Directed & Screenplay by Marielle Heller
Based on Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
Produced by Anne Carey, Marielle Heller, Sue Naegle, Christina Oh, Amy Adams, Stacy O’Neil
Starring
Amy Adams
Scoot McNairy
Arleigh Snowden
Emmett Snowden
Zoë Chao
Mary Holland
Ella Thomas
Archana Rajan
Jessica Harper
Cinematography Brandon Trost
Edited by Anne McCabe
Music by Nate Heller
Production companies Annapurna Pictures, Archer Gray, Defiant by Nature, Bond Group Entertainment
Running time 98 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Box office $170,737
I think a lot of people avoided Nightbitch because the word ‘bitch’ is widely seen as a slur against women. It only brought in $170,000 in limited release, after all. But it’s a story about a woman who is also a werewolf. I suppose you could argue that werewolves aren’t really canines, being imaginary and all, and I’ll grant you that whilst backing away slowly. It’s a bit like saying Peter Pan is unrealistic because nobody would have a cast iron hook as a prosthetic. Forest, trees, all that.
There is also the fact that the movie is almost entirely a female production—the author is female, as are all the producers, directors and the screenwriter. Oh, there was one guy positioning the cameras, and some other guy did the incidental music. Oh, and there were a few male actors who mostly just reacted to the stuff the main characters were doing.
In other words, this isn’t even faintly sexist. It’s profoundly feminist.
In most movies, the main character’s developing lycanthropy is pretty much front and center, and the rest of the character’s life is incidental, if not entirely subsumed. You know, like Jack in Werewolves of London. (Still my favorite werewolf movie).
In Nightbitch, the lycanthropy is more or less incidental to the other things going on in the character’s life.
The central character is not named, but simply referred to as “Mother” (Amy Adams) and she lives with her husband (named “Husband” and toddler son (named “Son” for some reason) in an affluent suburb outside of a major city (presumably NYC). He is upper-middle something in a business that involves lots of money, and she’s a stay at home housewife. While she made the decision herself to take this role upon learning she was pregnant, a certain disquiet and frustration has crept in. She had a career as a developing major artist, and gave that up to care for Son. She dotes on Son, who is a bright and sunny toddler. (Played by twins, and the child wranglers did a superb job to meshing the child’s play and responses of youngsters not aware of the concept of acting to fit in with the film beautifully). Husband is pleasant sort who means well, but is largely absent doing big money things for big money people and is largely oblivious to the demands of motherhood.
Then odd things start to happen to her physically. She gets a bulge at the base of her spine, and a clump of fur appears above the bulge. Then she notices six extra nipples running down her abdomen.
Alarmed, she starts looking into her family history, and meets up with a group of women at the local library who probably wouldn’t be too upset if you referred to them as a ‘sabbat’.
The transformation, when it comes, is very well done, and she spends the evening running loose in the neighborhood and eating the local cats.
But what is more arresting, and much more subtle, is the change that takes place in her, both as a person and a mother. Her child-rearing skills widen to include some canine behavior. Having learned what it is to be an alpha wolf bitch, she becomes more assertive and confident in her human form. The transformation is gradual, subtle, and profound, and takes the standard silly fantasy story and makes it something much deeper and quite realistic.
She learns of her genetic past and future, and comes to terms with Husband and her abandoned career and of course Son. Aside from lifted lips and snarls, she doesn’t tear anyone’s throat out or ruin anyone’s lives. But she moves to regain the prominence and independence that is her due as an alpha bitch.
It’s a good story, well told and well acted, and deserves far better exposure.
Now on Hulu.