[6.50/10] Rabbit Hole (2010)

Rabbit Hole (2010)

Adapted from David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer-Prize winning play, "Rabbit Hole" follows Howie and Becca Corbett, a happily married couple whose perfect world is forever changed when their young son is taken from them in a tragic car accident. As Becca redefines her place among friends and family, she finds solace in a mysterious relationship with the young driver of the car that killed her son. Although this is a story about grief, sadness, disbelief and alienation, "Rabbit Hole" is never over-dramatic or too depressing, thanks to its well-balanced and beautifully-written script, which is sure to be praised. "Rabbit Hole" is painfully slow moving, yet smoothly-paced and not that difficult to watch, due to its surprisingly short running time, and John Cameron Mitchell's competent, yet slightly conventional direction. Technically, this film is rather unimpressive, despite it has some nice production values and decent cinematography. "Rabbit Hole" mostly relies on the performances from the two leads, and this is the area where the film mostly succeeds. Both, Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhar deliver an award-worthy performances. Unsurprisingly, Kidman stands out the most as Becca - an intelligent and good-looking middle-aged woman, who has become a cold, distant and anisocial person due to her grief over the accidental death of her only son. Showing a great variety of emotions as she always does, Kidman creates a very believable character, and while her Becca is slightly unlikable at first, her strange behavior becomes more understandable as the film progresses. Aaron Eckhar is just as convincing and consistently good in his dignified depiction of a grieving father. This is arguably his best performance so far. Eckhar and Kidman's does an amazing job in creating a credible relationship between their characters, as their process of alienation is as believable as their love and devotion. Miles Teller give a 'mixed bag' performance as the driver of the car that killed their son. He's very appropriate for the role and fairly effective, yet quite unmemorable as Jason. All the other supporting performances are great overall, but special mention goes to Dianne Wiest, as gives an outstanding performance as Becca's mother, Nat. Aside from the nicely-written script and Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart's wonderful performances, there's actually nothing really special about "Rabbit Hole". It thinks its strength is its simplicity, but in fact, it's just not that effective.