Movie Review: 'Rabbit Hole' tugs at the heart strings but avoids melodrama

“Rabbit Hole”
Directed by: John Cameron Mitchell
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, Dianne Wiest, Tammy Blanchard, Miles Teller, Giancarlo Esposito, Jon Tenney, Patricia Kalember, Julie Lauren, Sandra Oh
Rated: PG-13

Fans of writer/director and sometimes actor John Cameron Mitchell may be surprised to find he has directed “Rabbit Hole,” a sad, emotionally-charged work full of desperation and desolation. It's a far cry from his musical “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and the sexually charged “Shortbus,” his two best-known films.

The sadness in “Rabbit Hole,” which is based on David Linday-Abaire's Pulitzer Prize  winning play,  doesn't make it a downer movie, though. It may be even cathartic for couples dealing with tragic losses.

Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart are Becca and Howie Corbett, a couple that - when we first meet them - seem happily married. But it soon becomes apparent that things aren't has rosy as they seem.

Eight months previous, the couple lost their 4-year-old son in a traffic accident. The family dog ran out in the street and the kid chased it without looking. He was run over by a local teen, Jason (Miles Teller).

After the accident, the Corbetts have been steadily drifting apart. Howie suggested they attend grief support group meetings, but Becca dropped out and has taken a rather sour outlook on that process as well as religion. She refers to God as “sadistic.” Having another child doesn't interest her, and it would be difficult anyway since she's also given up having sex.

Howie has adjusted to some degree but suffers from bouts of depression and is sometimes quick to anger, especially with his wife.

Howie wants to keep his memories of their son but Becca seems bent on erasing every trace of his existence. She gives away the family dog, gets rid of the kid's clothes, and in an act that raises Howie's ire, she even erases a home video from her husband's cell phone.

Her husband is not the only family members with whom Becca is at odds. Both her mother and sister - played by Dianne Wiest and Tammy Blanchard respectively - feel her coldness, alienation and sometimes anger.

One of Becca's most disturbing new “hobbies” is sitting by the school that Jason, driver of the car, attends. Some might refer to this as stalking. She eventually talks to the young man, and it's one of the Kidman's finest scenes in the film (and there are plenty).

With his wife growing ever more indifferent and retreating deeper into herself, Howie is feeling lonely and unloved. He befriends Gaby (Sandra Oh), a member of the support group. Nothing gets beyond the flirting stage, but at least he feels like he has someone who he can actually talk to since his wife is so wrapped up in her grief she appears to not really hear when he talks to her.

Having no children, I can never know the kind of grief parents suffer when something like this happens. I do have several young people whom I've known since birth, including two nieces and a nephew, and I can imagine the sense of sadness I would feel should something would happen to any of them. Two very close old friends lost both of their kids in one auto accident, and I still can't get my head around that.

Mitchell manages to avoid the melodrama a film like “Rabbit Hole” could easily have fallen prey to. He wisely hired Mr. Linday-Abaire to adapt his own play for the screen, and the script is aided greatly by that fact as well as the superb - and never over the top - acting by Eckart and Kidman. It's not a happy film but as mentioned, not necessarily one that will make you weep. There's only one very brief flash back scene of the day of the accident, the rest of the story deals with the grief of two people handling their tragic loss in their own different ways.[[In-content Ad]]