'Nightbitch' review: Amy Adams is going to the dogs

Somewhere in the well-manicured suburbs of New York City, an isolated and exhausted Mother (Amy Adams) suspects her body is changing. Her teeth feel sharper, her sense of smell intensifies, her tailbone sprouts a thatch of wiry hair. Whether literally or just psychologically, Mother is turning into the title role in “Nightbitch.”

A horror satire about motherhood, marriage and gender, “Nightbitch” initially feels like a feminist version of Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” or a gender-flipped take on the werewolf genre. Once a successful visual artist, Mother now spends her days carting 2-year-old Baby (played by twins Arleigh and Emmett Snowden) from the playground to the library to the museum. The crankier she gets, the more she devolves into an animal, digging holes in her lawn, inhaling her meals from a dog bowl, even killing local vermin. It might be genetic: In flashbacks, her mother occasionally vanished into the woods, explaining, “I needed some space.”

There’s a problem with this central metaphor: Its meaning isn’t clear. Written and directed by Marielle Heller (“Can You Ever Forgive Me?”) from Rachel Yoder’s novel, “Nightbitch” can’t decide if Mother is descending into madness, bucking societal norms (she literally barks at a group of shocked friends) or discovering her spirit animal (she borrows a mystical book from Norma, a wise old librarian played by Jessica Harper). Eventually the movie resorts to a truism: "We’re all animals,” Mother decides.

There’s an even bigger problem with the film’s central premise — that Mother is a victim of the patriarchy or a conformist culture or the motherhood-industrial complex. Where did she get the notion that parenting was pure bliss? From a 1955 issue of Good Housekeeping? Look around, Mom: Post-partum depression is so widely acknowledged that even dads say they have it. What's more, who told Mother to give up her career? Not society: Most women work, as do most mothers, and dual-income parents have been the norm for decades. Don't tell this particular Mother she's privileged to stay at home, though. She'll bite your head off.

“Nightbitch” is quite familiar with the gruesome details of modern parenting — the sleepless nights, the endless meal-prep — and occasionally has fun with them. But the movie really wants to make a Big Statement, so it turns Husband (Scoot McNairy) into a symbol of male oppression. (And male uselessness — he can barely make his own coffee.) Here’s a guy who works all week to support a family he rarely sees, yet Mother blames him for trapping her in the suburbs, crushing her dreams and turning her into “the housewife I never wanted to be.” That might have rung true in Mary Wollstonecraft’s day, or even in Sylvia Plath’s, but in 2024 it sounds like a pity party — and an upper-income one at that. Here's another idea for that central metaphor: No one is holding this woman’s leash but her.

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com@raferguzman