By Linda and Al Lerner
Amy Adams sinks her canines into this wild dark comedy on all fours. She left the art world to become a stay-at-home Mom, but the unending task of taking care of a toddler literally turns her into a beast. Every Mom will identify with what goes on here at some point. Adams pulls out all the stops as she tries to find her old self while interacting with her precious son.
Amy Adams caused this film to happen. She brought the book by Rachel Yoder to Marielle Heller to see if she’d be interested in adapting it for the big screen. Heller (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Can You Ever Forgive Me? The Diary of a Teenage Girl) does a good job putting Adams through her paces as a Mom confronting every kind of anxiety.
Watch our interview with Writer/Director Marielle Heller who tells us how Adams brought her the project, working with the kid(s) in the film, and how this film is just as important for men to see as women.
Each day is filled with catering to her toddler’s tastes from mac and cheese to chicken tenders, which become leftovers she ends up finishing as the human garbage pail. Each day looks similar to the one before. Her time for art has fallen by the wayside.
And when she takes her son (played by adorable twins Arleigh and Emmett Snowdon) to the library, she gets to commiserate with supportive Moms about the change in their lives attending to every one of their children’s wishes. There are some shocking comments from each of the moms who put on a happy face while biting their tongues. The all-knowing Librarian (Jessica Harper) even sees it in her eyes and like a sooth-sayer states, “Motherhood. It changes you. It connects you to some primal urges.”
And the transformation begins. Playing horsey, her little guy tells her that her skin feels fuzzy. She thinks her canines are looking sharper. And when she goes outside at night, she finds a pack of doggie admirers waiting for her to join them for a run which seems to tame her alter ego. But not when she meets up with her art group of former co-workers in a restaurant. As her frustration grows leading her out of the loop at this grownup gathering, she once again turns into a beast with a line that will catch you off guard as kale spills out of her mouth.
The only way this mother gets to feel better is by going on vampire-like late-night runs with her pack, some of which bring her their kills as tribute to her leadership. Her husband (Scoot McNairy, A Complete Unknown), starts to question what she’s up to when she leaves the house at night. Push comes to shove when she decides to separate and Dad, whose life continued as normal, has to change dramatically. When he’s got to be on non-stop parent patrol, he experiences her frustrations, first hand. We’ve been there.
If you’ve ever taken care of a toddler or two, you’ll definitely relate to her primal instincts. It related almost too well to our own experience going from high power jobs to feeling less than, when taking care of a colic infant. Heller says this film is not just for women and their enlightened partners, but also for clueless men. Adams runs her tail off becoming an unrecognizable creature in this brazen satire on motherhood, but has the bark and bite to make it work.
Searchlight Pictures 1 hour 38 minutes R
