Nightbitch

Marielle Heller's fourth film is her first disappointing effort, though I'm not sure how anyone could make a proper screen adaptation of Rachel Yoder's novel about a frustrated artist-turned-stay-at-home-mother who starts to transform into a dog at night so she can be free. Heller has been one of the most exciting young screenwriter/directors since her first film, The Diary of a Teenage Girl, arrived in 2015 as not only the best debut feature of that year but practically the best picture of 2015 (at least according to me). All three of her movies before this one have been adaptations of books about real people, but decidedly not biopics. The Diary of a Teenage Girl was based on Phoebe Gloeckner's 2002 semi-autobiographical diaristic graphic novel about growing up a sexually curious teenager in the mid-1970s, Can You Ever Forgive Me? (written by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty) was based on literary forger Lee Israel's 2008 confessional memoir, and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood was inspired by Tom Junod's 1998 Esquire article "Can You Say ... Hero?" about the troubled time in the journalist's life when he was assigned to profile television icon Fred Rogers.

Yoder's novel could certainly be considered at least somewhat autobiographical, as she wrote it out of the anger and frustration she felt when motherhood radically transformed her personal and professional life. Nightbitch is a work of magical realism that plays out well in a reader's imagination, but it is far more difficult to visualize in film. Amy Adams stars as the protagonist, identified only as "Mother," and she really sinks her teeth, both human and canine, into this role, putting on a layer of doughy body fat that often remains after childbirth and letting her long blond hair turn into a kind of stringy, colorless, unwashed tangle. Still, aside from her rip-roaring performance in The Fighter (2011), Adams has never been able to shed her well-established screen presence as a warm, spunky, resolute woman. From her breakthrough role playing a blissfully pregnant woman in Junebug (2005) to her live-action Disney princess in Enchanted (2007) to the young, naïve nun in Doubt (2008) to Jason Segel's sunny elementary school teacher girlfriend in The Muppets (2011) to the vulnerable but determined linguist in Arrival (2016) she's been the go-to actress for a capturing a distinct type of thoughtful, soft-spoken but direct women. Even when she played Julie Powell, Lynne Cheney, and JD Vance's drug-addicted mom, Bev, she's never lost her inherent sweetness.

Her appealing qualities may endear us to the mother in this story, but the film requires more of an edge to put across its themes in ways that the viewer can feel rather than just appreciate conceptually. We nod our heads along with this movie, thinking, "Oh yes, un hun, I so feel for her," but we don't really feel anything (at least I didn't). For all the fragile qualities Adams has been able to project in past films, not once have I ever felt she was not going to figure her way out of whatever situation she was in. It's fun here to watch her embrace her inexplicable transformation into a barking, irresponsible mut, but this change never feels like it comes from a place of raw anger or real hopelessness. In the film, she seems to be looking for a distraction rather than venting rage. The story's deeply unsatisfying resolution doubles down on this, making the whole thing seem like an insignificant blip in the life of a marriage rather than a time when things were incredibly hard for at least one member of a couple.