"Rabbit Hole" (2010)

Does It Ever Get Easier?

"Rabbit Hole" (2010) Review

 Oscar bate films tend to fit certain criteria: they tend to be dramatic, they tend to have big name actors, and they tend to have some little meaning about life they want to impart on the viewer during the film, hopefully chaining their mind and allowing them to remain in working memory until Oscar voting season. This was exactly what "Rabbit Hole" was.

The film, featuring Nicolle Kidman as Becca and Aaron Eckhart as her loving husband Howie with Dianne Wiest and Sandra Oh are intended to draw audiences in via name recognition alone. As for the film's plot, well frankly, who cares.

The film, though, brings up a difficult subject, one which many films have attempted to address such as "Gone Baby Gone" (2007) or "Syriana" (2005) as elements in their stories, yet "Rabbit Hole" brings the death of a child right up front and center. The film, forces what is ultimately a conversation between Becca (Kidman) and Howie (Eckhart) to emerge as, after eight months, they are still struggling to pick their lives up and move forward. This would be great for a play, the initial medium of this story, yet the film fails to convey the power I'm sure the play had, ultimately seeming to raise questions about how to deal with the death of a child, then letting the characters simply wander off into the future without any answers, which is fine, if the film were to arrive at some meaning.

Ultimately the biggest resolution in the film is between Becca and her mother (Dianne Wiest) as they sort out the death of Anthony, Becca's thirty year old heroin addicted brother who died of an overdose. This ultimately leads the viewer to think, what bad luck these people have, as opposed to, oh these two women are going through the same situation!

The film is about as bravoes as that as that and dares venture no further. This means that there was little actual plot, but rather the film, which feels content with its conceit and simply deals with a series of changes that the couple makes from moving away from the support group to preparing to sell their home to move their lives back on track with drama ensuing.

Strong dialogue help this, save for a few moments where potential plot details are lost (such as when Becca compares God, whom she considers rather devious to her father then drops the idea never to return to it in the rest of the film.)

Kidman and Eckhart give strong performances balancing the complexity of their predicament with day to day life. Their interchange between the two would have been stronger if Kidman could have maintained her accent all the way through the film.

Yet where this film fell apart was in its story. The story was too much fluff around characters and had little substance with many of the little story lines seeming to be tacked on as if to challenge Kidman and Eckhart's relationship and thus add increased conflict to a story which itself ultimately danced around the issue of a child's death. Though the film was not forceful or manipulative when dealing with the issue, which is commendable, the film appeared to lose something in the process, adding additional story lines, such as Eckhart's brief relationship with Sandra Oh's character to help aide the wisp of a story along.

By the end of the film the only questions that remained was, why does this film exist? Though it did show some change in character and some plot movement, the film was painfully depressing and felt more lugubrious than anything. Who honestly wants to give up eighty minutes to see how people react to the death of a child a bit down the road. The film would have been far more interesting if it dealt with the immediate aftermath of the child's death rather than some random point at the future where the couple makes a bit of progress toward recapturing their lives.

See this film or not, it has little repercussion. This film will not be remembered as anything more than Oscar fodder what flopped. And ultimately, that was a deserved reputation. Though the film was gutsy in bring to deal with the death of a child, that's not enough to be considered a good film. And though film tried admirably, in the end, it was kind of a half assed attempt at Oscar gold.

Stars: 6.5/10