Metacritic reviews

It is piercingly honest, remarkably sardonic, and breathtakingly brave in the way it lays bare some of women's deepest struggles and truths. But it is not a film that is anti-motherhood. It celebrates it as well, in all of its primal, animalistic, savage contradictions and complexities.

Resembling a bonkers marriage of “Young Tully” and “Teen Wolf,” and led by a ferociously naked and unafraid performance by its star, it’s an amusingly incisive howl of maternal pain, frustration, disappointment, resentment, and feral strength.

Adams and McNairy give two fantastic performances that showcase the confused, overwhelming situation that first-time parents find themselves in, and Heller juggles this fantastical high-concept idea with very real emotions and powerful statements.

Marielle Heller’s fourth feature is a gently observant comedy-drama about the perils of motherhood that could use a little more bite.

Sinking her teeth into Mother the way Mother herself might a bloody steak, Adams courageously embodies Mother’s exasperation, finding the comedy in every setback.

Marielle Heller’s version of the story — Yoder is listed as a co-writer — could have taken the magical realist element out entirely, and the film would have played exactly the same. The body horror is downplayed to the point of being functionally nonexistent.

Adams is reason enough to see it anyway in a performance that gives us intimate access to her character’s fears and anxieties.

The movie goes in circles, constantly expounding on the same things. It has lots of insight, but little momentum. Then again, maybe that’s the idea.

It’s a rich subject that Heller dives into without hesitation, including some of the thornier aspects, until a disappointing final act where she settles on basic end points for her ideas.

It’s all smug pointing and nodding rather than anything smarter or more savage, its targets just and understandable – motherhood is hellish, husbands are thoughtless, wider society is misogynistic – but its overly didactic methods repetitive and ineffectual.