Down the Rabbithole
Sunday, February 6, 2011
It has been eight months since married couple Becca (Nicole Kidman) and Howie's (Aaron Eckhart) young son was killed after he ran out on to the road in front of their house. The couple's relationship, though loving, is strained as they struggle to find purpose in their life minus the apple of their eye. Becca struggles to cope with the news that her sister is pregnant and lashes out in a parental grieving group. After a failed attempt at trying to reignite her career, she unexpectedly starts a friendship with the teenager who was driving the car that hit her son that fateful day - Jason (Miles Teller). Howie, desperate to move on, tries to push Becca into starting a family again and instead ends up developing a bond with a woman in their grief group. But as the results of their actions play their course, they begin to edge ever so slightly out of the dark tunnel of grief they were lost in.
Rabbithole is directed by John Cameron Mitchell and is based on a play of the same name by David Lindsay-Abaire. Cameron-Mitchell has swapped the visually confronting material of his last film Shortbus, which attempted to integrate realistic sex scenes into mainstream cinema, for emotionally confronting material in this mature drama. He has a charming visual style, which positions dialogue laden scenes against simpler ones that rely on images and movements to get the message across. It's used to great effect here, namely when Becca is shown frozen in front of her son's drawings on the fridge or when Jason is sketching his comic book. Cameron Mitchell also slips in some dark comedic moments, which provide a humorous reprieve from the heavy themes. 
For a film that examines grief and the nature of loss, it's reliant on solid performances from the ensemble cast - particularly Kidman and Eckhart who are both convincing as parents experiencing grief in very different ways. Although Kidman scored a Golden Globe nomination for her performance, Eckhart is just as deserving (arguably more so) as his portrayal is gutsy and relentless. The standout is undoubtedly newcomer Teller as the quiet and thoughtful teenager still haunted by the accident. His interpretation of the character is stoic and powerful, creating some of the most moving moments in the film. Dianne Wiest, Tammy Blanchard and and Sandra Oh are also strong in minor roles.
Despite Rabbithole's merits, this is territory we've been before. The film's examination of parental love and the full reach of grief isn't any more insightful than films with similar themes such as The Sixth Sense, Dead Man Walking, My Sister's Keeper, Beaches or The Lovely Bones. It doesn't shed any new light, lead us to any new realisations or make us feel any differently about what is clearly a horrible experience to go through. Although the performances are solid, the technical aspects well handled, by the end of the film you can't help but ask; other than providing a snapshot of one particular couple's experience of grief, what was the point?
Rabbithole is out Thursday, February 17.
Briggs met Ward just after the first of three fights with Arturo Gatti, which went on to become one the great boxing trilogies (Ward and Gatti are pictured above). Briggs said chatting with Ward "between fights and rounds'' he was struck by how ``down to Earth'' he was. Sitting next to Ward at the fight was his older brother Dicky who Briggs said was ``a bit of a lunatic''. Christian Bale's erratic portrayal of Dicky in The Fighter is tipped to win him an Oscar and Briggs said it seems authentic.
Wahlberg was a driving force behind the film, taking it from early development stages as an executive producer and hand-picking everyone from directors and trainers, to actors and producers. Bale had this to say about Wahlberg in his acceptance speech “Mark, really got to give a shout out to Mark as he really drove this whole movie. You can only give a loud performance like the one I gave when you have a quiet anchor and a stoic character. I’ve played that character many times and it never gets any notice. But the HPFA have nominated Mark for tonight so that’s fantastic, but thank you buddy. Kudos to you for that, otherwise I wouldn’t have got away with it.”
It took four years, three directors and numerous stop-starts before Mark Wahlberg's biopic on boxer `Irish' Mickey Ward was able to get out of the gym and into the ring. Thankfully, it's worth the weight.
As a boxer, Micky Ward is best known for fighting one of the great trilogies in boxing history with Arturo Gatti. However, The Fighter is set before Ward goes pro and is less of a sporting drama, than it is a family one. It would be easy to write it off as your typical underdog sporting story, but few people who enter the film will leave with that attitude. The most obvious element in its filmic arsenal are the performances - with Bale spine tingling as the erratic and crack cocaine addicted brother. In fact, he's so convincing as a crackhead it makes you wonder just what it is he does during his down time between films. Although Bale's acting talent outside of action blockbusters is no secret to fans of The Machinist, The Prestige, American Psycho and The New World, his portrayal is beyond worthy of the best supporting actor Oscar. Despite Bale's physical transformation to embody the unhealthy physicality of Dicky, his flamboyant and unbridled performance is quite simply a career best.
Perhaps the real star of The Fighter is director David O'Russell, who delivers an absolute haymaker of a film. His third collaboration with Wahlberg, after Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees, O'Russell's product is a collage of greatness mixing documentary elements and confronting close-ups with stills and balls-out creative shots. From the unexpected tracking shots and angles to genius continuous shots, as a director he has mixed his indie filmmaking sensibilities with the conventions of the genre to make a sporting film that extends beyond its reach. Even the fight scenes in the ring, although beautifully constructed and toe-to-toe with anything from the greatest boxing films like Rocky or Raging Bull, act more as a Bolo Punch while the out-of-ring drama delivers the knockout. When other directors could have taken Dicky's addiction and imprisonment to a dark place, O'Russell brings in comedic elements without losing the significance of the situation.
The Fighter is out in Australia on Jan 27 and the rest of the lucky world already have their mitts on it.
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