Review of Rabbit Hole (2010) by Joshua B — 13 Aug 2011

Rabbit Hole is a powerful character study about grief and loss and the different ways in which people deal with them. The film focuses on Becca (Nicole Kidman) and Howie (Aaron Eckhart), a married couple whose four-year-old son has been accidentally killed by a passing car.

The film is set several months after the boy's death, so we have the chance to see not the immediate aftermath but the time during which things are supposed to be getting "back to normal." The complexities and subtleties of the couple's relationship, both to each other and to the people around them, are what help make the film so raw and authentic, which also makes it really difficult to watch at times.

The performances are key in the execution of the film, as Kidman and Eckhart both provide very moving and believable portrayals of what it means to try to "move on" when it is really impossible to do so.

They play well off each other in how their different styles of grieving produce conflict between them. The film is powerful because of John Cameron Mitchell's direction, which is restrained and confident enough in the actors and the material to let them speak for themselves without resorting to cynical or sentimental tricks to play with audience emotions.

This is one of the best treatments of death and grief I've seen on film.