Rabbit Hole Raw, Honest and Real

Rabbit Hole (2010)

Directed by John Cameron Mitchell

91 mins. PG-13

* * * *

What would you do if the worst thing in the world happened to you? What would happen to the other relationships in your life? How much tolerance would you have for triviality and fools? How would you pick up the pieces of your life?

Hollywood has kept the tissue industry in business for decades with its “weepies.” But it’s okay because we know that in typical Hollywood fare something miraculous or marvelous will eventually happen to restore the characters. Except it doesn’t work like that in real life. Kudos to David Lindsay-Abaire for writing the play and screenplay Rabbit Hole, and kudos to director John Cameron Mitchell for filming it in a way that is deeply affecting and tugs at the heart strings, yet stays on the honest side of sentimental/sentimentality line.

Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart play Becca and Howie Corbett, the essence of a power couple—well-heeled, attractive and living the dream life in a big house tucked snuggly in the leafy, safe, and serene suburbs. Until, that is, their world is shattered when their young son runs into the street and is killed by a teenaged driver. When we meet the Corbetts their sorrow weighs upon them like lead, and their interactions with others is equally leaden. Their marriage is coming apart at the seams, they know it, they want to stop it, but they are so deeply mired in the murk of despair that each is dead to any emotion other than rage. They attend couples grief counseling and all they feel is boredom and disgust. Becca can’t even talk to her mother, Nat (the always wonderful Dianne Wiest), without flying into rage when Nat compares her sorrow over losing her drug-addled adult son to Becca’s loss.

Enter redemption—sort of. Howie finds a kindred spirit in Gaby (Sandra Oh), who can do something he’s forgotten how to do: laugh. Becca’s path is trickier. She stalks, and then befriends, Jason (Miles Teller), the guiltless but not guilt-free young man who struck her son. He has something Becca needs to relearn: compassion. Rabbit Hole is a complex quadrangle that’s full of surprises, many of which come from not doing what most Hollywood films would do. John Cameron Mitchell isn’t afraid of complexity or darkness, as he has demonstrated in previous directorial efforts such as Shortbus (2006) and Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001). Smilarly, Linday-Abaire’s script is uncluttered by clichés or blinding revelations. Don’t expect any of those over-the-top histrionic speeches that make for high drama, but are as phony as a politician’s tears. Don’t look for pat endings either. Those are for fairy tales; life is generally more ambiguous. Even God takes it on the chin in this film.

The acting is superb. Kidman continues to mature and her acting chops have begun to match her luminous exterior. Eckhart, for once, does not play a smarm king, and he proves capable to showing subtlety. He excels as a man facing numerous options and incapable of seizing any of them. The film’s revelation, though, is young Miles Teller. He is letter perfect as a man-child forced to confront adulthood when he’s still emotionally stuck in the comic-book fantasies of adolescence. It is absolutely criminal that Teller didn’t garner a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his portrayal of Jason.

Many films ask the question “How do we move on?” but Rabbit Hole has the courage to ask, “Can we?” It is a hard film in places, but one that is infinitely more human because it doesn’t gift wrap emotions. Some viewers have complained that the film doesn’t offer hope. I couldn’t disagree more. The film is loaded with messages, but some of them are as enigmatic as the riddles in Lewis Carroll’s anti-fairy-tale-fairy-tale Alice in Wonderland.