ICS’ Erik Anderson reviews Rabbit Hole:
Eckhart does very good work, running the gamut from subtle to (sometimes a bit too) explosive. Wiest is gentle here, offering sage advice in the face of her daughter’s nastiness. I was reminded of her character in Edward Scissorhands, a bit hopeful, a bit naïve but always with good intentions. The film really belongs to Kidman though, as she is so fearless in this role. She is icy and steely but appropriately so, as she hasn’t figured out how to manage her grief. We almost always manage to be on her side even at her most vicious, giving her the empathy that she sometimes can’t muster. It’s her best performance since Birth and worthy of Oscar consideration. My only reservation, and I know this will cause groans and rolled eyes, is that sometimes her face appears overworked and it belies her suburban housewife role. It’s a relatively small distraction though.
An incredibly subdued piece in comparison to his two previous films, Rabbit Hole is more Ordinary People than Antichrist in the pantheon of couples with children lost, a confident mainstream effort proving Mitchell is not just a fringe director. It‚Äôs not a great film, but a very good one, showing that Mitchell doesn‚Äôt need the bells and whistles of musical numbers or graphic sex (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but has the strength to work with conventional material and still put his stamp on it.
