‘Body horror’ may not be the most accurate descriptor to qualify Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch, but the movie undoubtedly adopts many tropes when it focuses on Mother’s (Amy Adams) transformation from a human to a dog. Indeed, when a cyst appears on her back and reveals a large tail full of pus, one may be inclined to say that this dark comedy veers into such territory, and rightfully so. 

The ‘body horror’ itself is appropriately gross and immediately destabilizes both the audience and the protagonist, who discovers a side of her she didn’t realize she had until now. ‘Mother’ (both parent and kid characters are unnamed because it could be you, me, or anyone else) has been living absolute hell parenting her Son (played with an impeccable sense of comedic timing by twins Arleigh and Emmett Snowden). Like any mom at this stage in her life, she attempts to set unattainable goals for her child to be tended to, whether going to the library for a torturous ‘Book Babies’ session or taking her son to the park with almost certain death waiting for him if she doesn’t always pay close attention to what he is doing. 

Of course, it doesn’t help that her son is ineffably cute but incredibly chaotic (the innocent charm they have at this time is deadly for many parents who want to teach them the right way to do things patiently but are unable to do it because of how cute their child looks at all times). From saying the F-word in public to purposefully breaking dishes and then crying about it, he’s certainly not helping her mother have an easygoing time with him, as lovable as he may be. However, Mother’s life isn’t going the way she wants to. She is forced to do everything for her son and absent Husband (Scoot McNairy), which leads her to sacrifice the promising career she had in art to be a stay-at-home mom. At that moment, her sense of smell begins to develop, and she starts experiencing profound physical changes in her body that lead her to believe she is slowly transforming into a dog. 

In its opening scene, Heller, cinematographer Brandon Trost, and editor Anne McCabe intelligently represent Mother’s chaotic, overwhelming life through aesthetic choices reminiscent of Monia Chokri’s Babysitter. Extreme close-ups of Mother’s routine acts (putting butter in the pan and frying hash browns while attempting to subdue her son’s deafening cries), quickly edited together, pervert what the idealized ‘joys’ of being a mother are. In this case, Son acts more like a burden than the boy she unconditionally loves. Heller then directs her audience to Mother’s ragged hair, tired eyes, and wrinkles on her face that seem more apparent than they should, not because of her age but due to her constant sleeplessness and heightened stress levels. 

This immediately pulls us into the on-screen adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s book of the same name, to which Heller then takes an immediate dark turn (a bold swing for some who may not know what this film is about). The attentive filmmaker she has always been (see her masterpiece, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood), Heller still ensures there’s a profound bond between Mother and Son, either through fleeting moments of love as she reads him a bedtime story or as they hold their hands together while running after dogs in a park. 

There’s a sweetness buried inside their relationship that has unfortunately been lost when Mother has been tasked to do everything to please him and her neglectful husband, who would rather fly away from familial problems than face them head-on. In fact, in one of the film’s most powerful scenes, Husband asks Mother, “What happened to my wife?” as he wonders how she became so depressed, bitter, and angry at herself, the world, and her husband. She bluntly responds: “She died in childbirth.” 

This seems to be Nightbitch’s central thesis, illustrated by an unexpected transformation into a fierce canine, which helps her reclaim the story she wants to make for herself. The metaphor is apt and sounds rich enough to be pushed to its fullest extent. But just as it’s about to go all in on its kooky, almost otherworldly storytelling, Heller decides to stop the movie dead in its tracks and not develop any of its ideas, nor the characters who seem rife with potential. For no reason whatsoever, the editorial (and thematic) choices begin to squander any attempt at fleshing anything out of its characters and central story. 

The end result seems more confounding than anything else because it feels like the movie is trying to do far too much in such a short time (98 minutes). As it moves away from the thrilling, almost unique body horror, Heller also loses her aesthetic impulses that made the movie’s first half so compelling and often funny to watch. 

The original source material may be too ambitious to transpose on screen. However, when so much of the movie does work in its opening section, it seems baffling that Nightbitch would lose its most interesting parts in favor of absolute nothingness. But it also seems afraid to commit to one genre or a thematic throughline,to keep us invested. Had it fully leaned into body horror, it could’ve gone in a completely different direction than its massively unconfident script allows. 

Thankfully, Adams always seems to give a damn and represents Mother’s psychological torment intelligently with enough empathy and compassion for the audience to attach themselves to her plight. Her most nail-biting line deliveries are expressed with the energy of a thousand flames (and how her eyes shift in key scenes exacerbates this feeling), alongside voiceover narration that solidifies all of the emotions she can’t express physically. But she’s also frequently outshined by the Snowden twins, who literally steal the spotlight from her and run away with it. 

They have no shame in doing so, either, with note-perfect comedic timing that balances out their charming, lovable exterior. The cutest kids are usually the most troublesome. Heller understands this inextricable fact and displays it to us for all the world to see. However, she shows an insatiable chemistry between the two that makes it instantly believable that Mother will do anything for her Son, even if it mentally and physically exhausts her. 

All of this is finely presented and depicted with thunderous energy during Nightbitch’s opening half. It’s why it feels so disappointing that Heller never fully commits to either her premise or the themes she lays out, concluding Nightbitch with an admittedly funny coda to an otherwise middling and disappointing affair. It may not be as bad as Heller’s feature directorial debut, but it certainly won’t be remembered as her finest effort, either, especially coming off the heels of her best-ever film. 

Nightbitch releases exclusively in theatres on December 6. 

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