What Is a Weird Al Song Doing in Amy Adams’ Dog Movie?

Nightbitch has been something of a victim of people’s expectations. When the news broke there was a film coming starring Amy Adams dealing with a turbulent motherhood experience—and, I can’t stress this enough, believes she’s turning into a dog—had people preparing for Adams’ long-awaited (and for many, long overdue) Oscar. Ahead of the film’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, a trailer dropped that almost immediately changed people’s minds; instead of an intense, awards-worthy drama, Nightbitch appeared to be more of a goofy, light comedy.

Basing expectations on trailers is foolish—no matter how much you think a two-minute preview of a film gives away, your assumptions about its quality are often wrong. Nightbitch is also far stranger than the trailer suggests, but it is a dark comedy about the pressures and loneliness of motherhood. The film, and Amy Adams, is best when it embraces absurdity and isn’t afraid to get weird and deeply silly. That’s why the best scene in Nightbitch is a montage set to an unexpected song: Weird Al Yankovic’s “Dare to Be Stupid.”

In Nightbitch, Adams plays an unnamed mother whose experience of raising a child is far more challenging than she ever imagined. Her feelings of fury and isolation manifest in strange things happening to her body—hair is starting to appear in strange places, and things keep getting weirder after that. It seems she’s turning into a dog—not hypothetically, but literally.

Before Adams gets down to Weird Al, she finally begins to embrace the dog within her, running through her neighborhood barefoot with reckless abandon. She had been struggling with the new changes in her body, but the moment represents a sea change for Adams’ character, as she begins to accept the animalistic side of herself. Her husband (Scoot MacNairy) finds her in the shower, covered in mud and dirt. While the pair’s sexual chemistry has been off recently (that’s putting it lightly), there’s a spark here, and he gets in the shower and they make love.

The next day, he’s off on a business trip, which gives Adams an extended period of time with her son. But instead of the frustration that has increasingly plagued her relationship with her child, she tries something different: “Should we go have some fun?” she asks her son as her husband’s car pulls away. “Dare to Be Stupid” begins blasting in all its upbeat glory. As Adams slices a cut of beef, she asks her sun with a playful growl: “Should we act like doggies?”

And act like doggies they do. Amidst Weird Al’s deliberately nonsensical lyrics, Adams mother character commits fully to the craziness of what’s happening to her, putting fear and anger squarely aside and leaning into the goofy. She walks on all fours with her son outside, barking at their neighbor quietly watering his yard. They eat their dinner on the floor in dog bowls. She discovers her son drinking out of the toilet bowl. They play fetch at the park (she plays the role of the dog), and together they chase a squirrel up a tree.

The unheralded star of this sequence is editor Anne McCabe, who creates an unfamiliar and unexpected rhythm within the montage—some moments last longer than you’d expect them too, while others are whisked away before they can really settle. That sounds unconventional—and it is—yet it works perfectly in this wacky montage. There’s nothing ordinary about gleefully eating from a dog bowl with your kid, and McCabe’s editing matches the oddness exquisitely.

Early in the film, Adams’s character talks about stoking a fire when you’re a girl, and how you keep it secret because it’s “unbecoming.” The Weird Al montage feels like she’s finally letting that fire out, embracing the strangeness and uniqueness of her situation with a fervor that’s been missing since she had a child. Adams’ complete commitment to embracing the strangeness goes a long way, sparking the scene to go off like a spectacular fireworks explosion—it’s almost as if Adams is ready to go completely feral, and the electricity keeps things funny with a heavy undercurrent of thrilling.

While at the park with her son, her character says via voiceover, “Maybe that’s the secret to happiness—we’re just animals!” she says excitedly. It’s a sort of a-ha moment for the character, as she is experiencing the confidence and joy that’s eluded her since the birth of her child. It may not be the life she expected, but perhaps it’s a life she can embrace. As the song continues, she even gets her son a doggy bed to sleep in, which he loves. As she says “goodnight, doggy” and leaves the bedroom, the lyrics “dare to be stupid” play loudly—another perfectly edited comedic moment.

The next day, Adams sings the song in her car, trepidatiously at first. With the burden of motherhood, can she truly dare to embrace utter nonsense and stupidity? As a smile rushes over her face, the answer is a resounding yes: “You can eat a lot of sushi, and never leave a tip!” she sings along with enthusiasm, rejoicing in the objective silliness of her situation, and the song itself. As she drives past other mothers and sings “dare to be stupid!” at the top of her lungs, there’s a joyous sense that Adams’ character is more at peace with herself than ever before. We’ve all got a little dog in us.