Warning: this article contains spoilers for Nightbitch.
Amy Adams' performance in Nightbitch is something miraculous. Adapted from the novel by Marielle Heller, the film sees a new mum (Adams) overcome by a feral instinct and – whether we see it as literally or figuratively – she turns into a dog.
What Amy's Mother also does, though, is depict the desperate, lonely, joyous story of motherhood – as well as the misogyny that a patriarchal society attaches to a woman and her body, particularly when she becomes a parent.
From the irritatingly sexist responses we see from Mother's Husband (Scoot McNairy), who is what we could call a “Nice Guy” with some seriously internalised misogyny, to the exposure of the inequality in parenting teams and the needed empowerment through admitting that no mother is perfect, Nightbitch goes much deeper than just a mother's metamorphosis into an animal. It takes on the patriarchy.
Critics have suggested that the film looks surprisingly comedic for such a dark story.
GLAMOUR has pulled together the 8 most impactful moments where Nightbitch highlights the misogynistic norms that surround women's bodies and their experiences of motherhood.
Mother's metamorphosis into a dog begins with her habit of playing “dog” games with her toddler son. This entails giving him a dog bed to sleep in, making growl noises and – eventually – encouraging him to eat with his hands and gobble up his food like a dog in public. When Mother follows suit, letting herself go and giving into a more feral nature in a cafeteria, she is met with snooty looks by men and women alike.
We're not saying eating messily in public is necessarily the thing to do, but the judgment we see on Mother in Nightbitch is consistent with the pressure on women, particularly mothers, to appear outwardly perfect and graceful at all times, even during such a chaotic period as early motherhood.
Warning: we're going to give Mother's husband a hard time. But honestly, he's not a bad person necessarily. He just represents what the patriarchy demands of women. Like when he disturbs Mother's much-delayed shower to tell her they're out of milk. The anger basically boils out of her when she suggests he goes to get it himself – an idea he has not considered apparently, seeing as he assumes that it's her role alone to keep track of the groceries, as well as the life of their young child.
When he agrees to go to the shop, she asks him to get sanitary products as she's about to bleed (which she describes quite graphically). Her husband looks disgusted at the description, yet another misogynistic response to women's bodies.
This is a highlight. Amy Adams has already opened up about growing her chin hair or “whiskers” herself for the role, wanting to depict this appearance of such body hair as a “radical acceptance of change”. Her character Mother even reacts to this discovery – which, in the movie, is part of her storyline of turning into a dog – with curiosity and interest instead of immediate shame.
To all the women who have felt shamed or insecure about unwanted, excess or unexpected body hair, the direct nature and simplicity of this scene will resonate and demonstrate how much the patriarchy has made us launch a campaign against our own body hair, instead of learning to embrace and love it – or accept it, at the bare minimum.
When Mother tells her husband that she feels like she's parenting alone since giving up her career, also saying “I'm the housewife I never wanted to be”, I feel like my heart broke.
It perfectly encapsulates the ways in which women are let down by society's expectations of motherhood – the isolation that has been normalised, the emotional and mental load that is not always distributed between a parenting team and the devastating impact on a mother's self esteem when this happens.
At a particularly low point in the crisis we witness throughout Nightbitch, Mother confides in her husband about letting her career go and just focusing on being a mum, joking that her work feels trivial in the face of being a parent. Husband quickly accepts this, and doesn't offer any support or encouragement towards her career, even though it's clear she is struggling with a crisis of identity and confidence.
She later tells him how much this dismissal cost her in terms of confidence. It was easier for Husband – and many other men IRL – to reduce a woman's personhood into just a “mother” instead of also making space for their other hopes, ambitions and dreams, which don't necessarily go away when a mother gives birth.
This one riled me up big time. During a showdown-level argument about Mother's feelings of dissatisfaction and unhappiness at being a stay-at-home mum, Husband really lets loose on the disrespectful comments. He talks about the disappointment he feels that she can't keep up with current affairs like she used to, that she doesn't ask about his day. “What happened to my wife?” he says, and Mother replies quite aptly “She died in childbirth!”
This infuriating and heartbreaking scene demonstrates the impossible expectations put on new mothers, how women are still expected to be everything to everyone even when they are tasked with one of the most all-consuming jobs in the world: motherhood. It really shows the pervasiveness of the patriarchy that Husband manages to make her struggle all about her shortcomings from his perspective, instead of trying to help her out of her crisis. Women are vilified for not doing enough, even when they are on the brink of breakdown.
After a rather unfortunate pet death, Mother finally opens up to her mum friends (a group she initially feels reluctant about connecting and relating to) about the incident, which leads to each woman in turn giving examples of the ways they'd messed up.
In a world where women are expected to be perfect mothers, to the detriment of their own wellbeing and mental health, this moment felt particularly empowering.
As we experience the climax of the film, where Mother and Husband face up to the impact that parenthood has had on their relationship, Mother tells him that if they'd found a more equal way to construct their parenting strategy then perhaps their issues could've been avoided.
In the interest of pursuing this equality, as well as dividing the heavy lifting, it could be worth Husband (and all men) agreeing not to call looking after their own child “babysitting”, or to not say that they “wish” they could stay at home with the child, as if it's 1) not a possibility for them and 2) a very demanding job with no breaks, not necessarily a treat.
The importance of finding this equality – something that is so far out of reach for women when it comes to parenting and so many other elements of their lives – is a crucial message for Nightbitch to communicate.
