‘Nightbitch’ is a surprisingly toothless suburban werewolf suburban fantasy drama which works as a female counterpart to the Mike Nichols drama ‘Wolf’ from 1994 in which Jack Nicholson is bitten by a wolf while driving home from Vermont one night and is transformed into the werewolf of legend. In that case, Nicholson’s publishing editor develops the teeth, literally, to become a more ruthless executive and that film works as a metaphor of what happens when a man prone to being pushed around too often, by his boss and by his wife, gains the upper hand due to the carnal transformation.

But ‘Nightbitch’ is stuck at the level of trying to ascertain how Amy Adams’ stay-at-home mom is developing some hair on her back and slightly more fanged teeth than usual, and postulates through some imaginary sequences, akin to what we see in ‘9 to 5’, what happens when she starts to develop a more robust approach to life, in which she realizes that giving up her artistic career in order to look after her young son is not actually what she needs to be doing with her life. And there is no underlying mythology or attempt to explain why Adams is undergoing some sort of metamorphosis. She just becomes more dog-like, with a more intense sense of smell, and in one scene she comes home one night covered in dirt and needs to have a shower.

It is oddly limp, and doesn’t really have the bite required to follow through on the potential afforded by its intriguing premise. As a metaphor for the difficulties of parenthood, ‘Nightbitch’ offers some thoughtful fantasy sequences, but they do not follow through on their potential, and we merely see the way in which a woman who is dissatisfied with the inert world of children’s parties and coffees with other mothers hankers for more spice. Adams comes across as an empathetic, considerate personality, and the film does not sufficiently mutate when the inner animal is unleashed. Indeed, we don’t actually see Adams transform. We just see shots of a dog running through the streets or across the park and are meant to imagine that this is her alter ego.

This is a Jekyll and Hyde movie where Jekyll and Hyde operate in the same basic register, and this deprives the film from any substantial shock or dramatic tension. Indeed, this is a mutation movie that is surprisingly resistant to evolve. There are threads about the way motherhood can unleash the animal within but these are strangely not followed through in what ultimately turns into an ode to motherhood which, though worthy, hardly seems in keeping with the source material which promises something as dark and off-kilter as the 2023 Sundance favourite ‘Cat Person’.