Nightbitch (EUA, 2024)
Original title: Nightbitch
Director: Marielle Heller
Writer/Screenplay: Marielle Heller, based on Rachel Yoder’s book of the same name
Main cast: Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy, Arleigh Snowden, Emmet Snowden, Jessica Harper, Zoë Chao, Mary Holland and Archana Rajan
Runtime: 98 minutes (1°38’)
Before I begin this review, I think it's important to make it clear that I'm not a woman who is a mother or wants to be a mother. Motherhood is an unexplored field for me, only explored through conversations with other women. When the film comes out in Brazil and we have texts from people who are mothers, I'd love to share them here and on Instagram.
Being derived from a book of the same name by Rachel Yoder that is celebrated as a feminist and transgressive work about motherhood, Nightbitch suffered a publicity stunt even before its release, with a trailer that is completely out of tone with its content.
In the film, Mother (Amy Adams) is literally a woman who has a young son and who stopped working to spend time with him in the first years of his life. However, she suffers from some identity crises, both in relation to the difficulty in connecting with her past as a sculptor and in dealing with other groups of mothers. Even her husband cannot understand the extent of what it means to dedicate one's time to a child. And so, she feels that she is slowly becoming a dog.
As radical as the idea may seem when presented in a simple synopsis, the idea is well constructed in the film, which puts the small changes felt by Adams on screen, rather than simply spoken in dialogue. We understand this construction because it happens in stages and in a way that makes sense within the work. We see the changes in body and behavior happening, so it doesn't become something meaningless as we see in the trailer. These changes are even so subtle that at times there is a desire for the work to embrace more of its characteristic of body horror and become more disturbing, but it remains in the dramatic sobriety of only including the fantastic elements.
Amy Adams delivers one of the most interesting performances of her career. With little to no makeup, comfortable clothes and a good script, she manages to make anyone feel empathy for this woman's journey, even though she is a white, suburban woman whose problems could be seen as very bourgeois. From imaginary scenes that only happen in her head to the real dramas of understanding her personality and the changes she is going through, she impresses with her good performance.
Even though it manages to entertain the viewer throughout its duration, the feeling that it could always have gone one step further is still present in the film. Almost like a softened version of something that could have been more radical and more intense, causing a greater shock and becoming more memorable. This is a clear choice by the director, who prefers to maintain a certain realism, perhaps even to generate a work that is more appealing to the mass of consumers. But considering the script, the aesthetic choices end up being more conservative, and this also has its impact on the production.
Bringing a rawer version of motherhood than we are used to seeing in theaters, but still within something quite palatable, the film is strengthened by Amy Adams' great performance and a purity in what it wants to show. Far from the tragedy that the trailer presents, but also still somewhat far from the subversive film that the book could give rise to.
Translated by: Renata Torres
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