I feel I may have missed the point of "Rabbit Hole". Upon first hearing about this film (a couple deals with the recent untimely death of their four year old son) I immediately thought 'thanks but no thanks'; as would most normal people. I mean in all honesty, who wants to sit through something so morbid and bleak? Sure, there are opportunities for some nice insights and observations, but is it really worth it to be so thoroughly bummed out? Then I heard a few initial reports on the film. Praise was very high indeed, and even more encouragingly, those previews painted the film as while being very sombre, also filtered through with a nice bit of understated humour. I suddenly became more interested. Sure Nicole Kidmans acting skills disappeared the second she lost the power to emote due to overuse of botox, but this could be her big comeback. Aaron Eckhart is consistantly one of the most underated actors going and with the original writer of the play it's based on, serving as screenwriter here, all pieces were in place for a suitably darkly humourous study of grief. Of course oscars interest in it didn't hurt much either. How disapointed was I then to sit down and find it was exactly the film I didn't want to get. Bleak, morbid, depressing, sad; this is not what I signed up for. Yes, for while "Rabbit Hole" does feature suitably moving performances by the always reliable Eckhart and newcomer Miles Teller, it is completely bogged down in its own gloominess. Nicole Kidman may be better here than she has in quite a while, but that still doesn't disguise the fact that her role screams 'I want an oscar!' and that her characters natural coldness segues into how we emote to her as a person. A few choice moments of humour does not make this any more palatable. As both of our leads handle their grief in different ways; for him an unwise relationship with a fellow grieving Mother, for her, a strange relationship with the teenager responsible for her sons death, we see them gradually fall apart. To be fair director John Cameron Mitchell does good work with the material. A look back on his earlier films of a travelling transgender singer in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" and the sexual explicitness of "Shortbus" initially might paint him as the one person who should not direct a film of this nature, yet he pulls it off with admirable restraint. In the end the film is nothing but a well intentioned study of grief. Everyone involved puts in good work and Eckhart was robbed of an oscar nomination, but it's just not something I wish to wallow in for the films running time.
Verdict: 63%
I fear I may have missed something here, but while the film is never less than watchable, with some very admirable performances, its heavy handedness casts a too bleak tone on proceedings.
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