Nightbitch

★★★★☆

2024 / Dir. Marielle Heller / 99 minutes

As a Millennial parent, I find it difficult to escape the widely expressed and accepted idea that parenting is hard. While that is indeed true, I’ve found that the more I give in to that thinking, the harder it gets. So while my partner and I do our best to manage the challenges when they occur, we tend to lean into the light and make the most of these precious days while we have them. Which is why when Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch opened with a series of vignettes depicting the challenges of parenthood, my guard went up. But slowly and steadily as the film went on, I was disarmed when I realized this film is not about parenthood—it’s about motherhood. An experience I’ll never truly understand. An experience with layers of nuance, identity and physicality that I’ve never had to think about. Once that lightbulb flickered on, I sat back and watched it all—a virtuosic performance from Amy Adams, a heartfelt ode to the primal power of mothers everywhere, a batshit concept executed with humor and sincerity—and left with the same words on my tongue that were uttered by Scoot McNairy in one of the film’s most powerful moments: “I’m in total fucking awe of you.”

Watch if you like: Barbie, Teen Wolf, and cramming your kid’s leftover mac and cheese with a wooden spoon.

—Kevin Prchal