The 2010 film landscape had many captivating and intriguing big screen gems, such as Black Swan, Winters Bone, Inception, The Social Netwok just to name a few. However there is always this one or so film that didn’t quite get the recognition or flew slightly below the radar, and could have been easily tossed in with the ten recognized bunch of films that were nominated for best picture. Rabbit Hole is one of these films that came in late in the game of 2010, with just a limited release in December, Rabbit Hole with its small budget, production and ensemble now obviously on DVD, is the one that should have been seen in its proper format, the big screen.
Directed by John Cameron Mitchell, whose other notable project was the saucy and aphrodisiac of a piece called Shortbus in 2006, Rabbit Hole being a far different film in theme and tone, deals with every parents worse tragedy, the untimely and tragic loss of a child.
It’s been 8 months since Becca and Howie lost their young 4 year old son Danny in a tragic accident, now the couple, are trying to cope in their modest suburban two story single family home that is eerily silent hauntingly empty, and still full of Danny’s personal items. They live their lives one day at a time, going through the motions of life, making excuses to avoid uncomfortable social situations with neighbors and friends. They both attend group therapy sessions, Howie maintains his professional career, while Becca who had a career at Sotheby’s remains at home brooding through a cluster of memory and emotions. However Becca the colder yet resilient of the two is finding ways to deal with the tormenting loss and a life where things aren’t nice anymore.
Becca and Howie are played by veteran actors Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart, with remarkable craftiness and aplomb. Their lives are interrupted through Becca’s family, her younger sister Izzy, who lives with their mom, Izzy has a bit of recklessness about her and has just broken the news that she is pregnant with her new boyfriends baby. However the interesting storyline deals with Becca’s mom Nat, who lost her son Arthur at 30 through a drug overdose, this tragic history coupled with Becca’s current lost, complicates the relationship between Becca and her mom. There is a certain air of apprehension, conflict, misunderstanding, uneasiness as Becca interacts with her immediate family. However it’s Nat, through wisdom and experience that has the full grasp of what they are dealing with, where the weight of the pain changes and at some point becomes bearable, that you can crawl out under it.
Other interesting tangents begin to emerge from the already delicate balance between Becca and Howie, relationships outside their marriage soon develop out of necessity and comfort that add a new light, dimension and hope to an otherwise solemn composition. Becca who is not comfortable listening to the group of professional wallowers and god freaks in the therapy session, discontinues her sessions, which leaves Howie attending them alone. Howie soon develops a friendly humorous rapport based on loss, sympathy and a little marijuana, with a longtime mourner and attendee Gaby, played by the always impressive Sandra Oh. On the other hand, Becca on a chance sighting of the young teenage driver, who took her son’s life, begins to follow him. Screenplay writer David Lindsay Abaire, makes the wise choice by developing this storyline into one of the more poignant relationships in the film that is characterized with respect, understanding and more importantly forgiveness, that changes the spectrum and outlook of Becca’s character.
Rabbit Hole is a fairly simple storyline on the surface, but with is many relationships rooted in tragedy, the psychological nature of the people involve with it are deeply emotionally complex. Unfortunately tragedies of this nature are an all too common occurrence in real life, and while we get the hows on the circumstances of such tragic events, we also get the final results on how it affected the grieving family, and in some cases the resulting breakdown and separation of husbands and wives. In Rabbit Hole we get to see the day to day struggles and the labyrinth of emotional loss and how it plays on all parties involved, in many ways it’s like watching the inner driving mechanisms of a marital collapse.
The emotional value goes a long way in Rabbit Hole in much do part to the talents of Kidman and Eckhart, who play the grieving parents with a kaleidoscope of emotions both verbal and non verbal. This is one of those films where the art of acting and weight of it carries the plot and is one of the strongest facets of Rabbit Hole. Although big time stars Kidman and Eckhart are we soon forget about that quality, and are consumed with the artistic raw talents that these two can achieve and the characters that we can easily sympathize with. For Kidman this is just another intense exploration into her craft, making Rabbit Hole another fine cinematic endeavor.
Rowan Harrison
