“Nightbitch,” Rachel Yoder’s barbaric 2021 bestseller lament, tackles the constraints of modern, bourgeois motherhood and leaves blood and bones in its wake. So it’s a shame that the film adaptation has the bite of a well-played think piece. If you’re worried that Marielle Heller — whose most notable works include the award-winning biopics “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” and “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” – was the wrong choice for this project. I’m sorry to tell you that your instincts are right. In “Nightbitch,” Heller and her team neuter a novel loved by droves of fed-up women.

Amy Adams plays the protagonist, known simply as “Mother,” a middle-aged housewife with a toddler. Mother becomes increasingly resentful of her decision to put her art career on hold and care for her son full-time, and also resents her husband (Scoot McNairy) for being out of town five nights a week for work. When she starts to grow excess hair in surprising places on her body and experiences a wild craving for meat, Mother suspects that she might be turning into a dog. Unfortunately, that’s about as deep as Heller’s script takes this premise. Mother offers a lot (many) of thesis-statement-like soliloquies about how difficult it is to juggle the roles of woman, wife and mother, but the coy film she stars in tells little and offers little catharsis or character development. (It’s worth noting that a darker film has already been made about a housewife who dreams of pursuing art and who, spurred on by her husband’s absences, adopts a canine persona: Marianna Palka’s 2017 oddity “Bitch.” .) Mother has created a prison of her own design – she must Being at home full time, without a babysitter to help her, for absolutely no apparent reason – and she’s not even really allowed to gnaw on the bars.

One doesn’t have to read Yoder’s novel to feel that some of its most heartbreaking and challenging passages have not been translated to the screen. Despite its pithy title, “Nightbitch” is far too tidy, Mother’s home and hair as clean as the film’s ridiculously long ending; In the most grotesque scene, the mother stabs a pus-filled protuberance into her lower back. Although Adams is always charming, Nightbitch evokes her Disney princess past more than she does Sharp objects stint. The script fails to reconcile the two truths inherent in Mother as a character: she is a bumbling, simple mother And She is a wild, extremely intelligent creature. Almost everything in “Nightbitch” feels cheesy and tongue-in-cheek – a sin no more aptly expressed than when Mother eventually transforms into a real dog (some silk-coated breed with a husky) rather than the unsettling were-creature that that is presented in the book.

“Nightbitch” is perfectly watchable and does the satisfying job of bringing a new mother figure to the screen who actually looks the part. It’s really great to see A-Star Adams – who once played the title character in an episode of The Office simply called “Hot Girl” – embody an average human woman. Unfortunately, Mother is stuck, feeling victimized by her own life and refusing to look within. Talk about disempowerment.

Nightbitch Gallery