Obviously Rabbit Hole is a star vehicle for whoever plays Becca and nailed it. Cynthia Nixon did it and Nicole Kidman scored an Oscar nomination for the role and brought her right back up in the Hollywood game. So how does the play hold up in its silver screen adaptation?
Rabbit Hole is about grief. In the original play, 5 different characters of equal weight played out the grieving process. In the film adaptation, the weight seems to just fall on Becca. Other characters except maybe for Howie, played nothing more than a supportive role to Becca. This change of balance in fact affected the whole structure and story telling. In the play you have a comprehensive view of the different approaches of each character in dealing with the same incident. However, in the film, these were gone, and especially for Izzie, Becca’s sister, she became a mere plot movement in the film. This drastically reduced the dimensions originally offered by the play and became really simple story telling. Also, the adaptation seems to have fragmented the original tight structure of the play and made the story unnecessarily jumpy. And the over-emphasis of the “Rabbit Holes” in the film had to a certain degree reduced its great metaphor and connotation through information redundancy. There were other scenes that were originally narratives in the play being now shown to the audience. Some worked, some didn’t. For example, the scene about Becca slapping a mother in the supermarket was super and provided a lot of dramatic elements to the film. However the side story between Howie and another grieving mother didn’t work at all. It feels more like it was placed in the film as a dramatic bomb but it didn’t go off.
Performance wise, Nicole Kidman surely had done her homework for the role and played Becca really well. It could be one of her best dramatic roles since The Hours. However, if you don’t like her, this film will still not change your views about her, as the style is very Kidman. Nonetheless, it is always good to see her display a bigger emotional range in a very lovable character. Aaron Eckhart as Howie was solid. As with other characters, Howie’s role was much reduced unless it is a plot point for Becca to shine in the current or upcoming scenes. Nonetheless, I am glad that the pivotal “Howie break down” scene was still there and Aaron Eckhart’s performance in that scene was perfect. Dianne West as Becca’s mother also had a reduced role in the film but not to the extent that Izzie suffered. Critical scenes in the play were still there and the sometimes-warm sometimes-cold relationship between her and Becca was depicted with precision. Miles Teller as Jason, the teenager who caused the grief to the family was quite wooden to be honest. There were a few good moments, but on the whole somehow his character didn’t really work for me. Tammy Blanchard as Izzie really got nothing much to do in the film version. I feel sorry for her as in the play Izzie was such an important comic relief element.
On the whole Rabbit Hole is still a solid film. However, it has become more melodramatic than its stage counterpart. The good part of the original play is that it did not emphasise on the tear-jerking factor but let the audience feel and absorb into their grief. In the film version, there was just too much crying that discredited the characters and reduced their grief into simple one-dimensional moaning. There were great performances, but the film is just not as good as the play.
