NIGHTBITCH is in the Wild. Is it Good?

Summary

Book Riot Podcast Summary: "NIGHTBITCH is in the Wild. Is it Good?"

Episode Information

• Title: NIGHTBITCH is in the Wild. Is it Good?
• Podcast: Book Riot - The Podcast
• Hosts: Rebecca Schinsky and Vanessa Diaz
• Release Date: January 3, 2025

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Introduction to "Nightbitch"

In this special holiday episode, Rebecca Schinsky and Vanessa Diaz delve into the adaptation of Rachel Yoder's 2021 novel, Nightbitch. Transitioning from its limited theatrical run, the film is now available for streaming on Hulu, prompting a rich discussion about its merits and shortcomings.

Rebecca Schinsky [00:32]:

"It's an interesting choice that they dropped this onto streaming right after Christmas, but lots of us are home. We're looking for things to stream and I have to tell you, I am so grateful that you have become my intrepid partner in probably ill advised movie adaptations."

Vanessa Diaz [00:59]:

"This was a hilarious thing to tell my parents. Hey guys, I'm going to go to my room to watch a movie for work."

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Overview of the Book

Nightbitch centers on a woman, referred to only as "Mother," who transitions from her career in the art world to becoming a stay-at-home mother. Her husband, known simply as "Husband," is frequently away for work, leaving Mother isolated with her toddler, "Baby." This isolation leads Mother to experience a surreal transformation into a dog at night, symbolizing her internal struggle and primal instincts.

Rebecca Schinsky [05:34]:

"Nightbitch, as I said, is based on Rachel Yoder's 2021 novel of the same name. It is about a woman who has quit her job in the art world to be a stay at home mother to her toddler."

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Adaptation into Film

The adaptation, directed by Marielle Heller and featuring performances by Amy Adams and Scoot McNary, aims to translate the book's introspective and visceral themes onto the screen. However, both hosts express reservations about how effectively the film captures the novel's essence.

Vanessa Diaz [10:36]:

"The way the dog stuff came about in the film... went from one place to the other. And, yeah, she was developing some of the symptoms."

Differences Between Book and Movie

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around the disparities between the novel and its film counterpart:

1. Portrayal of Motherhood:

   • Book: Offers a sharp, satirical critique of societal expectations placed on mothers, emphasizing desperation and the loss of personal identity.
   • Movie: Softens the critique, presenting a more marketable and palatable narrative that leans towards a "hetero optimist" perspective.

2. Transformation Sequence:

   • Book: Details Mother's physical transformations into a dog with graphic and visceral descriptions, highlighting her internal turmoil.
   • Movie: Visual representations of transformation come off as whimsical or silly, diluting the intended horror and desperation.

3. Ending:

   • Book: Ends with Mother’s revolutionary performance art that serves as a rallying cry against oppressive societal norms.
   • Movie: Concludes with a more subdued resolution where Mother reconciles with her husband and decides to have another child, lacking the impactful closure of the novel.

Rebecca Schinsky [26:05]:

"In the book, Mother has tapped into this primal part of herself. She needs to start creating art again... it's become this thing... Night Bitch, and everyone knows that it's this stand in for motherhood."

Vanessa Diaz [23:39]:

"I feel really bad. Do we recommend this? But I kind of don't. I really. Yeah, I just walked away."

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Performances and Direction

While the hosts commend the performances, particularly Amy Adams' portrayal of Mother, they critique the direction and narrative choices that fail to fully embody the book's intense emotional landscape.

Rebecca Schinsky [28:21]:

"His performance is way better than the material she was given."

Vanessa Diaz [34:02]:

"I was starting to. Okay, this is the build-up. This is going to get really, really, really into the thick of it at the end. And I didn't feel like we got there."

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Critical Reception and Conclusions

Both hosts agree that the film does not live up to the book's powerful message, feeling that it misses the opportunity to deliver a profound critique of societal pressures on motherhood. Instead, it opts for a more surface-level resolution that lacks the depth and urgency of the source material.

Rebecca Schinsky [35:46]:

"The book is like, there's a problem here... The movie fundamentally accepts the way that things are and sends her back in for more."

Vanessa Diaz [38:03]:

"It just sort of feels like we got to the, like, everything's gonna be fine. It's like, in a way that... felt very pat."

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Final Thoughts and Recommendations

Ultimately, Rebecca and Vanessa recommend reading the novel over watching the film adaptation. They highlight the book's incisive social commentary and emotional depth, which they feel the movie fails to capture effectively.

Rebecca Schinsky [41:36]:

"We endorse the novel, maybe not so much the film."

Vanessa Diaz [41:48]:

"Anytime."

Rebecca Schinsky [41:00]:

"The book is deeply political in that way that the personal is political. And I felt like the movie sanded off all the sharp edges or all the sharp teeth, maybe, that the book had."

