Bitch

I liked Bitch because the story unfolds from such a simple premise: When it all gets too much for a mother of four, she takes herself out of the equation. We don't know whether she is making a conscious choice or suffering from a rare disease of the mind. All we know is that her workaholic husband now has to do without her. It doesn't go well, at least not initially. Bitch is not the world's deepest movie, but it's an entertaining lesson about the effort it takes to keep a family together.

Written , directed and produced by Palka and starring her boyfriend Jason Ritter and I think she over-reached herself.

Could have been interesting but was just one long borefest. Sure we can all appreciate the theme but it wasnt enough to carry a movie - Maybe a 15 minute short but not a movie.

Music was awful. Dialogue pitiful. Acting was ok! Full of feminist tropes and cliches. I did like the Video / poster but that is about it! DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME ON THIS!!!

There are worse films like "THE BAD BATCH" with Keanu Reeves so it hasnt attained the unholy p1sspot of god awful movie making that that disaster has!

My apologies to Marianna Palka, but this is a terrible movie. I am fully able to accept the plot where a woman suffers a mental breakdown and takes on the personality of a dog. Yes, she literally thinks she is a dog, and not a friendly family dog, but a mean, aggressive one. She has a terrible and unfaithful husband who leaves all the stress of running a household and caring for 4 kids squarely on her shoulders. It appears she takes on the personality of a dog because dogs have no responsibilities.

What makes the story unbelievable are the characters. The dad is such a bad dad that he doesn't know the name of his kids' school. His four kids go to a private school so he is obviously paying several thousand dollars a year. I can understand a bad father being out of touch, but he is spending that kind of money and he doesn't know where his money is going? That's pretty hard to believe.

Then when the older kids get dropped off at middle school they ask for lunch money. He hands them a $100 bill and asks, "Is this enough?" Really? Is the writer trying to show the dad is that far out of touch? Or is she trying to show us how frantic the dad has become since mom's disappearance.

The two older kids are in middle school. Yet, when mom starts acting like a dog those two young teenage kids think it's funny. The way the scene is directed it is not funny, it is disturbing. Mom has been missing for a whole day. Dad and the mother's sister come into the home after frantically searching the neighborhood for her, and the kids are laughing doing kids things like playing video games. The kids happened to locate their mother. She is in the basement, stripped of all her clothing, covered in her own fecal matter, and literally acting exactly like a vicious dog. If this happened to my mom when I was 12 or 13 I would be incredibly upset and worried. I wouldn't be laughing at the situation.

He's also been married to his wife for a while as the oldest is 13 years old, yet he doesn't know the name of his sister in law's husband. His wife's sister does not live across the country. She lives in the same city, and the two sisters appear to be very close. Despite this the dad doesn't know the name of the man his sister in law has been married to for years? That's ridiculous.

When it becomes obvious the mom needs professional help, the family doctor is called in. He refers them to a professional who deals with these sorts of situations. It's not said in the movie, but this other professional must be a psychiatrist. A real general practitioner with an M.D. is not going to refer an obviously mentally disturbed person to a self-help guru. Additionally, this second professional can write prescriptions. After the examination the sister asks the psychiatrist for an official medical term for her condition. The doctor's answer? "Acting like a dog." Not funny, but stupid. No real psychiatrist is going to say that.

I love a good goofy movie. Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell movies have their place. In a good, silly movie the dad can be so bad as to not know the name of the kids' schools or their own brother in law. The silly psychiatrist in the silly movie may have an official diagnosis of "acting like a dog". However, this movie isn't directed like a silly movie. It's trying to be a realistic, dark comedy. Sadly, it cannot be said that the director didn't see the writer's vision and tried to turn a silly movie into a more realistic comedy because the director IS the writer.

This week Stephen Spielberg said movies on Netflix should not be eligible to win Oscsars. Don't worry Stephen, they're not going to win any Oscars.

Nervous breakdown anyone? I guess we can feel with the woman. If not you are as much of a jerk than her husband. And while Mr. Ritter is usually more of a nice guy on screen, he couldn't be further away with his role here. Actually he is so far off the cliff, that it starts hurting. Not just the viewer, but the movie as well.

Of course the main character has to have flaws he has to overcome so the audience will root for him in the end. But this is not just a 180 turn. This is like Exorcist like spinning when we arrive towards the end of the movie. So much spinning, that it's almost a surprise not all ended up crawling on the floor.

The thing is, for people to care, you have to walk a fine line. Something Ritter either isn't capable of (charisma-wise) and/or the script isn't giving him a chance. And that is before all the convenient stuff that happens (open doors, smelling only when needed for drama purposes and so forth).

Now every movie has logic issues if you really break them down, but the good ones have saving Graces. Why no one interferes, why the story (for "comedic purposes") just roles on like that ... it's obvious and you have to lower your bar quite a bit - to acknowledge the good intention of the movie and weigh them in a big way. If you can do that - well you probably have already voted dislike on my comment... but good for you and I mean that

Shows very strong similarities to the 2002 film 'Bark' where a vet meets a man whose wife starts acting like a dog. Directed by Kasia Adamik, she also made another recent film about a crazed canine in 2017 titled 'Pokot'. To me I believe that a 'Bitch' used this story line, not very original.

The acting was good by some and terrible by one or two others, camera work, was just basic, the editing and color grading was ok/good, the jokes, sorry but they were pretty lame. There was so much depth this film could have achieved, millions of house mothers from around the world could have related to it but it just made a joke of a horrible situation.

I gave it a 4 and I believe that this is more than fare.