Cinema 2011 #15: Rabbit Hole

Much like Alice’s adventures, this Rabbit Hole takes you on a strange journey, and will surprise and charm you with its frank and sincere depiction of life, death and grief. John Cameron Mitchell’s feature version of the Pulitzer-winning play stars Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart as Becca and Howie Corbett, an affluent couple coping with the accidental death of their 4 year-old son, 8 months after he was struck by a teenage driver. What could have been a turgid and drawn-out treatise on the pains of death and loss is actually an uplifting and life-affirming drama, with moments of tender sorrow balanced by brave laughs and a terrific ensemble cast.

Kidman is wonderful as Becca, whose grief is beginning to tear her apart, and taking her marriage with it. Her performance is restrained and obedient, a woman who strives to cope quietly, choosing to keep inside the pain she suffers. In lesser hands Becca could have been icy and severe, an unlikable mother grumbling and moaning through languid silences. Kidman instead builds up a pathos, her Becca pitiable and painfully sympathetic; watching her frustration build up at a Group Therapy session is electric, and when she bursts out with frank comments, you’ll smile at how brazen she is, and how slyly honest.

Eckhart too is deserving of praise, his Howie a supportive husband whose understanding for his wife is stretching thin. At first he seems better capable of coping with their loss, but scratch under the surface and you see a father, a dad, ripped up by guilt and mourning. Again though, this melancholy is steadied by levity, with a burgeoning friendship with his Grief Buddy Sandra Oh, and their stoned and stifled giggles at Group making for an infectious gallows’ humour.

But the standout performance of the film belongs to the relatively unknown Miles Teller as Jason, the teenage driver. His Jason is sad and ashamed, trying to somehow atone for an accident entirely out of his control. When he admits that he may have been driving over the speed limit, 32 mph instead of 30, he shame is palpable, as if he’s looking for a way to create a blame his own, to explain things through guilt. The 23 year-old Teller makes a searing feature-film debut here, establishing himself as someone to watch out for.

Mitchell is something of a cult director and in many ways the unlikely heart of such a sensitive film as Rabbit Hole. His most noteworthy credits to date are the no-holds-barred sexuality of Shortbus and the highly spirited tale of an East-Berlin descant-with-a-dick transsexual, Hewwig and the Angry Inch. With Rabbit Hole, he establishes himself as an American auteur, able to share his previous theatrical excesses with a solid drama set in a picture-perfect WASP’s nest. The film does perhaps fall victim to the conventions of tragic dramas, with repeated shots of an inert Kidman going about her housework and stumbling upon reminders of her son. But this story reveals that while loss may be devastating, it reminds us that we had something precious in the first place.  

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