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Conclusion

"NIGHTBITCH is in the Wild. Is it Good?" offers a candid critique of the Nightbitch film adaptation, contrasting it with the novel's potent narrative. Rebecca Schinsky and Vanessa Diaz articulate their disappointment with how the film undermines the book's core messages, advocating for readers to engage with Rachel Yoder's original work to fully grasp its societal implications.

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Notable Quotes:

• Rebecca Schinsky [22:47]:

  "She doesn't do that the way that we completely figured it out... it wasn't so much about."

• Vanessa Diaz [34:02]:

  "It's just like, for this regular domestic life and still have a little bit of both."

• Rebecca Schinsky [35:21]:

  "Emily Nussbaum writes that despite its flashes of rage, it was a hetero optimist movie in a heteropessimist age."

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the podcast's in-depth analysis of the Nightbitch adaptation, providing listeners and readers with valuable insights into the strengths and shortcomings of both the novel and its cinematic rendition.

Transcript

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[Rebecca Schinsky]

This is the Book Riot Podcast. I'm Rebecca Schinsky, joined by Book Riot's managing editor Vanessa Diaz. Today. This is a special holiday drop in episode because the adaptation of Nightbitch, Based on Rachel Yoder's 2021 novel of the same name, which had a very limited run in theaters, has hit streaming. It's available on Hulu now and we are here to talk about it. Vanessa, thank you for going on this journey with me.

[Vanessa Diaz]

This was a hilarious thing to tell my parents. Hey guys, I'm going to go to my room to watch a movie for work. And it was like the holidays. And I'm like, what's it called? I'm like, don't worry about it. I'm like, what is it? Don't worry. That's fine, it's fine. Great. Great holiday watch.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, it's an interesting choice that they dropped this onto streaming right after Christmas, but lots of us are home. We're looking for things to stream and I have to tell you, I am so grateful that you have become my intrepid partner in probably ill advised movie adaptations.

[Vanessa Diaz]

I'm happy to serve in this role.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. For those of you who did not have the pleasure of listening this summer, Vanessa went to see It Ends with Us so that we could talk about that. That episode is back in the feed. Maybe we'll put a link to that in the show notes as well because it ends with us hit Netflix just before the holiday. So if you're looking for entertainment, you have some choices. Let's take a quick we'll take a quick break for our first sponsor and then we'll get into it.

[Flatiron Books]

Today's episode is brought to you by Flatiron Books, publisher of Alter Ego By Alex Segura Annie Bustamante is a cultural force like none other. She's an acclaimed filmmaker and author and a comic book artist. When an offer comes in to work on her longtime favorite superhero, the Lethal Lynx, it's almost too good to be true. Her inner alarms are going off, but she feels the creative spark. But working on this franchise reboot means uncovering the dark truth about the character she loves. Annie must ask herself, how far are you willing to go to protect your art and yourself? In Alter Ego, Alex sticks with the comic book milieu but breaks it open in new and interesting ways. This is a flashbang of a thriller. It has action, paranoia and surprising twists. Alice's previous book, Secret Identity, received amazing reviews and was immensely popular on social media. It also won the LAT Book Prize and was a finalist for the Anthony, Barry and McCavity awards. So make sure to check out Alter Ego by Alex Segura and thanks again to Flat Iron Books for sponsoring this episode. Today's episode is brought to you by Spiegel and Grau, publisher of the Way By Cary Groner It's 2048 and the world has been ravaged by a lethal virus which doesn't sound familiar at all. I know. Will Collins receives an urgent and mysterious request to deliver a potential cure to a scientist on the west coast. So Will sets out into an unknown and perilous world, haunted by dreams of the woman he once loved. When a hitman is on his tail, the only way he'll make it out is with the help of a clever raven, an opinionated cat, and a tough teenage girl who has learned to survive on her own. This is a highly original contribution to the canon of dystopian literature. It is thrilling and imaginative, full of warmth, wisdom and surprises. It's for those reasons that we're calling it a cozy dystopian, even though those two terms don't seem like they really go together. With the election in our rear view mirror, we're looking for some hope and something that's not all doom and gloom, you know? So make sure to check out the Way by Carrie Groner and thanks again to Spiegel and Grau for sponsoring this episode. Today's episode is brought to you by Hopeful Rebel Publishing, publisher of Burn The Freeze by S.M. mcVicker so burn the Freeze is a thrilling debut by Amazon best selling writer S.M. mcVicker about the power of the mind in a spine chilling dystopian reality. It asks the question, can one rebel bring down the 31 billionaires who control society's mind? So after a billionaire orchestrated freeze act is passed to supposedly help the economy, people are classified by personality type and those unwilling to comply are labeled as deviators. When Kal Shook is labeled a deviator, he loses everything. Career, freedom, hope. Until he discovers a technology that allows him to tap into the universe's intelligence. And now the 31 billionaires, unsurprisingly, want him dead. Burn the Freeze is a mind bending sci fi adventure that shows a dystopian vision of a future inherently different and yet terrifyingly close to our own. It's like The Matrix meets 1984. So make sure to check out Burn The Freeze by S.M. mcVicker and and thanks again to hopeful Rebel Publishing for sponsoring this episode.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay, so for the unfamiliar, or maybe if you've read the book, but you need a refresher. Nightbitch, as I said, is based on Rachel Yoder's 2021 novel of the same name. It is about a woman who has quit her job in the art world to be a stay at home mother to her toddler, her child, who is a toddler. Now in the book, we know her only as mother. The child is known as baby, her husband is known as husband. This is a really serves to anchor them in, you know, how they are their roles more than they are their individual selves at this point in their lives. Husband travels during the week, so mother is alone with baby Monday through Friday afternoon and she's losing it. So she starts to turn into a dog at night maybe sort of. Let's, let's start there. I read the book last month, Vanessa, you made it about halfway through and we were talking before we started recording here that I actually think that's a boon for us that you have not finished the book. Because as we get later into the show and we'll get into some spoilers, the movie ends very differently than the book ends. But let's talk a little bit about the book and about these question marks folks are hearing in our voices for. Maybe she turns into a dog.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Yeah, Honestly, I don't even know that it was all the way half. I think I probably made it like a third of the way through. Not because it wasn't. It just life intervened. So I just sort of. Okay, well you know what, I'm just gonna stop along my head and like just watch the film. And was immediately. I'm not even sure where I want to start. Like, you know, if I, if I toss the book aside and just go straight into the movie, what I do think it did really well was sort of sink you into that. Oh my gosh, this is so much harder than I thought it was gonna be. Space for motherhood, which I have a lot of respect for. Like I say this very respectfully, but that whole like first 15, 20 minutes of the movie is my actual nightmare. And that is not, you know, again, super cosign. Anybody who wants to be a parent, if you want to be a parent, you should be a parent. Much respect to all parents, but, like, they really drill down into that. I love my child, but what have I done? Yeah, yeah, you wan to help me out here on some early thoughts.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

