NIGHTB***H

Let's be honest about what works first. Amy Adams plays a stressed, unhappy mother, and the movie captures her exhaustion so well that many viewers — women and men alike — will see themselves in it. She's home alone with a young son who won't sleep, a husband who's away on business or offering little help when he's home, and a creative life she gave up. That ache is real, and the film's satirical, ironic humor lands for some.

But the movie surrounds that honest heart with a great deal you'll have to swallow. It carries a strong mixed pagan worldview — Romantic and politically correct feminist perspectives, pagan mysticism, a nod to a Hindu goddess. There's a depicted sex scene, simulated animal deaths, and at least 21 "f" words among heavy foul language.

Even the moral notes it eventually strikes — celebrating motherhood, edging toward a more balanced marriage — arrive wrapped in that mix. The combination is simply too much. Our answer: skip it.

A mother (Amy Adams) is drowning. Her young son won't sleep through the night or nap. Her husband is often away, and hardly more help when he's home. She once worked at an art gallery, using her own artistic gifts — that life is gone now.

She finds a little solace in a women's book club. But something stranger is stirring: she begins to imagine herself turning into a dog. Neighborhood strays grow excited when they see her. At night, they call to her. Is she getting in touch with something primordial — or having a nervous breakdown?

Two stars, and here's what they mean. This is a quirky movie that won't be to everyone's taste, and it knows it. Its strength is recognition: the portrait of a burnt-out mother, unsupported and stretched thin, is drawn with enough truth that many viewers will feel seen. The humor works in a satirical, ironic register for those on its wavelength.

The trouble is the mixture. The film blends its relatable core with pagan mysticism, feminist messaging, and surreal transformation imagery, and the tonal result is uneven — a comedy-horror that's neither fully one thing nor the other. It reaches for something meaningful about marriage and motherhood by the end, but the path there is cluttered. A film with a real observation at its center, undercut by everything piled on top.

At its center, this film believes something worth affirming: that motherhood is hard, exhausting, often thankless work, and that a mother deserves both an involved partner and a self of her own. By the end it favors being both a devoted mother and a person with interests beyond motherhood, and it moves toward a marriage where husband and wife, father and mother, work together in a more balanced partnership. That closing note reflects the Bible's picture of marriage more closely than where the film began.

But the frame around that heart is a strong mixed pagan worldview. The film leans Romantic — trusting feeling and instinct as the deepest truth — and politically correct feminist. It reaches into pagan mysticism, including the idea of a woman getting in touch with a "primordial animal nature," and it references a Hindu goddess. Its late gesture toward biblical marriage is still couched in a modern feminist perspective that isn't biblical.

The longing underneath is real: to be seen, helped, and no longer alone in the labor. Scripture speaks directly to that weariness — and points it somewhere the film cannot. "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28).

There's a genuinely human ache at the center of this film — an exhausted mother, longing to be seen and helped. We wish the movie had trusted that ache without burying it under pagan mysticism, a sex scene, simulated animal deaths, and more than twenty "f" words. The mixture is excessive and unacceptable. So our answer stands: skip it. For a lighter night together, try our latest family-friendly picks.