NIGHTBITCH (in theatres)

One of the weirdest, strangest, but oddly compelling films of the year; based on 2021’s Rachel Yoder’s novel of the same title; I did not read the book, so the premise came as a shocking example of the most extreme postpartum depression ever depicted or imagined. An intentionally weightier Amy Adams growls, chews and roars as she slowly turns into a “bitch”, ruler of the pack, transversing streets and highways as she trains her precocious two-year-old son to be her companion in a canine realm.

She is a nameless artist who has sacrificed, doffed her skill to be a fulltime mother and drowns in the process; her clueless husband (Scott McNairy) adds unconsciously to the dilemma; metaphors for 1950’s parents (Ozzy and Harriet types) where happiness revolves around the kitchen; in “Nightbitch”  this room is a prison, torture chamber where the child is king and she the gluttonous slave. Director/writer Marielle Heller (“Can You Ever Forgive Me?”, Melissa McCarthy was deprived of the Academy Award for her portrayal of writer Lee Israel) paints a portrait of pain, delusional abandonment of self, deliciously askew and egregiously fantastical as mother and child become feral dogs.

Today’s women have mastered the dual roles of motherhood and career; but hibernating deep in their psyches are the bleakest memories of unspoken traumas and fears they faced when the tiniest of creatures relied solely on them for survival.  Thought-provoking, innovative, pervasive, ubiquitous reminders of what was and, overcome.

THREE STARS!!!

Peneflix