By Divya Rajagopal
TORONTO (Reuters) – “Nightbitch,” an amusing fable about motherhood and identity that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this week, has raised expectations for the movie come awards season, but its star Amy Adams is shrugging off the speculation.
Adapted from the bestselling novel by Rachel Yoder, the movie is a comeback performance for Adams, who is already a six-time Oscar nominee. She was last seen in “Hillbilly Elegy’,” the 2020 film adaptation of a memoir by JD Vance, now the Republican candidate for U.S. vice president.
“Nightbitch” tells a feminist fantasy about regaining lost power and identity. Adams plays an artist-turned-suburban-housewife, named simply Mother. She loves her baby but can’t help but feel isolated and irrelevant in her new role.
Eventually, she notices a pack of neighborhood dogs gathering outside her house after dark. She notices changes within herself. Her sense of smell is heightened. Before long, she is out running through the night with her canine pals, rediscovering her identity and feelings of self-worth.
Asked if she hoped the movie was in line for an Academy Award, Adams told Reuters she was not focused on accolades. Instead, she said, she wanted every viewer to connect with the film in their own way.
“My experience of watching it with different people is this film tells one person’s story, but different people connect with it in different ways because each person’s journey is so unique to them,” she said on the red carpet on Saturday.
“Everyone’s catching glimpses of themselves in it through different aspects of the storytelling. And I’m really proud of that.”
Director Marielle Heller, whose credits include 2018’s “Can You Forgive Me?,” said she wanted to show through “Nightbitch” that movies made by women and for women can win commercial and critical acclaim.
“We are here to show that women also go to the movies and are more than half of the population and we are worthwhile and worth making movies for,” she said.
Heller said she was grateful that author Rachel Yoder allowed her to adapt the book by keeping the essence of the novel while departing from its internal, deeply emotional voice. That adaptation made the story more visually appealing on the big screen, the director said.
Yoder, who was also on the red carpet, said that she did not mind the departure from the text because Heller’s treatment made the book come alive visually.
(Reporting by Divya Rajagopal in Toronto; Editing by Frank McGurty and Chizu Nomiyama)