There's these. You know, she's in the book. We get her narration about how repetitive the days are. But I agree. I think the movie really brings that aspect to life that we see her, like, standing in the kitchen making the exact same breakfast every day. And it's this montage scene of, like, her outfit changes, but the look on her face stays the same. And it's the same hash browns going.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Into the same supercuts. Yes.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And that that device comes up a couple of times through the film where we just. We see how repetitive life with a toddler is. And, you know, I'm also not a parent. I think we both have lots of parents in our lives. We've lots of nieces and nephews. And we've heard that this is what life with a young kid at home is like. They say the days are long, but the years are short. And I thought both the book and the film really captured what it is that makes those days feel so long. And that mother has no time for herself. You know, it happens in both the book and the movie that she doesn't really get to shower during the week. And husband comes home and she's taking her first shower in four days, and he can't cope with the baby by himself for those, like, 15 minutes without coming in to ask her several questions about, like, why is there no milk? Where do we keep the whatever? And that this all adds to her feeling that. That she's become something feral. She's something very animal and is just in this kind of primal experience in her body. And then it kind of tilts into body horror where it's more protracted. In the book, she starts to notice that her teeth are maybe getting longer and pointier. She shows her husband, and he agrees, but also, like, doesn't really have an opinion about the fact that this is happening. She gets this. Maybe the best analogy is, like, very large cyst at the base of her spine that she goes to Lance and a bunch of fur pops out. It's like a tail. Oh, that scene, the way it's rendered in the film. I just saw the substance recently, and I was like, oh, this feels adjacent to the substance. And to some of the stuff that's happening there. So a tail pops out. Her sense of smell gets really sharpened, and she's walking through the grocery store, like, sniffing a block of cheese and noting all of the little undertones of scent. She can't stop eating raw meat. Becomes obsessed with, like, buying steak. It's really, really graphic and very visceral throughout the book. How did you pick up on that? Or how did you feel about how that was rendered in the film, Having maybe not made it all the way into those details in the book?

[Vanessa Diaz]

Yeah, the thing that I went in a little bit cautious of, and this is a. I don't know if it's a critique so much as, like, a concern I often have with books that are really, really not cerebral, but, like, where the monologue is internal. I don't always feel like that gets translated well into film because it's hard unless you're literally having the person just narrate out loud the whole time. What I do think the film, at least from what I gathered was doing pretty well, was kind of sneaking those little bits in and then again through the use of just, like, this repetitive imagery, driving home some of the things that I would have gotten, I think, in the book through that monologue. So, like, there was that, but the. The way that the dog stuff came about in the film, and especially because I haven't finished the book, I don't know that it felt seamless, and I don't know that it's supposed to, but it. I don't know. I feel like the payoff. We kind of just went from, like, one place to the other. And, yeah, she was developing some of the symptoms. You know, she notices that she's got, like, extra nipples. And then, yes, there's, like, the lancing scene. I don't know if I'm just not cool enough to grasp this kind of horror, but I didn't. I felt like I needed more time or like I needed to, again, hear more of her monologue to kind of arrive at the place where. Because it kind of just seems like she accepted it, Like. And I don't know if this is part of the book or not, but there wasn't a whole lot of meditation. I'm like, this is weird. Like, it's kind of just like, she mentioned it a little bit to the husband, but again, they seem to move past it pretty quick. Quickly.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

