Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart are the stars of Rabbit Hole, but the real star of the film is grief. Specifically, the misery two parents go through when they lose a child. The film takes place eight months after the death of their son, and it delivers plenty of slow-motion tear-streaked faces, but it’s unlikely to deliver any in the audience unless you lost your kid on the way to the Cineplex or were one of the investors.
Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart are the stars of Rabbit Hole, but the real star of the film is grief. Specifically, the misery two parents go through when they lose a child. The film takes place eight months after the death of their son, and it delivers plenty of slow-motion tear-streaked faces, but it’s unlikely to deliver any in the audience unless you lost your kid on the way to the Cineplex or were one of the investors.
As the parents, Kidman and Eckhart have chemistry, but there’s almost none between Kidman and the actresses who play her mother and her sister; and their relationships take up a good portion of the film’s running time. Neither of the grieving parents inspires sympathy, and the always-affable Eckhart is at his least likable. I feel it’s at least partly because his character’s name is Howie. I’ve never met anyone named Howie that I liked and, while he’s better than his spouse, Eckhart’s character is no exception.
In the 80’s, when a comedian needed to reference a crap comic, Howie Mandel took the hit, until the 90’s came along, and Carrot Top inherited the “crown of scorns.” In my experience, Howies are usually named after other Howies. Who else chooses Howie over Howard? When are women going to stop screwing guys named Howie, and put an end to this scourge? If a guy named Howie asks you out, ladies, please remember: “’No’ is a complete sentence.”
Kidman struggles with her sister’s unexpected pregnancy, and the bereaved couple does their best to deal with other people’s reactions to their sadness, and the daily reminders experienced by people who have lost a child. The film illustrates that everyone is suffering from a loss on some level. It’s a part of life that one simply has to get through. Which is how I felt about this film.
Kidman’s character quits a support group (for couples who’ve lost a child) with a monumental display of bitterness when she responds to another group member’s statement with; “If God needed another angel, why didn’t he just make one?”
I’m sure that sort of thing happens occasionally, but Kidman’s character and her husband had obviously been attending this group for a while. While she hadn’t allowed herself to become fully integrated, it seemed unlikely that she’d respond as harshly and inappropriately.
I have a friend who goes to 12 Step group meetings… all right, all my friends go to 12 Step meetings. In any kind of group therapy, interrupting while another person is sharing is called “cross-talk,” and is frowned upon. To be that openly critical of a positive statement is the equivalent of belching loudly in an elevator and saying: “Who can guess what I ate?” It’s something that you’re rarely going to see, outside of a movie script, without the event ending in a stabbing.
And for a couple whose only child was killed running in front of a car, they drive pretty recklessly; looking at themselves in rear-view mirrors and making cell phone calls while in motion. Between them, they have every other neurosis you’d expect under the circumstances–and neither one of them got more cautious while driving so they wouldn’t kill someone else’s kid?
The movie is essentially a montage of some of the different ways that people unravel. I wouldn’t recommend seeing it unless you’re a huge fan of sad movies, or you’re involved in a clinical trial for a new anti-depressant, and they won’t pay you until you do. It’s not poorly done, or uninteresting, and the acting is adequate, but I really didn’t care about the outcome. Which was a good thing, because as we’ve come to expect from these movies, it just kind of ends as if they ran out of film and said: “Well… that ought to do it.”
All because Kidman’s character broke my rule: “Never screw a guy named Howie.”
–Lord Carrett
