Nightbitch

For about twelve straight years, Amy Adams consistently gave one or more of the year’s best performances in one or more of the year’s best films. It was an astounding run that seemed to come out of nowhere, but in reality, Adams’ star was about twelve years in the making, beginning with dinner theatre and advancing to small roles in film and television. By the time Enchanted opened Thanksgiving 2007, Adams had already scored her first Academy Award nomination for the indie Junebug. After Enchanted, Adams became an Oscars fixture, drawing nominations for The Doubt, The Fighter, The Master, American Hustle, and Vice. Any one of those performances would have made for a worthy winner and so too would several that inexplicably were not nominated, like Arrival and have I mentioned Enchanted yet? But somehow, Adams always seemed to come up short and now one of the things she is best known for, in certain circles anyway, is her perennial bridesmaid status at the Oscars. Her 6-nomination, 0-win drought places her in a three-way tie among actresses for runner-up in the record books just behind her Hillbilly Elegy co-star Glenn Close, who’s lost eight times.

People love to take note of a habitual runner-up, as if there is shame in regularly being recognized as one of the best in your industry. Before the widening age gap of his romantic relationships became the running joke, Leonardo DiCaprio inspired memes with his long-fruitless prowl for an Oscar, before finally winning for 2015’s The Revenant. Songwriter Diane Warren has struck out in the Best Original Song category fifteen times, the latest coming after the Academy gave her an honorary Oscar. If you know anything about soap opera star Susan Lucci, it is probably her legacy of getting nominated and losing at the Daytime Emmys, which she did nineteen times before finally winning once in 1999. The thrill of a repeat loser eventually breaking through and making it up to the podium is a lovely narrative of perseverance. Until then, there’s always the chance the Internet will turn on you, like it did last year on nine-time loser Bradley Cooper.

Adams’ film career has cooled off in recent years. Boarding the DC Extended Universe seemed like a wise idea back in 2013, but all it brought the actress was three of her most criticized credits to date, not that anyone places blame on her for the creative fumbles of Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon. Other projects that seemed promising on paper — the film adaptation of esteemed Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen, the aforementioned Hillbilly Elegy in which she unknowingly played another individual close to the vice presidency, an untimely and deservingly straight-to-streaming sequel Disenchanted — all fizzled, as did the straight-to-Netflix vehicle The Woman in the Window, which proved to be far from the awards favorite it seemed in advance to Oscar bloggers.

This past summer, Adams turned 50, an age few actresses reach while remaining in the leading lady bracket. Adams is holding firm in that class as the solo lead of Nightbitch, an adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s acclaimed 2021 novel. Like anything Adams attaches to, Nightbitch has been a perceived Oscar contender since it first was announced and getting a theatrical release from frequent awards darling Searchlight Pictures at the beginning of December seems to justify those perceptions. Whether or not Adams’ overdue narrative picks up any steam in the awards race (and I suspect it may not), this is undoubtedly her best work in some time. And how great it is to have a movie for adults released to theaters at all in 2024.

Despite the eyebrow-raising title and premise, Nightbitch is absolutely an intelligent and insightful movie for adults. Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me?, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood) directs and adapts Yoder’s text with a mother’s wisdom and warmth. Adams’ protagonist is known only as Mother and that’s a role she has begrudgingly settled into, having given up her promising career as an artist to be full-time stay-at-home mom to the young, also never-named son (twins Arleigh and Emmett Snowden) she shares with her often traveling for work husband (Scoot McNairy).

Nightbitch both celebrates and empathizes with the maternal life. It recalls Diablo Cody’s great 2018 comedy Tully, sharing a similar biting sense of contemporary humor and a flirtation with fantasy designation. Like Charlize Theron’s character in Tully, Adams’ Mother is tired. Tired of not ever getting a good night’s sleep, tired of having her entire day revolve around her child, tired of single-handedly supplying the constant cleaning and feeding that toddlers demand. Unlike Tully, there’s no night nurse walking through that door. Instead, Adams’ character begins noticing some physical changes. A heightened sense of smell. Sharpening teeth. Unusual cravings. And a hairy growth that seems to be a tail emerging at the base of her spine.

Translating Yoder’s highly stylized novel to a visual medium is a tall task, one that Heller performs admirably all on her own. The filmmaker takes some liberties with the text, but stays true to the heart of it, connecting deeply with the mix of exhaustion, guilt, and regret that plagues our fatigued heroine. Heller also doesn’t shy from the book’s preposterous premise that the mother seems to be genuinely turning into a freaking dog. But this isn’t The Shaggy Dog. And with the exception of the unsettling tail scene, it’s not body horror. What it is is a surprisingly funny and also poignant exploration of how we view conventional gender roles in the present day.

It likely goes without saying that Adams elevates this material tremendously. With or without a golden statuette on her mantle, she is unquestionably one of the greatest talents of her generation and it’s a delight to see her back on her A game. Nightbitch requires a strong lead performance and it gets that from Adams, who like Theron before her, commits to a believable portrait of motherhood in contrast to her signature glamour. Nightbitch may not be among the year’s top tier of cinema, but it is close, easily standing for me as Heller’s second-best work to date, behind Forgive Me. Adams’ egoless performance is so critical to the film’s successes that it easily cracks my shortlist of 2024 leading actress turns.

In the deuteragonist role, McNairy breathes life into a character that could easily be one-note. The actor seemed to fade away after his early 2010s emergence, but he appears to be back with a 2024 hat trick of this, Speak No Evil, and the forthcoming Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. His earnest turn adds welcome dimensionality to the picture.

There were rumblings of Nightbitch going straight to Hulu, something that Searchlight seems obligated to occasionally provide parent company Disney. Four of the studio’s eight movies this year have gone directly to the streaming service in the US, which is an unfortunate reality for smaller character studies like this. Displaying some internal confidence, the theatrical release is sadly limited initially to just 82 theaters nationwide and if the meager turnout at my barely advance screening is any indication, the film seems unlikely to draw crowds big enough to justify expansion. But whether you are lucky enough to have it playing on a big screen by you or have to wait a couple of months to watch it at home, Nightbitch is absolutely a movie worth seeing and a welcome reminder of Amy Adams’ limitless talent.