She does spend a little more time in the Is this real what's happening? Space in the book, which, when I read it, I was thinking how on earth. Are they going to translate this device to the screen? Because it's just a flavor of weirdness. I think that works when you're living in your own imagination picturing, like, is this actually happening? Or does she just feel like she's not a person? Does she just feel like an animal? Is she just looking for some way to dissoc from her daily existence? Because you get scenes in the book, like at night, she goes out onto her front porch and there are these three dogs standing in the front yard that, you know, run up to her, they tear her clothes off, she transforms into a dog, and then she's running with the pack and you know, they're like killing the squirrels in the neighborhood. Then she later bumps into some of the mommies from the Mommies and Me library group and realizes that like one of the mommies strawberry shampoo smells exactly like one of the dogs who was visiting her. And she's, she has this like, oh, are we all doing this? Is this how we're all coping? But yeah, one of the key differences is that in the book, those mommies, like, she, she falls in with this group of mommies. They have an. This mlm. It's like an herbal tea situation. Did you get that far?

[Vanessa Diaz]

I don't think I did.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay. Where they like invite her to their party. They're talking about all of the magical blends and there is basically a mommy's little helper herb blend that you're kind of like, are they just getting stoned to cope with their days? She's very weirded out by it, but she does like, she wants this company. And there's this central tension in the book between like, she feels very alone because she feels like I had this career as an artist. I can't relate to these other stay at home moms who like, I'm a mess. They're all put together. They seem to love this stay at home mom life. And I am discovering this is not for me. And she, you know, kind of agrees to hang out with them, agrees to go to these hangs and the little tea parties and maybe she's going to take their herbs, maybe she's not. But the whole time she's feeling like alienated. But also this real desire to find community. And I felt like in the book or in, sorry, in the movie, she just sort of slides right in to that group and it's not. I mean, they don't do the herbal tea MLM thing at all. You don't see that the other women are really suffering she's the only one who seems to be having a hard time.

[Vanessa Diaz]

And I would argue that she doesn't even. Well, she does slide in, but she actually doesn't slide in for quite some time. Like, there is really the beginning of it. I feel like she, for the most part, isn't really gelling with the moms much. She seems to kind of find them. I don't know if it's because she's finding them silly or not or if that's just the way that I was interpreting it. But, you know, they're constantly coming up to her at the library. So you're like, oh, do you do wine and sip? Do you do this? Do you do that? And she bows out out of all that stuff. And then it kind of just feels like towards the end, which, again, I could see why that might happen, where she finally is like, okay, no, I actually do need some community. Like, let me just give these moms a chance. And then they all kind of are like, we're all weird too, and it's fine. But there is not necessarily that same. I didn't get the impression that even the questioning of, like, wait, is this how we're all getting by? Is this what we're all. Are we all doing this feral dog thing? Like, I didn't get that impression at all in the movie.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, it is much darker. And the idea that maybe they're all suffering and looking for some kind of escape comes across, I think, much more clearly in the book. So maybe let's jump back, back. Back up to, like, first, what genre is this movie?

[Vanessa Diaz]

