Look, I will be the first to admit that I am absolutely part of the problem. Every time Amy Adams gets attached to a project, I leap into action, pontificating about whether or not this is the one — the movie we’ve all been waiting for; the one to break Adams’s streak of six nominations without a win at the Academy Awards. I have a running bet with my podcast co-host over whether Adams or Michelle Williams will win an Oscar first. And so every casting update, release date announcement, poster, trailer, and festival placement gets run through the “What does this mean for Amy’s Oscar?” gauntlet. But after watching her latest film, Nightbitch, which premiered Saturday at the Toronto International Film Festival, it’s become clear to me that this framing does no one any favors, least of all Amy Adams.
Adams is quite good in the film, adapted from Rachel Yoder’s novel about a frustrated mother who transforms into a wild dog at night. She puts to great use her well-honed ability to play characters whose fresh-faced optimism masks deep wells of betrayal (see also: her naive young nun at the end of Doubt; the duped artist of Big Eyes) or loss (her haunted linguist in Arrival). As a character credited only as “Mother,” she plays a woman experiencing motherhood as its own kind of betrayal, one robbing her of her ambitions as a visual artist, her once-beguiling personality, and as she deals with the pee and poop and everyday terrors of parenthood, her dignity.
At the same time, this is a movie about a woman who begins craving raw meat, grows a few extra nipples, and wakes up every morning filthy from running around in the dirt all night. Dog stuff. Nightbitch is a lot of things, but a straightforward Oscar vehicle is not one of them. And as long as people (me! I am people!) keep approaching this movie with the Oscar question top of mind, it will undoubtedly disappoint.
Not that Nightbitch is a bad movie by any means. Director Marielle Heller’s fifth feature is by turns imaginative, funny, grimy, and packed with ideas about the sacrifices mothers, going well beyond the usual pat stereotypes. But as Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri put it in his review, those ideas often take the place of an actual narrative, leaving the film packed with plenty of provocative imagery and observations, but not much of a story.
At the very least, Nightbitch marks an interesting swing by a talented director and one of very few actresses who could have pulled this role off. The least interesting conversation to have about the film boils down to the Oscars, however understandable the impulse is. At six nominations, Adams has entered the ranks of The Great Unrewarded, with the likes of Peter O’Toole, Richard Burton, Deborah Kerr, and, of course, Amy Adams’ Hillbilly Elegy co-star Glenn Close, whose eight nominations without a win puts her at the top of this infamous list. We love talking about these actors’ losing streaks, if only because it can be so cathartic when those wins finally come. Go and watch Susan Lucci’s loooong awaited Daytime Emmys victory speech if you don’t believe me. Adams in particular is a fascinating case of futility because she’s been capturing Oscar voters’ attention ever since her breakthrough in 2005’s Junebug. She’s starred in 15 Oscar-nominated movies, five of them Best Picture nominees.
And as wild as the premise of Nightbitch sounds, its pre-release Oscar buzz wasn’t all that far-fetched. Marielle Heller previously directed Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, and Tom Hanks to Oscar nominations. And recent Best Actress wins have been bestowed on the performances of a gouty Queen Anne, a multiverse-hopping warrior mom, and a horny young woman with the brain of a baby. Oscar voters have been more open to the strange and unusual.
But ultimately, Nightbitch doesn’t land with the same kind of visual theatrics or thematic impact as Best Actress vehicles like Everything, Everywhere, All at Once or Poor Things. Adams’ performance ranges from broad comedy (watch her dive face-first into a plate of meatloaf) to intimate interiority. Yet those moments are isolated, squandered without an engaging throughline.
If the rough edges and unsatisfying structure of Nightbitch end up keeping awards voters from embracing Adams’ performance, there will be those who chalk up the film as yet another failure on the actress’ part to get that coveted golden statue. That would not only be disrespectful to the art but also reduce Adams’s performance to one dimension. If anything, I’d say the risks that Adams takes with this movie mark a healthy pivot away from the likes of Vice (for which she was unfortunately nominated) or Dear Evan Hansen (for which she was fortunately not nominated).
Nightbitch is exactly the kick in the pants that Adams’ career has needed since I’d say Arrival. To place the measure for its success merely on whether it wins her the Oscar is not only unhelpful, but also hostile towards the kinds of flawed-but-interesting movies that will keep Adams among the actresses who should win an Oscar.
