REVIEW: Nightbitch [2024]

Rating: R | Runtime: 98 minutes
Release Date: December 6th, 2024 (USA)
Studio: Searchlight Pictures
Director(s): Marielle Heller
Writer(s): Marielle Heller / Rachel Yoder (novel)

I just don’t enjoy the company of other moms.

The joke is that a lot of films made by men prove they really needed therapy instead of millions of dollars to spew their insecurities and troubles onto the screen. I won’t be surprised to discover that those men will watch Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch (adapted from Rachel Yoder’s novel) and come to the same conclusion about women. They won’t be correct, though. Because rather than prove women need therapy rather than millions of dollars to air their issues for the whole world to see, Heller’s film instead plays like a product of that therapy. This is a film that reveals a reckoning with one’s truths. It’s a communal howl to the moon for mothers and daughters to stop feeling alone.

Yes, that message can come across heavy-handedly, but, considering how oblivious Scoot McNairy’s “Husband” is to his wife’s plight (Amy Adams’ “Mother”), maybe audiences need a good bludgeoning to the skull. So, make the metaphor big with body horror adjacent transformations. Give us those flashbacks to Adams’ character’s childhood and the realization of what her own mother gave up for her without the means to put a foot down and set new boundaries for herself. Show us the old school mirror (Jessica Harper’s Norma) as an almost fairy tale sage leading Adams to answers without plain steering her and new school mirrors (Zoë Chao, Mary Holland, and Archana Rajan) waiting for their own awakenings.

In the end, despite the lesson being that you shouldn’t lose yourself in the process of being a parent, the thing people will hopefully take with them is the simple yet too often invisible way to ensure you won’t. Figure out how to co-parent before the baby is born rather than be forced to do so after the divorce. Resentment is a slippery slope and human beings are prone to letting ego and comfort shield them from what’s right in front of their faces, so plan ahead. It won’t save every marriage since we still live in a society that thinks getting married should come before finding out if you can actually exist under the same roof, but it will help those who do truly love each other from welcoming in the hate of jealousy and indignation.

I thought the film did a nice job showing that. It does lay a lot of its messaging on thick, but it’s well-acted and as funny as it is resonant in the universal emotions that surround parenthood. Adams is the highlight, carrying the tonal shifts and narrative swings on her shoulders to really embody how rage and love co-exist. Because she loves being her son’s mom. She just hates being her husband’s unpaid hired help. There’s a difference. It’s a big one. And many of the spouses who watch and nod their heads because “they get it” probably don’t get it as well as they think. Even McNairy thought he was being supportive by agreeing with everything Adams says that makes his life easier. But sighing in relief isn’t the same as doing your part … let alone helping alleviate the stress from theirs.