I again, was trying to explain to my parents what I was going to be watching, and I was like, ah. And I finally just looked it up, and I guess I keep seeing people calling it, like, a satire, horror comedy. And sure, I. I don't know. I don't know that it is quite comedy enough for me to call it a horror comedy. I'm a little bit stuck on how to classify this film in a way that would make it make sense to, like, a person where I'm like, okay, like, you're gonna. You're gonna expect a certain flavor by what I give you. I don't know that anything I can describe is gonna give you this flavor of movie.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I felt like the book is pretty solidly satire. Yes, the book is very sharp. You feel Yoder's rage on basically every page of, like, this is the situation that we have put women. And that really got softened in the film. I think it makes it more palatable like, it probably makes it more to be cynical about it. It makes it more marketable that she's not just 100% miserable about the idea of being a mother. Like, how are you gonna go get the stay at home moms who like being a stay at home mom to see this movie if it's just anti stay at home mom? Or, like, maybe they're trying not to get picketed by right wing conservatives. The, you know, pro family St. Um, Yoder's. You know, she is a mother. She's writing from that place. She's not anti family by any stretch. But the book very solidly lands with, like, we've got to do something different here. This is untenable. That, like, the only solution to manage life at home with your child is to either actually run feral at night or to at least play some kind of game. Where, like in both the book and the film, Mother involves baby in this idea that they are dogs. And, you know, they run around and they bark and they eat some of their food out of dog bowls. Baby gets really into it. Toddlers do weird stuff. So he wants a collar and she gets him one. In the book, she gets him a dog crate to sleep in. Because one of the recurring. Yeah, one of the recurring themes is, you know, she has no time to herself, no space where there's not another being connected to her body. And at night, putting him to bed is miserable. She made the mistake of letting him slee in her bed for too long and he won't go to sleep. So she's just like, constantly begging him to please go to sleep. And she's just like, let's try it and see. So she gets a crate, she puts it in the living room, and she discovers that when she tells Baby that it's time for doggy to go to bed, doggy goes into the dog crate, he falls right to sleep, and that means she gets to go to sleep. They translated this into it's just a dog bed on the floor of the bedroom in the movie. And I did read an interview or a profile. Emily Nussbaum did a great profile for the New Yorker of Marielle, who wrote and directed the film. And she was like, you know, in the era of Trump, we thought that kids in crates was a little too close to kids in cages.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Yeah, I'm gonna give you that one.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Which I can see. But I do think there's also a case for it. Like, that visual of this is what we've come to. Like, this is how desperate this woman is. And I guess that's my core feeling, is that the desperation does not come across as sharply in the movie as it needs to.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Yeah. I would almost say that it isn't. I mean, it is desperation, but it's. It's also just like, ennui. And I. Yeah, like, just again, looking at the way that it unfolds, I think there was always going to be a huge challenge around, I guess. Yeah. Putting the. The visceral, feral qualities of what it might be like to just suddenly find yourself in a dog's body on screen. Because the scenes where she's kind of acting it out and doing the, you know, where she walks out on two feet and then, like, slowly gets onto all fours and is, like, scratching around. I. I didn't. There was no way for me to look at that except to laugh. Like. And maybe that's the point. But it didn't give me feral so much as a little, like, are we. Are we okay? And, you know, that's also part of it too. But it kind of came across as silly. And then, yeah, they suddenly just show, like, a dog running through the streets. But I don't know, it could just be because the medium was never going to be able to do this. But I think I could have gotten past it in my imagination and been. And because again, you can just sort of imagine how it would happen. Whereas this particular. All the. All the montages where she's pro. You know, the implications that she's out becoming a dog at night were a. Either not fully fleshed out. You're kind of getting it more as nightmares where you're asking, like, is this happening? Is it not? And then the parts where I did see it on screen felt a little like, you know, Jacob turning into the wolf in Twilight. Like, I. It was just hard for me to take it as serious as. Because the message behind it is clear. And I completely am down with that. That the way that we treat motherhood in this country in particular and just society at large is so untenable. And it. There's so much that's unfair about it. And all that we're putting, like, that part is the one. The fact that they wanted to convey that message is clear to me, but the way that they went about it. And again, my question, I guess, is like, is this just a limitation of, like, being able to put this onto a screen? Like, was there no other way to do. Maybe I'm not giving them enough credit, but I wasn't able to get that punch from the film in a way. That I think the book might have given me.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I agree. I think the behaviors that Rachel Yoder writes as really primal and animalistic come off as kind of whimsical in the film or silly. And one of the ways that the device really doesn't work on film is this is a place where it makes it a lot easier to see where the plot holes or the believability might be. One of the things that's concerning, consistent between the book and the movie is that she does, you know, she's. Her teeth are getting longer, she grows this tail. She thinks that now she has eight nipples and she's telling husband about all of these things, and he kind of laughs it off. But then there. There are scenes where, like, one of the things that she kind of likes about being in this more animalistic version of herself is they're having great sex. And, you know, it's. You know, so he is seeing her naked and in the film, it's very like he's looking at her standing in the shower and he's not gonna notice if she actually has eight nipples. So it just. I don't know, it really brings it the. The lie forward a little bit more of like, this must be something that's more happening in her head where the book invites you to live in this space of like. But maybe she actually is turning into a dog at night.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Yeah, this is the part where I kind of kept getting a little bit lost to rub. It's like everybody was either just completely buying into the fact that what we were saying was true in that didn't feel realistic, or something else and I couldn't. Like, it all started. We would get to some of these places and then the payoff after I was just like, I don't know. This is really hard to do on film.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. So let's take a break there and when we come back, we will get into spoiler territory. Welcome to Nada Yada island next on Nadia Yada Island.

[Vanessa Diaz]

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[Rebecca Schinsky]

Get one line for only $25 a month with autopay. Just bring your phone to Metro and experience all the data you want on the largest 5G network. That's nada Yada Yada. Only at Metro by T Mobile. First month is $30. Bring your number and ID offer. Not available if with T Mobile or with Metro in the past 180 days. Okay, so here is your spoiler alert, folks. If you have not finished the Book or seen the movie, and you don't want to know the, like, the big differences and the big details. You should skip out now. Right before we skip out, Vanessa, should people see this movie?

