A selfish man has to figure out what to do after his wife devolves into a canine state in Bitch. Jill (Marianna Palka) is a mother of four children, who is silently suffering at the actions of her husband Bill (Jason Ritter), who works long hours and his having an affair with a coworker. However, Jill has gone missing one morning, leaving Bill to perform some parenting duties that he is not accustomed to. Bill soon finds out that Jill has somehow began acting like a dog and has started living in the basement. With the help of Jill’s sister Beth (Jaime King), Bill tries to adjust to this unusual situation.
From writer/director/actor Marianna Palka comes the dark comedy Bitch. The film starts of with Palka’s character of Jill attempting to hang herself (and failing). This paints a picture of Jill’s mental state as a suffering housewife, with a husband who is focused more on his job and an extramarital affair. Jill begins spotting a dog outside of herself and this somehow results in her having a full mental breakdown, resulting in her living naked in the basement, growling and barking like a dog. While initially apathetic the change’s in Jill’s behaviour, Bill soon to see the errors of how he previously treated her and his family.
As an actress, Marianna Palka is probably currently best known for having a supporting role on the Netflix series GLOW. Bitch is Palka’s fourth film as a filmmaker, the plot of which heavily plays on the duo meaning of the title to be both a term for a female dog and a derogatory term for women. Ultimately, the film is about Jason Ritter’s character of Bill learning the errors of his past indiscretions, which may or may not have been the cause of Jill’s canine beheviour. Altogether, Bitch is a unique dark comedy to say the least.
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