Cheryl Eddy
The versatile Amy Adams has played a fairy-tale princess, a linguist who communicates with aliens, and Lois Lane—but she’s facing a fresh and freaky challenge in Nightbitch: playing a dog. Or at least, an artist turned stay-at-home mom whose emotional breakdown, brought on by toddler tantrums and a serious identity crisis, causes her to believe she might be turning into the titular creature.
The first trailer is here, and it conveys the movie’s off-kilter tone of comedy and domestic horror, with more than a hint of surreal supernatural suggestion.
Rachel Yoder’s 2021 best-seller, which provides the source material for Marielle Heller’s film, is described as a “satirical fairy tale,” and the movie is definitely leaning into that “is she/isn’t she” canine question at the story’s center. Adams—a six-time Oscar nominee—is clearly the ideal focal point for what looks to be a journey of self-empowerment, as well as a commentary on how new moms must negotiate expectations and huge responsibilities… while also keeping ahold of their own happiness. (That’s Scoot McNair co-starring as the husband who really needs to learn to pick his words more carefully.)
Heller, who also adapted the Nightbitch screenplay, is no stranger to tales of complicated women; her previous features include Can You Ever Forgive Me?, starring Melissa McCarthy as an author who turns to forgery to revive her failing career. She also made the Mr. Rogers biopic A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which also centers on a troubled writer (as well as a certain famed TV personality), but Nightbitch—the tagline is “Motherhood is a different beast”—looks to be her most audacious work to date.
Nightbitch also stars Jessica Harper (yes, that is who you saw in the trailer, talking about “primal urges”: the cult-beloved star of Suspiria and Phantom of the Paradise!), Zoë Chao (The Afterparty), Mary Holland (Happiest Season), Archana Rajan, Arleigh Patrick Snowden, and Emmett James Snowden. It’ll have its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival later this week, then hits theaters in a limited release starting December 6.
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