally evocative rather than science fiction or fantasy. She’s not really in the market for a cure.
Becoming Lassie actually is a lifeline.
Mother’s stress and repression from being the a mom to a toddler (played by twins Arleigh and Emmett Snowden, two of the most adorable kiddos you’ll ever seen onscreen) and the wife of a corporate hubby who doesn’t get it snowballs into excessive hair growth, growls and finally full-blown transfiguration.
Mother, an artist who used to be shown at major galleries and museums, must pretend to everyone who asks that she couldn’t be happier with her sedate life. Her faux contentment just conceals a primal urge to charge through the woods and, you know, kill squirrels.
Because Adams is so good at playing people who are just about to snap (“Julie & Julia,” “Doubt,” “Hillbilly Elegy”), the viewer goes along with her for the ride, er, walk. “Nightbitch” is funny and lovably weird.
A bigger issue than its oddball plot is that the film, which Heller also wrote for the screen, is one-note. Once we know where the story is headed, it ventures there exactly as we anticipate it to — and nowhere else. Much like a dog fetching a stick.
Heller is a splendid filmmaker. Her “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” about writer Lee Israel is one of my favorite movies of the past several years.
Her prodigious skill is on display in “Nightbitch,” as is Adams’, but it’s nonetheless a tricky tale to house-train.
This review was originally published Sept. 9 during the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.
