Bitch

As she did in her gentler but equally original “Good Dick” in 2008, Ms. Palka carves a black and biting niche between a man and a woman, a space where chaos and psychological unease demand to be reckoned with.

Fearless writer-director-actress Marianna Palka has crafted an bold, dark domestic comedy with Bitch.

Bitch, truth be told, isn’t as daring and “out there” as its titles promises.

While it’s refreshing to see a portrait of a woman’s unraveling that doesn’t romanticize mental illness, and that’s actually directed by a woman, it’s easy to wish Bitch probed a bit deeper into the protagonist’s pre-dog life.

Acted and executed with brute conviction, if not much delicacy, by its writer-director-star, with an excellent foil in Jason Ritter’s boorish, baffled husband, the film feels overstretched in its latter half — with its central metaphor revealing only so many facets before the shock factor begins to pall.

What begins as an examination of middle-class-mom exasperation — in which demanding some marital equality makes one not just a figurative "bitch" but a literal one — turns into a more commonplace bad-dad parable in Marianna Palka's off-kilter, largely off-target satire Bitch.

It’s like a surreal, extreme version of “Bad Moms.”