Comedy
Drama
Motherhood Meets Man’s Best Friend: A TIFF Review of ‘Nightbitch’
September 24, 2024Ben MK
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The desire to have children is a longing that burns strongly for many women. However, when it comes to aligning reality with expectations, that desire is often met with the panic of wondering what kind of situation one has gotten oneself in. Whether it's sacrificing one's own needs for the sake of one's offspring or trying to appeal to the logical side of a tiny doppleganger that appears to behave contrary to reason, motherhood is oftentimes not all that it's cracked up to be. And while that hasn't stopped the human race from continuing its genetic legacy, for the average mom, does that greater good provide one iota of comfort when the realization that nothing will ever be the same again finally sets in? That's the predicament facing Amy Adams' character in Nightbitch, a frazzled stay-at-home mom who has spent the last two years of her life catering to the every whim and need of her now-toddler son (Arleigh and Emmett Snowden). Once a vibrant and promising creator in the artistic commnuity, she put her career and future prospects on the back-burner so that her husband (Scoot McNairy) could continue working and providing for their family. However, now that she's found that her old identity has been completely wiped out by her new persona of being a tired domestic caregiver, her fragile mental state is starting to bend precariously to the pressures and stresses of everyday life. Discovering one day that her teeth might becoming ever so slightly sharper and that she might even be sprouting fur and a tail, she starts to question whether she might in fact be gradually transforming into — you guessed it — a canine. But could such an outlandishly fantastical physical metamorphosis actually be possible? Or is her anxious mind simply trying to manifest this new reality for her, as a way of trying to help her cope with the demands that both she, her family and society are placing on her? Written and directed by Marielle Heller and based on the novel by Rachel Yoder, the result isn't so much a story about a woman who turns into a dog, but rather a tale of a mother who learns to stop caring what society thinks of her and to use her most primal instincts to strike a more positive balance between being a mother and being a woman. It's an age-old dilemma that has plagued every mother at some point — except in Nightbitch, Heller and Adams turn this conundrum on its ear, taking a real-life topic of discussion and transforming it into a witty and altogether intriguing treatise of just what motherhood actually means. |
Nightbitch screens under the Special Presentations programme at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Its runtime is 1 hr. 38 min.
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