December 22, 2010 -- This drama of pain and loss felt by parents whose children die young may be the best of its kind I've seen since “Ordinary People” long ago. It is powered by two great performances by Aaron Eckhart (“The Core”) and Nicole Kidman (“Australia”) as the parents, Howie and Becca, whose son, Danny (played by Phoenix List) is killed in a tragic car accident on the street next to their house. The car is driven by a young man Jason (Miles Teller). All three of these people blame themselves for the death in some way.

Howie and Becca are trying to recover from this loss as the story begins several months after the accident. They attend group therapy sessions with other parents whose children have died. They discover that some of them have been attending the sessions for as long as six years. The pain never goes away, it seems. One of those in the group, Gaby (Sandra Oh of “For Your Consideration”) becomes friends with Howie after her husband and Becca stop attending the group sessions. She reveals that her husband has left her. Howie and Becca also seem to be on the verge of breaking up, especially when they get into arguments about Danny.

Becca keeps her emotions under wraps. She starts getting rid of stuff around the house that reminds her of Danny, pictures of him, things he made, his clothes, his toys and other stuff in his room. Howie is upset, he feels that she is trying to erase his memory by getting rid of all these things. The tension boils over when Howie finds that Becca has erased a video of Danny he had in his phone. She says it is an accident, but Howie isn't so sure, given that she seems to be trying to erase all evidence of Danny's existence. Howie also gets mad when he finds out Becca has secretly been meeting with Jason, the boy who was driving the car that killed Danny.

Becca seems to find comfort meeting with Jason. He gives her a comic book he made which explores the idea of multiple alternate universes. Becca is not religious and is angered when others bring up the subject of finding solace in religion, but she finds some comfort in the idea that in some alternate universe, or on some other planet somewhere, an alternate version Danny might be alive and that Danny and his alternate family might be happy. The name of Jason's comic is “Rabbit Hole,” hence the name of the movie.

There is another nice moment in the movie when Becca and her mother, Nat (Dianne Wiest of “Synecdoche, New York”) get past their anger and talk about the emotional pain of Danny's loss:

Becca: “Does it ever go away?”

Nat: “No, I don't think it does. Not for me it hasn't. It's going on 11 years ... It changes, though ... ”

Becca: “How?”

Nat: “I don't know -- The weight of it, I guess. At some point it becomes bearable. It turns into something you can crawl out from under and carry around like a brick in your pocket and you even forget it for awhile, but then you reach in for whatever reason and there it is. Oh, right, that, which could be awful, [but] not all the time. It's kinda, not that you like it, exactly, but it's what you've got instead of your son, so, you carry it around ... It doesn't go away, which is ... fine, actually.”

This is a very well written and acted film that explores this pain and loss in a very real way. The characters are very believable and the performances are of the highest quality. Eckhart, Kidman and Wiest all deserve awards for their acting in this film. This film rates an A.

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Copyright © 2010 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
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