Rabbit Hole (2010)

×

Rabbit Hole (2010)

Close

Becca and Howie Corbett are a happily married couple whose perfect world is forever changed when their young son, Danny, is killed by a car. Becca, an executive-turned-stay-at-home mother, tries to redefine her existence in a surreal landscape of well-meaning family and friends. Painful, poignant, and often funny, Becca's experiences lead her to find solace in a mysterious relationship with a troubled young comic-book artist, Jason - the teenage driver of the car that killed Danny. Becca's fixation with Jason pulls her away from memories of Danny, while Howie immerses himself in the past, seeking refuge in outsiders who offer him something Becca is unable to give. The Corbetts, both adrift, make surprising and dangerous choices as they choose a path that will determine their fate.

Becca (Nicole Kidman) und Howie (Aaron Eckhart) haben vor acht Monaten ihren kleinen Sohn bei einem Autounfall verloren. Damals wurde ihre gluckliche Welt aus den Angeln gehoben, und sie versuchen seither, wieder zuruck zur Normalitat, zuruck zur Lebensfreude zu finden. Beide jedoch auf unterschiedliche Art und Weise: Becca verschliesst sich, sie sperrt sich gegen das Vertraute und damit verbundene Erinnerungen, denn sie findet nur Schmerz darin. Wohingegen Howie genau hier Trost sucht.

×

Rabbit Hole (2010)

Close

Becca (Kidman) and Howie (Aaron Eckhart) are living what appears to be a picture perfect life in some undefined but incredibly sylvan and rather tony suburb of New York. Becca tends to her flower garden, makes risotto for Howie, and the two seem at least to be the very model of a happily married middle aged couple. And yet there's undeniably something wrong here from the very beginning. The two touch but never quite connect. Their timing is off. It's like there's a slight ripple in the time-space continuum between them and they can't quite overcome the breach. Slowly, in one of many sleights of hand of Lindsay-Abaire's remarkable writing, we come to realize they have lost their four year old son Danny to one of those horrible accidents other parents quickly skim over when they see the news articles in the morning papers, pausing just long enough to emit a perfunctory "There but for the grace of God. . ."

×

Rabbit Hole (2010)

Close

The two move through their days with a decent amount of intelligence and even grace, and it's obvious neither has lost their sense of humor. They go to a weekly group of other bereaved parents where Becca hates the "God talk" and upbraids some semi-hysterical parents who says God must have wanted another angel when He took their child. "Why didn't he just make an angel?" Becca asks incredulously. "I mean, He's GodЧyou know, 'poof'!" Needless to say the rest of the parents stare incredulously at her and Becca and Howie beat a quick retreat. The emotional management these two display is obviously fracturing beneath the steely, picture perfect surfaces.

×

Rabbit Hole (2010)

Close

Rabbit Hole really reaches into its devastating emotional depths in a brilliantly constructed middle section which finds Becca perhaps stalking a teenaged boy. Does she imagine this young man is what Danny might have been had he lived? When she follows the kid into the library and sees he has checked out a book on "Parallel Universes," it seems to open an imaginative window in Becca's soul where perhaps she can imagine another outcome for her life. But the real reason for her interest in this boy is wrenching and delivers one of Rabbit Hole's most unexpected gut punches, one which reveals the real majesty of Lindsay-Abaire's discursive approach to this subject, a subject which in a lesser writer's hands might be fraught with too much pathos and melancholy. Lindsay-Abaire walks a high wire act here which is simply amazing, able to peel back Becca's faзade to reveal the "wounded warrior" underneath, while never devolving into mere hysteria or showy theatrics.

×

Rabbit Hole (2010)

Close

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Rabbit Hole is that it is directed in rather amazingly low key style by John Cameron Mitchell, the creator and director of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Both Hedwig and Mitchell's previous film Shortbus skirted (and sometimes more than merely skirted) around the edges of sexual adventurousness, looking at issues like gender identity, promiscuity and societal inhibitions about various taboos. Mitchell would not seem on his face to be the right choice for such introspective, emotional material, but he does exceptional work here, despite an odd penchant for framing shots from within various structures like mailboxes and other containers. He elicits incredibly fine performances from Kidman and Eckhart, as well as a uniformly excellent supporting cast which includes Tammy Blanchard as Becca's ne'er-do-well sister Izzy and Dianne Weist as the girls' mother, a salty woman who suffered her own familial tragedy years earlier.

×

Rabbit Hole (2010)

Close

Rabbit Hole is an intentionally quiet film which erupts into two or three blustery scenes as Becca and Howie attempt to forge their way through this new childless territory. They move in fits and starts, but their essential commitment to each other, despite some temporary wanderings, is what anchors the film in its very real emotional sensibility. The film may strike some as too slow and plotless, but this is a story which reveals itself calmly and deliberately, coming face to face with an unimaginable truth that is certainly every parent's worst nightmare. The fact that these two characters have had the courage to wake up, however disheveled, is what gives Rabbit Hole its distinctive emotional immediacy. Surprisingly, this is not an overly depressing film, even for parents who might not want to watch it simply by dint of its subject matter. It's not especially triumphant, either, in a blaring, trumpets to the sky way. But there is a quieter victory hinted at in the simple fact of two people who finally do connect when they touch.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman (blu-ray.com)