Lionsgate Films Photo (Aberdeen News / March 17, 2011) |
“Rabbit Hole” is suffocatingly sad, as you can imagine any film would be that deals with the death of a young child. The challenge is to find a way to get people to want to see it, and then want to sit through it, without being filled with abject dread - or at least the feeling that they're slogging through eat-your-vegetables cinema.
John Cameron Mitchell accomplishes that with graceful performances from his stars, Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart, which are filled with subtle moments as well as recognizable human frailties and flaws. Everyone deals with grief differently. There is no right answer, especially when it comes to coping with the unthinkable loss of a 4-year-old son. “Rabbit Hole” gets that notion and conveys it vividly, yet also offers some welcome glimmers of humor and even hope.
David Lindsay-Abaire adapted the screenplay from his own Pulitzer Prize-winning play (which was performed in Aberdeen in June 2009 by Aberdeen Community Theatre). Mitchell, who previously directed the subversive and sexually daring “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “Shortbus,” would seem an unusual choice for such traditionally dramatic material. While Mitchell has expanded the scenery a bit, you still can never shake the sensation that you're watching a play on film. That draws attention to the structured theatricality of the work, but also makes the more powerful moments hit home with a piercing directness.
Kidman does some of her most effective work in a while here as Becca, a mother who fills her days methodically gardening and baking in her spacious home in a comfortable suburb along the Hudson River. She keeps herself busy to shut out the memories, shut off the pain.
But Eckhart, as her husband, Howie, wants to remember his son - wants to trudge through the catharsis at group therapy sessions and revisit videos of the good times they shared. (That we never get a clear look at the boy's face, whether in pictures, videos or flashbacks, is an intriguing approach. It makes him more of a haunting concept, a ghostly presence.)
From there, the disparate paths they follow are unexpected and fascinating - the relationships they forge come fraught with emotional peril and potential marital harm.
Again, there's no correct answer when it comes to coping with such a loss. But “Rabbit Hole” suggests that its characters are at least starting to ask the right questions. (PG-13, 92 minutes)
