Nightbitch is the new film starring an absolutely wonderful Amy Adams and directed by Marielle Heller, whose terrific career so far has also given us Diary of a Teenage Girl, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, and Can You Ever Forgive Me?  

Based on the novel by Rachel Yoder, the story follows "Mother," Adams's unnamed character, who, while adoring her young son, begins to find her life (which is solely devoted to motherhood after she’s given up her career) taxing in a way that is not sustainable, and things become surreal when she finds she is beginning to assume dog-like characteristics--fur, a tail, a desire for fresh meat. 

It's a film that uses elements of horror to examine motherhood -- or rather, to examine the expectations society puts on those who become mothers -- and it has a nice kinship with brilliant films like We Need to Talk about Kevin and The Babadook, but it is much funnier and much less harrowing than either of those two films. In fact, the horror here verges more on the magical realist so that it's unclear if what "Mother" is experiencing is real or merely psychological, and the film ultimately adeptly avoids many of the classic horror tropes, while still giving us all the fun. 

There is, certainly, room for a bit more complexity in the film; in some ways it feels like Feminism 101, akin to Barbie's brand of feminism and its elements of gender essentialism, but there's nothing wrong with a feminism that is accessible as a starting point, and I can see this film reaching a similarly broad Barbie-audience while also hitting on a deep emotional and cathartic level particularly for those who have been mothers (or who have played a mother role or who have experienced gendered-labor), much like the now-famous America Ferrera speech in Barbie hit home for so many, myself included.

Ultimately, while the film is both purely entertaining and often cathartic, it also neatly interrogates the notion that feminism has won, and our society is equal. And, given where we are politically as a country, interrogating that assumption feels all the more urgent. 

The Outrun is a film I’ve been longing to find room for on our screens for a while -- and a number of you have requested it as well! -- so I’m incredibly pleased it’s finally found its way here. Based on a memoir by Amy Liptrot and co-written and directed by Nora Fingscheidt, The Outrun stars Saoirse Ronan, in a raw, nuanced performance, the brilliance of which is justifiably receiving Oscar-nomination attention. 

Ronan plays Rona, a young woman who, just out of rehab, is trying to rebuild her life in the remote Orkney Islands, where she spent her childhood. As a film about addiction, the story hits some relatively expected beats, but Ronan brings an electricity and vulnerability to the role that is simply transcendent. The way, too, that Fingscheidt weaves the breathtakingly beautiful and wild landscape of the Orkneys together with Rona's emotional journey makes the film truly cinematic, reminiscent of Andrea Arnold's masterful 2011 adaptation of Wuthering Heights. Both films are glorious examinations of the internal--the emotional and psychological--by way of a turbulent and unruly natural world. 

We’ll likely have the film with us for just a short time, so be sure to catch one of the best performances of the year while it's still here.

Finally, we have three special events this week to round out our cinematic offerings: after its initial sold-out show, we’ve got a special encore showing of Boom: A Film about the Sonics playing on Thursday at 6:30 pm, and we have two holiday movies, both iconic in their own right: 

Home Alone--with the feisty, accidentally orphaned Kevin McCallister--plays Saturday 1:30 pm and Sunday at 10:00 am, 

and Die Hard--with our bare-footed hero John McClane (and Hans Gruber, one of the best movie villains of all-time)--plays Thursday at 8:30 pm.

See you at the movies, friends! 

Melissa