[Vanessa Diaz]

I. I feel really bad. Do we recommend this? But I kind of don't. I really. Yeah, I. I wanted to enjoy this so, so much because I've heard such phenomenal things about this book. And I just walked away, especially at the ending, which I'm really, really interested to hear how it actually ends, because I just was like, okay. And for those reasons, I'm just not really digging the film.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I agree. Read the book for sure. It reads like a house on fire. I read it on one flight and had a great time. Also, it's fun to sit in an airport holding a paperback that says Night Bitch on it. No one will talk to you.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Excellent.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. All right, so here we go, entering spoiler territory. So among, you know, some of the differences, we've already talked about that the way the mommy group lands in her life is really different. The biggest difference in between the book and the movie is the ending. So in the book, mother has tapped into this primal part of herself. She needs to start creating art again. And the way that it ends is that we see that she has developed a performance art piece that has become, like, the talk of the art world, where she kills a live rabbit on stage and, like, chases her son through the forest. And it bec. It's become this thing. Like, people go to see, can they. Is she actually going to do this? Can she tolerate it? And, like, the piece is called Night Bitch, and everyone knows that it's this stand in for motherhood. And so now she has kind of found integration of her mother self and her dog primal self by coming back to the thing that she love creating art. And she is expressing, like, all of this desperation and the frustration and, like, issuing her critique about what contemporary America does to mothers. It's revolutionary. Like, the thing that this woman and her art are saying is that we've got to do something different. And you end the book feeling like, Rachel Yoder is not anti family. Rachel Yoder is not anti mother. Rachel Yoder is anti the way we do this in the west or especially the way that we do it in America, that mothers need. Need support. Tell me how the movie ends.

[Vanessa Diaz]

I know that there's another movie or show that has done a version of what I'm about to describe. And it has been kicking me that I can't think of it because it's basically Her. I mean, she has, like, a talk with her husband and then, like, does go essentially back to making art, but it is this, like, she basically does an installation. There is none of this performance piece. It's essentially her after having had, like, a heart to heart again. This is the part where I was talking about with the moms. It feels like this is the first time she finally sits down and decides she wants to be friends with the other moms in this mommy group. They sit down, have a discussion about all the ways in which they feel like terrible women too, for, like, the way they get through the day. And then she opens up this art show where she's done paintings of, like, each of these moms. There is this sort of haha, like, piece in the center that's like a bunch of taxidermied animals that of course, we will recognize from the stuff that's happened throughout the course of the film when all of a sudden this, like, bouquet of animal corpses was just waiting on her doorstep from the things she did the night before. But. And then everybody's like, yes, you can have it all. And it's great, and it's gonna be different from now on. So her and the husband are, like, happy off in the sunset. And then the movie ends with her having another kid. And it's a girl, and it's a girl, and we're. It's in the middle of, like, the birth, you know, is when it ends as she's, like, sitting there literally pushing down in the middle of labor, and she's this. I think what otherwise would have been, like, an interesting monologue about how motherhood and childbirth is like a violent act, et cetera, et cetera, and then, like, boom. But okay, yeah, yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So that moment where she is, like, in that kind of raw animal state and she's giving birth to another child and they say it's a girl. That was the moment that I felt the movie was the most, like a horror movie. Like, oh, I think we're supposed to walk away from this ending with a. Maybe we can all work it out. Or, like, it's all worth it. Like, look. Yeah, she was desperate and miserable, but having a baby is so worth it that she's gonna go back to the well and do that again. And maybe she and husband will be better at it this time around. And I think we should mention Scoot McNary as husband is like, as good as anybody can eat.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Yes, absolutely.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And I think Amy Adams also.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Oh, I think she did great with what she had.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, her performance is way better than the material she was given. Yes. Um, but I, I, I don't think the, that the it's a girl is supposed to fill us with dread, but it definitely filled me with dread of, like, oh, she's given birth to a girl who now might enter into the world and have this same kind of experience. I was mad. Like, is this seriously?

[Vanessa Diaz]

