Nightbitch is not the best film of the year. But if it becomes a cult classic, that will primarily be down to its perfect portrayal of one specific dynamic: weaponised incompetence.
In Marielle Heller’s adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s bestselling novel, Scoot McNairy embodies the “useless” husband, weaponising his incompetence to varying degrees of absurdity. Amy Adams plays the protagonist, “Mother”, who grows increasingly frustrated and angry at her husband’s idiocy, eventually transforming into a dog, complete with eight nipples.
Mother is a promising artist who left her career behind to become a stay-at-home mum in the suburbs. Her husband, always away for work in a vague job, leaves her essentially a single parent. He regularly reminds her that staying home was her “choice”, even though he declares how much he’d love to be at home with their son – despite spending his nights playing video games instead of helping with the bedtime routine.
In one scene, McNairy’s character (“Husband”) asks Adams if she has made coffee, despite the fact that she spent the night caring for their baby with no help from him. She suggests he make it himself, but it doesn’t stop there – he then asks her how many scoops to put in the machine.
This is just one example of many. Husband also talks about “babysitting” his own son and, when she opens up about her feelings of isolation, claims he’s not a mind reader.
It’s familiar behaviour, which triggered in me a deep rage. Other women in the cinema audience audibly groaned when Adams’ and McNairy’s characters got back together after a brief separation, following his epiphany that being a stay-at-home parent is, in fact, hard work.
“Weaponised incompetence” is a term that has gained traction over the past decade, first coined by Jared Sandberg in 2007 in an article for the Wall Street Journal. He used it in relation to the workplace, describing how employees deliberately underperform to avoid unwanted responsibilities. Since then, the phrase has made its way into social media discourse, with many a viral TikTok sketch depicting its occurrence in heteronormative romantic relationships.
In essence, it is lazy, misogynistic behaviour exhibited by men in heterosexual relationships, where they pretend – or genuinely believe – they are incapable of performing basic household and childcare tasks. They often blame their lack of experience or skill, rather than acknowledging the reality that women are socialised to manage a home, a family, and themselves in ways that men historically have not been. Their feigned incompetence is, in fact, malicious, as it places an unfair burden on their partners.
It has, for a long time, been underrepresented in cinema, and popular culture in general. When it has been portrayed, it is often presented as harmless or even endearing. Think of the bumbling sitcom dad trope, immortalised in characters such as Homer Simpson, whose indolence and inability to do even the simplest jobs around the house is played for laughs. These portrayals desensitise audiences to the seriousness of weaponised incompetence, subtly reinforcing the idea that it’s just part of normal life.
Nightbitch is one of only a few films to explore weaponised incompetence, and perhaps the only one since the phrase became commonplace. But the year before the coinage, this dysfunctional dynamic was explored in 2006’s The Break-Up, starring Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston. A scene that stands out is when Brooke (Aniston) gets upset after her boyfriend brings home three lemons rather than 12. Of course, it’s not about the lemons – it’s about the fact that she prepared dinner for their friends, cleaned the house, and worked all day without any help from him. He mocks her for wanting 12 lemons, and when she begs him to help set the table, he retorts: “You’ve done such a great job already. Don’t you want to finish it yourself and have that personal power of accomplishment?”
The evening ends with the couple breaking up, Brooke later explaining to her friend: “I just want him to say thank you. I want him to want to do the dishes … I want him to get me 12 lemons! You know … I just want him to care enough about this relationship to want to work on it.”
Before The Break-Up, there was 1993’s Mrs Doubtfire, where Daniel Hillard (Robin Williams) and Miranda Hillard (Sally Field) split up after their child’s birthday party. Daniel, acting like a “big kid,” lets the party get out of hand until the police show up. Miranda arrives at the same time as the police, birthday cake in hand. It’s the last straw for Miranda, who simply wanted an equal partnership, not another child in the form of a husband.
What makes Nightbitch unique is how it reframes weaponised incompetence as horror. The surreal elements of the film, such as Adams’ transformation into a feral dog, amplify the emotional toll of living with a partner who feigns incompetence. Unlike The Break-Up or Mrs Doubtfire, Nightbitch forces viewers to confront the visceral frustration and dehumanisation this dynamic causes. The absurdity of a woman growing eight nipples symbolises the extreme caregiving burdens women often bear, with no acknowledgment or reprieve from their partners.
By shifting genres from comedy to horror and satire, Nightbitch calls out the absurdity of this behaviour in a way that’s impossible to ignore. This might explain why the women in the cinema groaned when Adams’ character reconciles with McNairy’s. It mirrors real-life frustrations with societal expectations to “forgive” or “understand” men for their failings.
The real horror of Nightbitch isn’t Adams’ ferality – it’s the cancerous, slow relationship-killer that is weaponised incompetence. By holding up a mirror to these dynamics and amplifying their impact through surrealism, the film challenges viewers to question their complicity in perpetuating these behaviours – or turning a blind eye to them.
Perhaps more films need to stop portraying the purposely incompetent husband as a harmless trope and start treating it for what it is: a patriarchal issue with serious consequences for relationships and society at large.
Source: theguardian.com
