Reviewed by Alicia Glass

A woman who put her career on hold to become a first-time stay-at-home-Mom finds her smaller world taking an almost supernatural turn.

This is an odd one ya’ll. The film is touted as a body-horror dark comedy, but struggles to find a role, a category, a niche which it fits into neatly and properly that can tell a potential viewer why they want to watch this movie. Which is actually perfect for Nightbitch anyway, for our nameless protagonist Mother is also struggling with literally everything – being a first-time mother to a rambunctious baby boy, contending with an also-nameless husband (Scoot McNairy) whose job keeps him away more than half the time, regretting the fact that she gave up a career as an artist for motherhood, oh and also, noticing strange changes happening to her body. Make sure your diaper bag is stocked and let’s dive into this!

So our new Mom (Amy Adams) just hates the stuff that other moms seem to find enjoyable, most especially the story-and-singing time held at their local library, full of mostly other moms and their loud children, dutifully singing along mindlessly to that repetitive garbage that makes one want to rip their own ears off. Mom is stuck in the repeat of minutiae involved in caring for a baby, all alone too, and laments finding herself becoming more and more bestial and less and less super-mom who can do everything. At one point this thought of less-than-human starts becoming literal, as Mom starts experiencing things like a proto-tail and extra hair that’s damn too close to fur for comfort. But what can one do, other than endure and continue on? Our Mom decides to actually lean into the beast nature of things and see where it takes her!

The nameless husband that Scoot McNairy plays, a man who is so milquetoast and bland and unhelpful that he might as well be a cardboard cutout, lends himself to a trend of similar characters McNairy has played elsewhere. We get the feeling that he is simply there to give Mom a target to lash out against, as she accuses him of helping her set aside her adult dreams of artistry in favor of family, even as he fires lamely back that that was what she told him she wanted. He fails to put up any kind of a struggle when Mom tells him she wants a separation, and we can almost see him shrink further in Moms eyes when that doesn’t happen, for her feral new nature is spoiling for a fight, or multiple fights. A good old-fashioned screaming and throwing things match could lead to some epic make-up sex, or at the very least actually clear the air between our nameless parents, but no. They argue, they cry, they separate, and of course Mom takes the baby, graciously allowing dad to come visit and take the baby for outings. But hope for reconciliation is pretty non-existent.

Our Mom may have decided to lean into the strangeness of her bodily changes, her being chased around by follower canines that may or may not be the bestial natures of her fellow mothers, even the very basic nature of what it means to be a mother, but only up to a certain point. As much fun as it is to shed her human envelope and run in her fur at night might be, a tiny completely helpless human will still be waiting at home for her to come back to feed and take care of him. This crushing responsibility versus the very real freedom of being a beast is one of the many contradictions lacing the film, and perhaps the most prevalent, due to the simmering resentment Mom feels at being both freed and constrained in literally the same breath.

There isn’t so much an end to the film, more like Mom finally resigns herself to being completely changed from who she was before she became ‘Mom’, but still grasping at some shred of self left that doesn’t necessarily stem entirely from her child. Entirely contradictory but in a sympathetic-to-motherhood kind of way, Nightbitch asks the audience to remember that while ‘Mom’ may be her new all-encompassing title forever, she did and does still have a name, and dreams to realize, too.