Yeah, I was not like, I, the, the dissonance in particular, just to go back to the point you just made of, like, the fact that I think this was supposed to be like. And this, this is great. Whereas for me, I was like, oh, no. That disconnect felt funny to me where I was like, I don't think, like, you said that this is maybe supposed to fill me with the dread that I'm feeling, but I do feel dread. And I can't tell, I guess, how that's supposed to be interpreted, but especially now, knowing what the ending really was supposed to be. Again, it just sort of feels like we got to the, like, everything's gonna be fine. It's like, in a way that a person who has been out of the art world for this long, etc. And it kind of just feels like it gets slapped into exist, and everyone's like, this is a raging success. I'm like, okay, cool. Like, in what way? I don't know. Again, my issue, I think, is with payoff, and I am not entirely sure that I buy the ending in the way that it was presented to me.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I felt like in the book, Yoder is saying that freedom, or at least relief from these circumstances comes from embracing your feral nature and, like, accessing some kind of wildness. Like, she has to let herself become ferocious in order to get, you know, to stand up for herself functionally and to get any relief from these desperate circumstances. And the movie really leans closer to, like, being in favor of domestication, that, like, now she's found the right container for her wildness so she can have another baby. She can go back and do the same thing again. And there's like, like, I thought there was a lot of audience service or, like, wish fulfillment. We get to see the husband do this big apology. And if I had only known. And I want to be here with you. And it's very, it just felt very canned and predictable to me, but in a very unrealistic way. Like, if the big dispute that is maybe going to break up your marriage and your family is over the division of labor with parenting, you're not going to, like, sit down and have one Heart to heart. And it's magically better.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Correct. That is, I think, where I was the most. Just like. And then again, it's like, oh. And not only is it how we completely figured it out, you're not going to have all this time to create all this art, and you're going to have this show that you're going to mash together and everything is fine. It just felt so quick and in a way that anybody who has ever known a single parent who has been dealing with even a quarter of these issues is like, this is a big conversation that requires a lot of discussion at bare minimum. And that if the labor wasn't being divided, well, to begin with, it is not my experience that the partner then is just like, you're right. Do you want to make an art show? Yeah, I really do. Like, great. Let's have another kid. It very much felt like you said that it wasn't so much about. I went in with this very, very wild idea of what the movie was going to be because of the way that the book had been described to me. And so, frankly, because horror has been a thing that I've only sort of dipping my toes again into in the last few years, I kind of went in, like, with my shoulders over my ears, like, okay, here we go. Let's see how feral this gets. And it very much, like you said, felt like we took all of those feral instincts and all of these big, like, yeah, the big energy that I was expecting and kind of just said, okay, well, there is a version in which you could package this for this regular domestic life and still have a little bit of both. And I don't know that that is the vibe that I understood the book was, like, nailing at.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Vanessa Diaz]

So the ending, again, felt very almost pat.

[Capella University]

Like.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Like.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, yeah, pat is a good word for it. Another big change between the book and the movie. And I got some messages when I talked about Nightbitch on Instagram from folks who were like, man, that book should come with a warning that the cat dies. And in a really graphic way. So the family has this cat that is. Seems like a totally fine cat, but mother is constantly annoyed by the cat because it's, like, one more creature that needs things from her. In the book, mother kills the cat while mother is in her human form. Oh, like, stumbles over something in the kitchen. Cat is right under her feet, and she has this, like, eruption of, like, a raw. Like, a big rage. Kills the cat, and then has to explain to baby that the cat has died. You know. Yeah, they. They bury the cat in the backyard. Husband comes home from his week away and she's like, I don't know what happened. Something attacked it. The cat, like, the cat died. And he's like, the cat died and you didn't even call me. And you know, in the movie. Yeah, in the movie she opens the front door one day and the cat is dead on her stoop. And it's implied that she killed the cat while she was in her dog form, which is. Yep, I understand why they didn't want to show a human killing a cat on screen. But it's one more way that like the book really shows the state that she's in and the violence that she like the ends that she's been pushed to. So that happened.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Oh, wow. I mean, there's a way to convey. I'm thinking of yellow jackets and Scenery Bunny. Like, there's a way to convey that this was about to happen without necessarily showing it on screen. But you can like pan away at the last second. Here I am giving like cinematic notes as though I have any idea what I'm talking about.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You know, Yellow jackets, I think is actually a great comparison though, because that's another piece of media.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Yes. Like that particular piece of media is one that, like, I was. Oh, man, I went in for sure thinking, oh my gosh, don't get me wrong, some awful stuff happens. But they really expertly do it in a way where. Where so much of it is more just the way you interpret or like the. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure people know that. If not, you know, warning, but it's catalyst. So you're watching the two events in question. In a lot of Yellowjackets are just, just perfectly separated enough where like, you know that someone is about to get the, you know, whatever. And that happens in a way. And then later you're just presented like a platter of meat. So you get the connection and you're still like. And you have this visceral reaction. But they didn't actually show like the awful thing happening in the same. I think there's a way to do stuff like that, that this for a book and movie that were ostensibly so much about female rage. And again, this like primal out of body experience, it feels so tamped down for reasons of, like, I get not wanting to show a woman, you know, killing a cat on screen. But there is a way, I think it could have been done that still conveyed those big visceral moments that didn't necessarily have to go all the way Graphic.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That's such a great point. I would love to see another pass at this adaptation in the hands of the Yellowjacket showrunners.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Because they go there, right? I mean, like, Rebecca put me onto this show, but it goes there. It goes all kinds of there, there and back many times. But you don't actually weirdly have to watch most of the terrible stuff happen. It's just that the scenes are spliced together in just perfect enough a way where you get that the awful thing just happened and then your stomach is turning, but you didn't watch. Like, yeah, there's a way to do it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And I think, actually, I'm just going to latch onto your phrase that it goes there because the book goes there in so many ways. We are in her body. We're in her daily experience. We're in that monotony. We are in the rage of. You finally sat down after a whole week with this baby. And husband is supposed to be giving baby a bath. And husband, like, needs help with five things. And can you please put the towel in the dryer so it's warm for baby? And she's like, I do this by myself every. Every day while you're gone. Like, get it together. And the. The movie just passes up almost every opportunity to actually go there. Like, the. The book feels like this rallying cry to me. Like, you could kind of imagine, like, gangs of women marching through the streets waving copies of Night, being like, we have to do something.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Yes.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It has to get better. And the movie fundamentally accepts the way that things are and sends her back in for more.

