Few events in a marriage are more painful than the death of a child, and when it occurs in a moment, with the speed of a light being turned off at the switch, without time to make farewells, without time to prepare emotionally, it’s a horrid experience that spreads through relationships with similar speed.
“Rabbit Hole,” which plays on the entrance to Alice’s Wonderland, is a thoughtful, deliberate, painful experience, an excellent film with fine performances from all hands, especially Nicole Kidman as Becca and Dianne Wiest as her mother (both probable Oscar candidates as lead and support, respectively). David Lindsay-Abaire wrote the play, which was produced at the Rep Studio three years ago, and the screenplay, and John Cameron Mitchell directed. Mitchell is a playwright, too, author of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” among others.
Becca and Howie (the strong Aaron Eckhart) lost their four-year-old son when he ran out of the family yard while chasing their pet dog and was hit by a passing car driven by a high-school student. This occurred eight months before the start of the film, but they still are trying to figure out how to act, what to do.
When do you turn the child’s room into one adults can use? When do you take the scrabbly drawings down from the refrigerator? How long must you endure couples’ therapy that you cannot stand? How long do you wrap your grief, like a coat, around your shoulders? Of course, Becca and Howie have different answers. Becca also gets less emotional help from her mother than she wants because Wiest also lost a child to an accidental death.
Kidman and Eckhart also are dead–at least for the time being–as they struggle to take the first step forward out of the quicksand of self-pity in which they are stuck. A marriage that obviously was a good one is unraveling as they reach for one an other but cannot connect. Their acting is rich and multi-layered; both are believable.
When group therapy becomes unbearable for Howie, he latches on to Gaby (a terrific Sandra Oh), another member of the group. Conversation obviously helps, and the road to seduction is clearly marked and six lanes wide. Becca, in a totally different response to the situation, begins talking to Jason, the boy who killed her son. He’s a budding artist, and has drawn a comic book that also involves a world beyond a rabbit hole.
Lindsay-Abhaire has written an engrossing play, a splendid look at grief and at the response, with a conclusion that is almost seamless. His screenplay is as solid, and Mitchell’s direction brings out its depth, and its sympathy. Despite (or maybe because) of its subject matter, “Rabbit Hole” is an excellent motion picture, well-deserving of any honors it may receive.
Rabbit Hole opens today at the Plaza Frontenac
—Joe