Rabbit Hole

8.0/10 dropps
Film: Rabbit Hole
Director:  John Cameron Mitchell
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart

Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart’s latest film Rabbit Hole is a movie that tackles one of the most difficult sort of emotional interactions: coping with devastating personal tragedy. Becca (Kidman) and Howie (Eckhart) seem to be your ordinary suburbanite couple with a nice house and backyard. Becca does everything that the perfect housewife is supposed to do while Howie goes off to work. The only problem is that an extreme rift was left between the couple and the rest of the world after the death of their very young son. The film explores the characters’ abilities (or inabilities) to cope, lest their marriage and lives be sucked into an irreversible emotional black hole.

Nicole Kidman has received a great deal of acclaim for her role as the mourning wife and mother in this stage-to-screen adaptation. The fact that the role is a great return for her to some of the more risky or less glamorous roles really shows off her acting chops. Unlike her parts in Nine, Moulin Rouge or Australia,with Rabbit Hole she plays an ordinary woman who is fully embracing the magnitude of a situation, instead of portraying this untouchable character. Her portrayal of vulnerability as a mother who has lived beyond her child and the subsequent confusion this truth has wreaked on her life is both raw and stunning. Even though Becca can come off as a cold and unfeeling woman, she is bottling her emotions, hoping that the swells of pain will pass.

Aaron Eckhart does well as the extroverted, grief-stricken father Howie. His own approach at coping seems to be the polar opposite of his wife’s – he can’t help but talk openly about the lost son in order to hold onto the memories. Even though Howie doesn’t go through any overt metamorphosis as a character inRabbit Hole, he should have received a little more praise from the critics for his impressive efforts.

The film a bit of a departure from what director John Cameron Mitchell has been associated with in the past. This is only Mitchell’s third film as a director, and his two previous works were much more of a shock to the mainstream audiences (and ratings boards at times). Though the film is much more fluid and toned-down that some of Mitchell’s previous work, there are some little bits of rebellion in the Rabbit Hole script that make it easy to understand why Mitchell may have been attracted to a script that he didn’t write.

I recommend catching Rabbit Hole in theaters or at least adding it to the Netflix queue when it’s available later in the year.

-Ashlynn Williams.