What is it like to lose a child? It's a tough question to ask yourself, especially if you're a parent. But what really does one do when a significant, if not the sole, purpose of their being no longer exists? Do they lose the will to live too? Does the Grief ever subside? Would they not hate themselves if it did? Is the grief shared between the parents? Or does it spawn a blame game that eventually entirely dissolves any remnants of a normal married life they might have still had? Director John Cameron Mitchell tries exploring these questions, and more, through Rabbit Hole, an admirable adaptation of a Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name.
Rabbit Hole is the story of Becca (Nicole Kidman) and Howie (Aaron Eckhart), an average suburban couple trying to deal with the loss of their 4 year-old son Danny, eight months after a car accident took his life. Becca has taken to gardening. She tends to her plants with as much care as she would a baby. She seems to have moved on from the tragedy. She donates all of Danny's clothes and toys to charity and tries to convince her husband to sell the house and leave all the bad memories behind. But deep inside, she suffers from intense resentment. She resents her neighbours for taking pity on her. She resents her dog for Danny ran into the street chasing after him when he got killed. She resents her old friend for not having the courage to speak to her since the incident (even though, deep down, she's only grateful for that). She resents her sister Izzy for telling her that she's pregnant. She also resents Izzy for being pregnant believing her to be too immature and ill-equipped to be a mother. She resents her mother for comparing her grief over losing her 30 year-old son (Becca and Izzy's brother) from a drug overdose to Becca's own grief. But most of all, she resents her husband, for failing to protect their son. Ironically, the only person she does not resent is Jason, the teenage driver of the car that killed Danny.
Howie tries to deal with his grief in a more conventional manner. He desperately clings to the memories of his dead son. He watches videos of Danny on his phone late at night when he thinks Becca's asleep. He pushes her to attend a Support Group for bereaved parents and Finds comfort in sharing his pain with others like him. He wants to have another baby with Becca, who is dead against the idea and chides him for trying to "replace" Danny with a second child.
The already strained relationship between the couple becomes even worse when Howie finds out that Becca has been meeting Jason behind his back. For Becca, her meetings with the reticent teen are a cathartic process, the only moments when she's not pained to be in the company of another person, in this case, a person who suffers from as much guilt as her, if not more. For Howie, it's plain betrayal. He, in turn, finds comfort with Gabby (Sandra Oh), a member of his support group whose husband, failing to cope with the loss of their child years earlier, walked out on her.
But despite all their problems and differences, Howie and Becca love each other. They find it increasingly difficult to do so, but they are stronger than either of them realise and they most definitely aren't without hope.
Perhaps, the biggest strength of Rabbit Hole lies in the fact that it is as witty as it is sad. It finds in itself the audacity to laugh at the helplessness of its characters. This, of course, could be made possible only by near-perfect performances by the entire cast. Aaron Eckhart is just one of those rare performers who can be blindly trusted with any role from the intensely grey character of Harvey Dent in 'The Dark Knight' to the smooth-talking, smart-acting PR executive in 'Thank You for Smoking'. Here, he delivers a touchingly poignant and layered performance as Howie. Dianne Wiest as Becca's well-intentioned, but misunderstood mother too reminds us why we loved her so much in films like 'Edward Scissorhands', 'Hannah and her Sisters', 'The Birdcage' and even 'The Associate'. Sandra Oh, who has so far mostly portrayed strong and driven female characters, brings a disarming vulnerability to her brief role as an aggrieved mother and a jilted wife who finds solace in a similarly damaged man (Howie) and pot. Miles Teller, as Jason, packs in his performance just the right amounts of guilt and teenage awkwardness and I certainly look forward to seeing more of him in the future. But the one performance that clearly outshines the rest is by Nicole Kidman. As Becca, she is sad, funny, obnoxiously stubborn and deeply vulnerable all at the same time.
Despite its premise, Rabbit Hole is not depressing. It is a story about a future when there wasn't any possibility of a future. It is about grief and love and what happens when one overpowers the other. In 91 minutes, it proves that watching a movie can be as fulfilling an experience as reading a great book.
