One of the films Lainey and I are both super looking forward to at TIFF is Nightbitch, Marielle Heller’s adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s novel of the same name.
The trailer just dropped ahead of the film’s TIFF premiere, and in it, Amy Adams stars as a stay-at-home-mom losing herself in her role as a mother, seemingly reduced to nothing but the cleaner of other people’s butts. But then she begins to feel herself transforming into a dog, which is probably just in her mind, but I also love the imagery of the beautiful dog bounding joyfully down the street, so I kind of hope she is literally turning into a dog, just to feel that sense of freedom.
This trailer is SO good, the perfect combination of Amy Adams looking strung the f-ck out, Scoot McNairy looking mystified by the whole thing, and a gaggle of mom friends who look more put together, thinner, and less stressed than Amy Adams’ character. That might be my favorite detail, how the other moms seem to have it all together, which is, honestly, even less believable than a woman turning into a dog at night. But my favorite detail in this trailer simply must be the use of Stevie Nicks’ “Edge of Seventeen”, an all-time great song that makes me sing along every time I hear it.
Marielle Heller’s two previous films, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and Can You Ever Forgive Me?, both resulted in Oscar nominations for Tom Hanks and Melissa McCarthy, respectively (but no nominations for Heller herself, which is an Oscar CRIME. Justice for Marielle!). Because Amy Adams is SO highly admired by her peers—and audiences, but we don’t get to vote on the Oscars—and because she is playing a character in crisis AND she gained weight for the role (in the Bridget Jones sense that she just looks normal on screen), she SHOULD be a shoo-in for Oscar contention, at the very least.
But she stars in a movie called Nightbitch. The title is honestly the biggest hurdle. There are definitely fuddy-duddies who will get prissy about a film with “bitch” in the title, as if the Oscars have a decorous leg to stand on. Will Amy Adams’ belovedness and the high concept nature of this character and performance be enough to overcome any objections to the title? We’re about to find out!
