AMY ADAMS MAY transform into a dog for her Golden Globe Award-nominated role in her latest film Nightbitch, but I still found it one of the most relatable and realistic portrayals of motherhood I’ve seen in years.
Truth be told, I’m surprised I didn’t morph into a she-wolf myself in the early days of being a mum for the first time.
The film, based on the bestselling book by Rachel Yoder, has a magic surrealist thread running through its narrative, yet it takes on the complex nature of modern motherhood with all its contradictions and complications, with a surprisingly sharp sense of realism.
The relatable vibes start from the off, with Adams’ character, simply known as ‘mother’ grocery shopping with her two-year-old son as she runs into the woman who got her job at the gallery after she left to have her baby.
“Do you just love getting to be home with him all the time? It must be so wonderful?” gushes the woman.
Adams pauses for a moment and says, “It’s a good question, it’s a complicated one though.”
She then proceeds to sum up everything most new mothers have thought at one time or another to a tee. She talks about loving her son completely, but also worrying that she’ll never feel like herself again. She confesses to her disappointment that motherhood was not all she expected it to be, that she often feels unfulfilled, insecure, confused and a deep sense of rage over the inequalities that exist around parenthood. She says she feels trapped at times and feels like her body is never going to feel like hers again.
The film then flips, and we realise that was her inner monologue. The things she’s thinking but not actually saying out loud. She responds again to the woman, this time giving the more so-called appropriate, expected answer, that she loves it and she loves being a mum, because what else can she say?
Let’s be honest. When we ask new mums questions like this, we don’t expect to hear the complicated truth, do we? We don’t want to hear what new mums really think and feel, warts and all. While we love our children and don’t regret having them for a second, many of us find the unending contradictions and unrealistic expectations placed on mums hard to balance.
No. What all we want to hear is that new mothers love it, it’s all they hoped it would be, now be quiet and get on with it.
However, for many mums trying to make par in the modern world of parenting, both of Amy Adams’s character statements are true. Her inner monologue she feels she’s not allowed to express and her more acceptable outer words. Indeed, the secrets about the other side of motherhood are only whispered between the other mothers she meets at the toddler playgroups. The ones who are living in the same banal montage existence as Adams, filled with monotonous days of toddler games, co-sleeping, cleaning, cooking the same foods, reading the same stories, and losing their sense of self along the way.
The film sums up motherhood as the ultimate paradox. It is both the most incredible thing in the world, and the love we feel for our children is life-altering, but it’s also full of unrealistic expectations and demands, which mums find themselves carrying in an ever-increasing mental load.
Many mothers have to work as though we don’t have children, yet parent like we don’t have a job. The reality for most is that neither is the case, and many women are stuck in between, trying to juggle it all and make it work. But no one benefits when mothers are at burnout and the film hints at the deep sense of anger and rage that bubbles away inside many mothers over the inequality placed upon them. Feelings we are not encouraged to tap into, unless, of course, you can transform into a dog at night.
Nightbitch may be a work of fiction, but it was created out of Yodder’s own experience of motherhood. She wrote the book when her child turned three and it represents her feral rebirth through motherhood. We may have never met, and she may live on the other side of the world, but it seems as though we have a lot in common and the universality of her words is far-reaching.
In the film, Adams and her husband, played by Scoot McNairy, come to blows in a series of relatable arguments stemming from the imbalance of parenthood. In one familiar scene, the couple is in bed with their toddler in between them. Adams’s character has been solo parenting all week as her husband has been away with work, and she has not had a proper night’s sleep in an age. Their son is wide awake at 2 in the morning, and Adams is frustrated while her husband snores through it all, oblivious to what’s happening.
Her character fumes at him saying; “Jesus can you not hear him?” Bemused, the next day, he asks why his wife was such a bitch last night? Resolution comes when Adams’s character accepts her new feral metamorphosis for what it is, a happy one. She wants to be a mother, she loves her son, but she is unhappy at the inequality of her life.
She and her husband eventually take steps to address the imbalance and the film comes to an all too cutesy Hollywood ending, which if I’m being honest was probably the most unrelatable thing about it all and a slight disappointment that it didn’t go for the jugular with a more messy resolution to reflect reality.
Still, Adams has been nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role — Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globe Awards, for her turn, with the awards taking place on 5 January, and I’ve got my paws crossed she’ll take home the gong for all the fellow Nightbitches out there.
Niamh O’Reilly is a freelance writer and wrangler of two small boys, who is winging her way through motherhood, her forties and her eyeliner.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say