[Flatiron Books]

Oh, gosh.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Yes, that.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Which I'll just steal a line from Emily Nussbaum's piece with Marielle Heller, which. It turns out that part of the reason that the ending was changed is that Marielle Heller had an experience having her first child where she wasn't sure she wanted to have a second one and then decided to. So that informed it. But also, executives gave notes that they wanted the ending to have a more clear cut point, which feels to me like a note that only a man.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Could give on this movie. That's not a good taste in my mouth.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, but that sort of. That combination of. Heller wrote her own experience into the, you know, change the way that Yoder had ended the book. And Rachel Yoder has said on the record that she's happy with the film and she wanted it to be its own different version of the story. But also, like, what else are you gonna say? Emily Nussbaum writes that despite its flashes of rage. It was a hetero optimist movie in a heteropessimist age.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Ooh, clap that one. Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

This is why Emily Nussbaum gets to be the New Yorker's film critic.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Absolutely.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That's, I think, fundamentally it. That the book is like, there's a problem here.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And the film acknowledges that maybe things aren't perfect, but doesn't go there.

[Vanessa Diaz]

All. Oh, yeah, that's. That's a perfect way to put that, because that is. From the beginning, I. I did have much higher hopes because, again, it felt like some of the. The filming, like we talked about, like the super cuts of her just wearing the same kind of clothes. You know, different clothes, same expression, putting that same little. What we all know to be the Trader Joe's Hash brown. Patty came to that pan over and over again. I. I was starting to. Okay, this is the build up. This. They're going to put all of the, like, monotony and, like, the difficulty in this, and then it's going to get really, really, really into the thick of it at the end. And I didn't feel like we got there. And that description you just gave really drives home what I think are ultimately the problems with it, because I just didn't walk away feeling as ragey about it as I thought it was going to. It felt much more, again, kind of tamped down in a way that I don't think was the actual message of the book, insofar as I can tell.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. I think you're supposed to walk away from the book being like, I am going to call Bernie Sanders and we're going to get burn it down, you know, universal maternity leave. We're gonna get daycare, we're gonna get support for parents, we're gonna get a child tax credit. We're gonna be in the streets until we get these things. And it's political. The book is just deeply political in that way that the personal is political. And I felt like the movie sanded off all the sharp edges or all the sharp teeth, maybe, that the book.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Yes, there you go. Very much. Was just like, if you join a mommy group and you talk to your husband one time, time, you're going to be able to do this again, and it's going to be great. And I don't now, let me say, do some people do that? Yes. Like, there's plenty of people that decide to have more children, even though the first one was hard for all these reasons, like, maybe this is a realistic portrayal to a lot of women out there. And that is valid. But for the message of the film to have been like, again, there is something fundamentally wrong with the way that we are going about this. We are draining all of women's life force by forcing them to do the impossible. And then for it to just again at the end feels very tied up in what feel like very easy, quick solutions. Didn't get to the meat of it for me in a way that. And again, it's not necessarily due to the act. Like, I loved the acting. I thought so much like, the cast itself was great, but it just didn't. Yeah. The rage that I expected to. I think I've said this, but, like, walk away with is very much just like, oh, okay. That was a really good idea. Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I kind of wish that I could like Time Machine myself and watch the movie without having read the book because I've seen some. I've tried to avoid reviews and headlines for the movie, most part, but I've seen some coverage that makes me pretty sure that the person writing about the movie had not read the book. Where they're like, this is. It's fun. Like it tap. It's fun, but it's also angry. It taps into some of these feelings, but it's not too dark. Amy Adams. It does give a very solid performance. And I think maybe there's a world where you could just see the movie in a vacuum and have a good enough time. But as an adaptation of. Of the novel, I think it pretty much fails.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Yeah. Again, I also maybe wish I would have just not picked up the book at all because I did do part of it. And even only having done again what I think is maybe like a third, maybe a teeny bit more than that. I had enough of a flavor established that that is what made the film feel unsatisfactory. And I did go back after the fact just to read a couple of things for research, wanting to know how some of it differed. And I would tend to agree that the people who were giving it be like, this is fun. ET May not have read the book either because it doesn't take too much of that text to realize that the tone of it was going to be very different than what we got in the movie.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

All right, well, that's Night, written and directed by Marielle Heller, adapted from Rachel Yoder's novel. We endorse the novel, maybe not so much the film. Thanks for hanging with me, Vanessa.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Anytime.