REVIEW: Rabbit Hole

INTO THE VOID

The weight of living with the burden of a little son's death is unbearable. Fortunately, John Cameron Mitchell's Rabbit Hole (based on a play by David Lindsay-Abaire, who's also written the screenplay) is firmly understated in its expression of this stifling, nay crushing experience. Through the agonising process of  grieving by a handsome couple (play with feeling by Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart) the film deftly brings to life a theme often tackled on screen, but never better since Nanni Moretti's The Son's Room, a shattering portrait of a psychiatrist father unable to cope with his son's accidental death.

Here too, little Danny dies in a freak accident involving a young schoolboy Jason (Miles Teller, endearing) leaving his parents Becca and Howie utterly distraught. One of the things that routinely happens as a result of a grave tragedy is that a seemingly well-adjusted marriage quickly starts falling apart. Silences and awkward, stilted conversation become the norm. They start turning down dinner invitations and the little social contact there is, becomes invariably painful. 

Becca appears to try an erase Danny's presence from her life while Howie watches videos of their once happy family on his handphone every night. Her mother (Dianne Wiest) and pregnant sister (Tammy Blanchard) are wary of her mood swings and sharp tongue. Group therapy sessions don't help either -- instead Becca, fed-up of the predictable religious mumbo-jumbo that often emerges in these discussions, refuses to go back. Howie, for his part, continues going only for the lure of connecting with another lost soul Gaby (Sandra Oh).

And yet, life goes on. Eight months later, they still haven't come any closer to reconciling to their enormous loss, or repairing their fragile relationship. But the screenplay skillfully drags them out of the turmoil and alleviates the overwhelmingly depressing mood of the narrative with astute, good-natured humour. Becca's relationship with Jason is a plot contrivance, but their exchanges are deeply moving. As is the one grand breakdown scene where she and Howie finally spew their bitterness at each other.    

Nothing is going to make the pain go away, as Becca's mother wisely tells her. She knows, having lost her own grown-up son a few years ago. But the nature of the ache keeps shifting and over time, it becomes almost bearable. In the meantime, Nicole Kidman (in her best performance since The Hours) brings all her skills into play as she displays shades of anxiety, coldness, anger and confusion before she emerges somehow transformed and wisened through her quiet acceptance of her situation.

Rabbit Hole belongs entirely to her, and she truly makes it her own.