Review: RABBIT HOLE - A Devastating, Superbly Acted Depiction Of Grief

rating: 4

In the stakes of the "feel bad" movie, the only recent film that can really measure up to the raw emotion and rich characterisation on display in John Cameron Mitchell's tertiary feature film, Rabbit Hole, is Derek Cianfrance's brilliant Blue Valentine. Graduating from the indie quirkdom of his debut, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and his difficult, divisive sophomore effort, Shortbus, Mitchell's latest is his best and most universal work; a painful, intensely intimate examination of a marriage splitting at the seams following a pointless tragedy, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name. The triumvirate of focal performances - especially the Oscar-nominated Nicole Kidman as the grieving mother - will break your heart. Becca (Kidman) and Howie (Aaron Eckhart) are a married couple whose son recently died in a tragic car accident. The fallout, inexorably, has strained their marriage; Becca is cold and standoff-ish, seeking solace in her overbearing, if well-meaning mother, Nat (Dianne Wiest), and the teenager who was behind the wheel on the night of the accident. Meanwhile, Howie lives in past memories and finds emotional comfort in a fellow mourner from their grief-counselling class, Gaby (Sandra Oh). Together, Becca and Howie must try to traverse the devastating reality of their situation and not lose sight of the fact that there is still so much to fight for. To call Rabbit Hole a tough film is to state the obvious, but don't for a second assume that any grace-saving Hollywood sheen lightens the load at any point. Though it stars one veritable Hollywood A-lister, this is a full-boil of the whole spectrum of emotions, from grief, to anger, resentment, levity (albeit darkly so), and finally a hint at something that perhaps resembles acceptance - though not happiness. Rabbit Hole is not about grand emotional peaks and beats - though the one climactic confrontation is scarily explosive and sublimely performed - but about the small things that eventually, one day, might edify these two guilt-stricken souls, if they can stick it out. Better than any film I have seen in recent memory about bereavement, Rabbit Hole is fully committed to the challenging emotional concepts it presents; the awkward and spectral presence of death even in a grittily realistic film such as this is perfectly pitched and difficult to deny, as it pervades through Becca and Howie's neighbourhood, discomfiting their friends and branding the two of them as undue pariahs. The conflict is most powerfully portrayed as an internal struggle, not just in each parent, but in them as a unit; from their sexual malfunction to Becca's passive-aggressiveness and Howie's frustration, this is a wholly-developed conflict in which nobody is to blame, and thus the pain is even more agonising. With the drama comes a few surprising touches of humour, however; Becca's feisty spirit never falters even when things seem their darkest, and a scene in which she challenges a Christian couple at a grief meeting makes a pungent point about faith without pontificating. Howie, meanwhile, reverts to boyish excursions like marijuana use with Gaby, lightening the emotional load while still carrying with it some tension of its own. The screenplay, adapted by the play's original scribe himself, David Lindsay-Abaire, manages to focus on several compelling dramatic touchstones while never losing fluidity or seeming contrived; there are a dozen hugely impactful scenes in this film, and they're counter-weighted by some quietly considerate ones of more subtle machinery. What's consistent is the fairness and honesty in each; these characters are without exception flawed people, yet Mitchell has an eagle-eyed awareness for how the central couple's concerns must be balanced against everyone else's - particularly Becca's mother's - own encounters with tragedy. As an examination of the transformative power of grief, Rabbit Hole is virtually unrivalled. Bear in mind that its considerable emotional rewards are at the expense of a fair share of discomfort - when Howie shows a potential buyer around his home, explaining about his son, try not to cringe - but it's also bracingly funny and refreshingly honest in going places few dramas would dare to. The performances, of course, are uniformly top-notch; Kidman is the stand-out and at her best in years, though the ever-reliable Eckhart's easier share of the work cannot be faulted either, nor can the wonderful supporting turn from Dianne Wiest. Mitchell makes himself a talent to watch here and off the back of it should become seriously elevated in the Hollywood pecking order, crafting a film that is all at once funny, devastating, and ultimately deeply rewarding. At barely 90 minutes, it is a card-carrying chamber piece, but it's a shame the Academy didn't slot it into the Best Picture Ten in favour of more agreeably homogenous works like The Kids Are All Right and The Fighter. Rabbit Hole is released in the U.K. tomorrow.