Does 'Nightbitch' need more than a feeling?
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Stripped to a certain basic functionality, early parenthood is a perpetual motion machine of more feedings and more diapers and more patience and more more more. Ideally, of course, that’s not how anyone thinks of it, but in particular moments, when the responsibilities have stacked and quiet is a foreign concept and tiredness descends like a fog, the prospect of a few seconds of peace aren’t that dissimilar from a floundering swimmer grasping for the surface.
That’s very much the experience of one nameless Mother (Amy Adams), who quits her work as an artist to become a stay-at-home parent while her Husband (Scott McNairy) spends most of his time out of town and quite clueless about what’s happening while he’s gone. As writer-director Marielle Heller (“The Diary of a Teenage Girl”) adapts Rachel Yoder’s novel, that’s mostly it as story goes, with a lot of voiceover reinforcing what we can see: that this woman is really struggling, and there’s a lot she’d like to say but either can’t or won’t. (Numerous instances of imagined verbal explosions are almost like an internalized, one-person version of the Obama Anger Translator of “Key & Peele.”)
There’s no question that “Nightbitch” captures a feeling of lost identity, of the claustrophobia of noise, of duty. This likely works great as a book. On screen, there isn’t really enough material, particularly because the universality clashes badly with the specifics, which make things less interesting instead of more. Mother has almost no support system, her husband’s a dope, and her professional life is vivid and creative in ways that the majority of people’s aren’t. (Her artsy friends from grad school are of course pretentious cliches.) Meanwhile, the repeated visual metaphor of Mother thinking she’s turning into a dog at night doesn’t really play, feeling like filler rather than a compelling, literal depiction of a person losing contact with numerous physical and emotional elements that made them feel human.
While Jason Reitman’s underrated 2018 effort “Tully” more successfully turned maternal exhaustion into a narrative, “Nightbitch” thrives best on Adams’ traditionally unbridled performance and the film’s recognition of how the world shifts after having kids, and the potentially changed perspective on interactions, people, and otherwise. But, aside from, you know, the main character’s mental health, there never seems to be much at stake here — the film is curious about the experience but not necessarily what happens as a result. And the way the central couple’s relationship unfolds is uncomfortably close to Apatowian for a movie supposedly edgy enough to be called “Nightbitch.”
Let’s absolutely not sugarcoat the challenges of parenthood or overlook the wonders either. “Nightbitch” is honest and narrow and ultimately a bit of a weighted scenario in an inherently challenging situation. Remember when Tom Hanks says “The hard is what makes it great” in “A League of Their Own”? And when Adam Driver loves even the things you’re supposed to hate in “Marriage Story”? Only one of those movies is talking about how to handle tough moments with kids, and the great is what makes it great too. But it’s easy to think of all of these things at once regarding movies about a daily question mark, trying to be your best, and wondering if that’s going to be good enough.
C+
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