Rachel Yoder’s magical realist novel “Nightbitch” isn’t the easiest source material to take on. First off, a great deal of it features an internal narrative. Second, that internal narrative covers a very specific experience of motherhood that may not translate well to the screen or be understood by all. For writer/director Marielle Heller, these weren’t challenges as much as they were features of what drew her to the project. Producer and star Amy Adams worked with Annapurna Pictures to option the book and, in a recent piece for Vanity Fair, describe Heller as their “first choice” in terms of directors.
Heller herself found it the perfect material to dive into considering where she was at that time in her life. She said to Vanity Fair, “I was writing it after being isolated in my house for a year. And my husband was on production, so I was alone with two kids for the first time. It was a nightmare. I was sleep-deprived; I couldn’t see anybody or do anything. And my daughter was waking up at five in the morning every day.”
“Nightbitch” follows the story of a stay-at-home mom who turns into a dog from time to time and at certain point in her life, Heller felt the story was all-too-real. Describing to Vanity Fair a time her infant son nursed from her while she was sick from food poisoning, she said, “It felt like I was a bear and I had this cub, and the cub wasn’t supposed to go very far away from me. I needed to be connected physically to him at all times.”
While some may recoil at this image or not make sense of it, Heller refuses to give these critics credence. In making “Nightbitch,” she’s feeding her inner beast and letting others bask in the monstrosity.
“Part of my ‘Nightbitch’ era has been just being a little bit more honest about my own needs,” she said to Vanity Fair. “Sometimes, when people ask me what the movie is about, I’m like, ‘It’s about motherhood and rage.’ And you either get that or you don’t.”
