Rabbit Hole
Rabbit Hole
Directed by John Cameron Mitchell
Runtime: 92 min.
Nicole Kidman gives her most thoughtful and convincing performance in Rabbit Hole. Unlike the hysterics and British accent of her Oscar-winning role in The Hours, Kidman settles into the misery and prickliness of Becca, a young Connecticut housewife still mourning the accidental death of her toddler son. Even the sexual unease that overwhelms Beccas relationship with her grieving husband Howie (Aaron Eckhart) comes across as a natural strain. Kidman achieves a simplicity she especially didnt have in Kubricks Eyes Wide Shut.
This advance deserves recognition considering Kidmans usually fatuous art-movie stunts (Fur, Moulin Rouge, The Invasion). This time she gets it right. Even as a producer, her choice of John Cameron Mitchell as director shows good taste. She appreciated that Mitchells suddenly forgotten Shortbus was one of the most sensitively conceived movies about our modern conditiona deceptively intelligent non-stop erotic cabaret made outstanding by its bevy of accomplished performances. Mitchell finds honesty and subtlety in his actors, which distinguishes Rabbit Holes melodrama from the Oscar-baiting suburban angst of Little Children.
For Mitchell, Rabbit Hole continues Shortbus observation of contemporary stress; that post-9/11 realization of trauma that wont easily heal. It seems the real lesson of Mitchells first film Hedwig and the Angry Inch is to avoid the subjectivity that aggrieved and damaged people can easily slip into. Hes gotten past wallowing in pathology, a tendency that blinkers many filmmakers especially those who deal with gay experience. Mitchell brings a little too much sensitivity to the heterosexual panic of David Lindsay-Abaires original stage play Rabbit Hole. Even the guiltridden high school boy Jason (Miles Teller), who Becca anxiously reaches out to, works through his trauma: He pours his frustrations into a comic book, an art project like that in Shortbus.
Rabbit Hole is a laudable art project, not great but good enough to rate comparison with stronger movies that contextualize the grief of loss and disorientation. Catherine Deneuves deranged parent in Après Lui was a more powerful mourner, but Kidman echoes similar pain. (Kidmans rigid forehead lessens the impact; its an unfortunate defect next to Dianne Wiests open-faced struggling with grief and faith as Beccas mothera beautifully realistic portrait.) Howies sorrowful obsession with videos of his dead son recalls Tom Cruises video-mourning in Minority Report, the most heartbreaking allegory for the new millenniums sense of loss. Things arent nice anymore, Becca snaps as she becomes distant from her husband, sister and mother. Its subtle and devastating enough to describe the post-9/11 era.