Is Amy Adams an Oscar Frontrunner for Nightbitch After TIFF Premiere? Here's What Critics Are Saying

Critics react to Amy Adams’ bold new role. Could this lead to Favorite Actress’s first Oscar win?

Adams, 50, plays the simply titled Mother night bitchwhich had its world premiere on Saturday, September 7, at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film follows a new parent who takes a break from her career to be a stay-at-home mom — prompting an identity crisis in which she fears she’ll turn into a dog.

Entertainment WeeklyMaureen Lee Lenker wrote it night bitch (adapted from the 2021 novel of the same name) is Adams’ “most fearless work to date,” adding that she “leans into its absurd wildness with gusto.”

Among early reviews, critics praised Adams’ performance, with IndieWire’s Emily Rife saying that she shines best when her character is shown interacting with her two-year-old son: “This adds a welcome emotional complexity to the film and gives it impetus for its closing monologue about the animalistic violence of childbirth that goes beyond the sometimes corny mother humor of the first half and gets to something deep,” wrote Rife.

Adams “simply rounds out this role, completely believable and believable as the mom on the edge,” Pete Hammond of Deadline wrote in a review, also praising director Mariella Heller’s work.

“There’s simply no way this film could have been written or directed by a man, at least to the star effect that this fun and heartwarming Valentine’s Day for mothers achieves.”

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Night bitch poster.

Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

DiversityPeter Debruge compared Adams’ performance in the film favorably to that of America Ferrera Barbie role in the review. “Sinking his teeth into the Mother as the Mother herself might a bloody steak, Adams boldly embodies the Mother’s exasperation, finding comedy in every failure,” he wrote.

“In Adams’ hands, Mother turns her identity crisis—the way the woman she used to be ‘died in childbirth,’ leaving someone she doesn’t even recognize in her place—into a tour-de-force act of rediscovery.”

Amy Adams at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2024.

Emma McIntyre/Getty

Collider’s Ross Bonaime wrote that this is “one of the wildest, most ambitious performances from Adams, who turns into a dog at times.”

Tim Grierson of Screen Daily said that Adams’ “occasionally wild, often exhausting take is quite touching, a character who tells herself she should be happy when, deep down, she isn’t.”

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Amy Adams in Nightbitch.

Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

During her career, Adams was nominated for an Oscar six times: for movies Junebug, Doubt, The Fighter, The Master, American Hustle and Vice.

IndieWire asked her on the TIFF red carpet night bitch how she felt about the awards show surrounding her performance. “It’s not something I think about…” she began, adding, “But I’m always happy if the film connects in a way that increases the exposure of the film.”

“And I think this movie I’d like to hear different people’s perspectives on their experience of watching this movie, so the more we can get it out there and get more eyes on it, the happier I’ll be,” she added.

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The film also stars Scoot McNairy, Arleigh Patrick Snowden, Emmett James Snowden, Zoë Chao, Mary Holland, Archana Rajan and Jessica Harper.

night bitch it’s in theaters on December 6.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education