Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch, a 2021 novel that left a deep, unsettling impression on readers, is an audacious exploration of the frustrations and complexities of modern motherhood. It’s dark, visceral, and unapologetically raw—qualities that make it a powerful piece of literature. Unfortunately, the film adaptation directed by Marielle Heller feels like a pale imitation, neutering the novel’s bite and transforming its rich, untamed energy into a tame, predictable thinkpiece. If you were already skeptical about Heller, whose work on biographical dramas like A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and Can You Ever Forgive Me? tends to favor subtlety over intensity, I hate to say it, but your instincts were spot on. What’s meant to be a brutal, liberating statement on motherhood becomes a tepid and emotionally sterile experience on-screen.
Amy Adams stars as Mother, a middle-aged, stay-at-home mom who’s resentful of the life she’s built. Her once-promising art career is on hold as she dedicates herself to raising her young son, a decision that has slowly eroded her sense of self. Her husband (Scoot McNairy) is barely present, working long hours and only coming home a few nights a week. As Mother’s dissatisfaction with her life intensifies, she begins to experience strange physical changes: growing hair in unexpected places, developing an unrelenting hunger for meat, and eventually, suspecting she might be turning into a dog. In the novel, this bizarre transformation is a symbolic reflection of her increasing isolation, frustration, and yearning for freedom—a powerful metaphor for women who feel trapped by societal expectations. But in the film, this premise feels mostly glossed over. It’s treated with the lightest touch, never truly delving into the deep psychological unraveling that should accompany such an intense experience.
Heller’s adaptation fails to capture the novel’s gritty, often disturbing exploration of a woman’s internal war. Instead of the raw, chaotic energy that permeates Yoder’s prose, we’re left with a watered-down version, one that stops short of truly confronting the messiness of Mother’s transformation. The script, which includes long soliloquies about the difficulties of balancing motherhood, womanhood, and wifehood, is more about telling than showing. Mother delivers her frustrations in long-winded monologues, and though Amy Adams does her best to bring them to life, the moments don’t land with the force they should. Instead of offering a cathartic release, these speeches feel more like intellectual exercises, lacking the emotional urgency that the source material demands. It’s as if the filmmakers were too cautious, afraid to fully embrace the novel’s more unsettling aspects, perhaps hoping to appeal to a broader audience with a more palatable, digestible version of the story.
There’s an inherent tragedy in this adaptation because Nightbitch could have been an incredibly empowering story for women, especially those who feel the weight of the world’s expectations placed on their shoulders. Mother in the novel is both a fierce, intelligent woman and a woman who feels utterly powerless, a contradiction that makes her character so compelling. She’s simultaneously struggling with her identity as a mother and reclaiming a part of herself that’s been buried under the weight of motherhood. The film, however, doesn’t allow her to fully explore or escape this tension. Instead, she’s trapped in a narrative that doesn’t evolve, doesn’t allow her to lash out or make choices that are as radical or liberating as what we see in the book. There’s a sense that she’s a victim of her own life, yet the movie never goes far enough to unpack why or how she might begin to confront that victimhood.
What’s more disappointing is the film’s visual cleanliness. Despite the book’s raw, uncomfortable depiction of a woman unraveling, the movie feels unnaturally tidy. Mother’s home, her appearance, even the film’s final moments are all pristinely neat, offering little of the messiness that should be at the heart of a story like this. The one truly grotesque moment—the scene where Mother lances a pus-filled bump on her back—feels like a half-hearted attempt to inject some discomfort, but it doesn’t have the same visceral punch as the novel’s darker moments. In fact, the most unsettling thing about Nightbitch is how harmless it feels. The film takes a story that should be disorienting, unsettling, and liberating, and makes it more of a tame, middlebrow exploration of motherhood.
The transformation of Mother into a literal dog is perhaps the most glaring misstep in this adaptation. In the novel, her becoming a "were-dog" is both literal and symbolic—her increasingly animalistic instincts reflect the primal side of motherhood, something raw and untamed. But in the film, the moment she actually turns into a dog—a silken, almost cartoonish husky—is more jarring for its lack of grit than its surrealism. It strips the transformation of its unsettling quality and leaves us with something much more palatable, even cute, when it should have been the film’s most terrifying moment. There’s a sense of missed opportunity here—an opportunity to delve into the deeply uncomfortable, even darkly comical, aspects of Mother’s transformation.
On a personal note, I found myself frustrated by the film’s reluctance to embrace its potential. The book Nightbitch is so unapologetically messy and uncomfortable, filled with moments of rage and vulnerability that feel deeply real. It’s a cathartic release for anyone who’s felt crushed by the expectations of motherhood or the weight of sacrificing personal dreams. The movie, by contrast, never fully lets us experience that chaos. Amy Adams, for her part, is a standout as Mother—her portrayal is as nuanced as always, and she brings a kind of charm to the character that makes her relatable, even lovable. But the script keeps her character on a leash, never allowing her to fully inhabit the complexity that the novel demands. It’s frustrating to see an actress with such range and depth restricted by a script that plays it so safe.
Ultimately, Nightbitch the film feels like a missed opportunity. It has all the pieces in place to be something daring and challenging, but it never fully embraces the messiness and rawness of the source material. Instead, it sanitizes the story, stripping it of the catharsis and emotional complexity that made the novel so powerful. While the film is perfectly watchable, it never achieves the sharp, urgent energy of the book. It’s disappointing, especially knowing that Amy Adams, a fantastic actress with the ability to do so much more, was tethered by a script that never let her run wild. Instead of giving us a tale of rage, transformation, and self-liberation, we’re left with a pale imitation that feels too neat, too careful, and ultimately, too safe.
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