In other circumstances, Rabbit Hole might be expected to garner Oscars -- for Nicole Kidman, for Aaron Eckhart, for any number of people and things. The movie tells a sensitive, moving story. Nicole Kidman plays a mother who has suffered the death of her child, and is unable to move on or accept the loss. Supportive husband, comfortable lifestyle, warm family. There are moments of intelligent emotion, and the script interestingly suggests that, contrary to popular lore, grief and wisdom may, in fact, be enemies and not friends. Another year it could have swept the Oscars. Another year it could have drawn more attention and love from audiences.
But maybe that year is 1981. The movie has the sort of blanched look of middle-class dramas like Ordinary People or Heartburn or Kramer versus Kramer. The movie also has the insularity of dramas from another time, where personal tragedy is without any larger context. Adapted from a play, the characters move through a world that doesn't seem to contain any bigger picture. Even the roads and grocery stores seem empty of other people, other lives. We are long way from what I understand to be the "world" of contemporary cinema, post-Magnolia, post-Short Cuts, yes, post-911.
This isn't a strong criticism of Rabbit Hole, but it may explain the reaction. There may also be a certain Nicole Kidman fatigue setting in. When critic David Thomson described her (in reviewing To Die For) as "seductive and devouring", and hinted that she could be our Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Bette Davis wrapped in one, he also argued that it was up to the movie industry to find material good enough for her to prove him right. It is possible that the industry failed. And so there were a few good movies, and some bad ones, and Nicole trapped in the middle. The fatigue is Nicole's as much as it is ours.
Rabbit Hole frames its story after the tragedy of the child's death, but it doesn't avoid cliche. Is that Ali Macgraw waking up from an unexpected sleep in the car following a cinematic moment of epiphany? (Does anyone fall asleep unexpectedly in the front seat of a car except in movies?) Does her world-weary mother bestow wisdom in clear, sharp aphorisms? Some moments are new and feel true. A night of bowling when every kind gesture between sisters, between mother and children, is loaded with guilt, anger, resentment. The unleashed anger at the stranger in the mall.
Throughout this mixed bag, Nicole manages to be both hysterical with emotion, and also clipped, closed, superior, bright. It is something to watch; there are many smart and startling choices. But there is sense that we have been here before, and that Nicole is not finding something that is challenging her.
(If she is too porcelain for some of the better roles of Susan Sarandon's earlier career, she could certainly have found some material in early (or contemporary) Catherine Deneuve. Maybe she should learn French?)
Finally, luminous, Dianne Wiest, who knows something herself about being better than the material.
