Night Bitch is bloody brilliant! Based on the 2021 novel by Rachel Yoder and brought to the screen by director Marielle Heller, this portrait of one stay-at-home mom’s struggles is sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, and occasionally scary- just like IRL motherhood!

In this work of magical realism, Amy Adams portrays a former artist so lost in her life as a new mom that  she doesn’t even have a name (the character is listed on IMDB as ‘Mother). While our heroine loves her son, she doesn’t always love how “all-encompassing” motherhood is. Nowhere is her maternal ambivalence captured better than the breathtaking monologue Adams delivers in the film’s opening sequence. Upon running into the woman who took over the job she left to raise her child, the protagonist is asked how much she enjoys staying at home. The response? “It’s complicated.” The ensuing speech is a blistering indictment of norms that make mothers feel inadequate.

As anyone who has seen the movie’s viral trailer will know, Night Bitch‘s main conceit is that, at night, Amy Adams’ character literally turns into a dog. It’s a purposefully unsubtle – and spot-on –  metaphor for the real-life unsubtle ways motherhood transforms us. One day, you’re a cute, well-dressed, freshly showered professional and the next you’re a primal beast just trying to get an infant to suck milk from your nipple. Motherhood is primal!

What makes Night Bitch so impactful, however, is not the oddity of seeing Amy Adams sprout a tail or howl like a wolf, it’s the film’s terrifying portrayal of how suffocating traditional motherhood is. Now fully mired in their roles as breadwinner and stay-at-home mom, the protagaonist’s husband (Scoot McNairy) fails to understand that his learned parental incompetence is destroying his marriage. During a marital row, he even has the audacity to reproach his wife for no longer keeping up with current events. “Where did my wife go?” he demands, unaware that not changing one’s personality after having a child is a distinctly Straight Male Privilege.

Night Bitch is a must-see movie if I’ve ever seen one! And if you aren’t a mother and fear you won’t relate to its story, see it anyway, for your own mom’s sake…