Nighbitch - Review (London Film Festival 2024)

Jack Aling
Oct 16, 2024
1 min read

Updated: Jun 13

There's Beauty in Your Beast.

Review written by Jack Aling

Queer is directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes. Starring Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Jason Schwartzman & Lesley Manville.

Nightbitch is written and directed by Marielle Heller. Starring Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy & Jessica Harper.

A woman, thrown into the stay-at-home routine of raising a toddler in the suburbs, slowly embraces the feral power deeply rooted in motherhood.

Becoming a mother is a transformative moment in someone's life. Director Marielle Heller and star Amy Adams attempt to encapsulate that feeling of feral uncertainty in the aptly named Nightbitch.

With a story as eccentric as "Academy Award Nominee Amy Adams thinks she is turning into a dog," you would think that it would be hard to mess that up. And though the film is enjoyable, it takes this extreme concept and plays it so safe which ultimately waters down its empowering message.

Maybe I wanted more or my expectations were too high. Still, in all the directions Nightbitch could have gone, it didn't commit resulting in a studio-friendly dramedy which feels sentenced to fade into obscurity.

Amy Adams gives it her all and is by far the highlight of the film, but even she can't save the material she was given.