Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart

Based on his 2006 play, a five-character, one-set winner of the Pulitzer Prize, screenwriter David Lindsay-Abaire's "Rabbit Hole" retains what made it work on stage, chiefly a disarming sense of humor amid the grimmest sort of personal crisis, and a pair of juicy leading roles.

The film, directed by John Cameron Mitchell, is conventionally made but extremely well acted.

It does what most stage-to-screen adaptations do not. It works.

For Becca (Nicole Kidman) and Howie (Aaron Eckhart), the comfortable, seemingly enviable Larchmont, N.Y., couple at the collapsing center of the story, life has become a prison as well as a prism, refracting the fallout of what happened eight months earlier. Their 4-year-old boy ran out into the street, chasing the family dog. A teenage driver struck the boy and killed him. Since then, Howie has dealt with the loss his way, through routines and group therapy and putting up a suspiciously hearty front.

Becca, meanwhile -- jobless, almost affectless, already having suffered the drug-related death of her brother, perplexed emotionally about the news of her newly pregnant sister -- gropes toward solutions for insoluble problems. Is it better to hang on to their son's fridge artwork, or worse? When she sees an opportunity for communication with the boy behind the wheel, months later, should she take it? Or leave it?

Lindsay-Abaire's script juggles our sympathies with ease (though the quippy banter sometimes feels too easy, too smooth). Several new characters are introduced, among them a fellow grieving parent and a bit of a therapy junkie, played by the reliably terrific Sandra Oh. Dianne Wiest plays Becca's mother, a mass of good intentions and some weaker ones, with a side of unresolved guilt. But this film belongs to Kidman, who also produced, and to Eckhart.

By design, the script saves its emotional fireworks for the climax, and, in extremis, Mitchell's film comes to unruly life. When Kidman and Eckhart are given a chance to unleash their demons, after bottling them up too long, the acting catches fire. Kidman's capable of real strength, real emotion and real surprise, and Eckhart finds the ideal mixture of fear and anger in his big scenes. Fierce and intuitive, these actors are well matched and well challenged.

I suppose I wish Mitchell, who made the more outre "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" and "Shortbus," had managed a more distinctive style and edge. The trappings are a little square, from the musical score to the camera movement (or lack of it). God knows the subject matter scares moviegoers away more readily than theatergoers. But after languishing without a distributor for a while, "Rabbit Hole" premiered in September at the Toronto International Film Festival. The word, right away, was better than expected. As is the movie. Kidman saw it through, and she and Eckhart give it everything they have -- or rather, everything they should give it. The rest they hold in reserve, just as their characters do.

 

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"Rabbit Hole" Movie Trailer

 

MPAA rating: PG-13 (for mature thematic material, some drug use and language).

Running time: 1:32.

Cast: Nicole Kidman (Becca); Aaron Eckhart (Howie); Dianne Wiest (Nat); Tammy Blanchard (Izzy); Miles Teller (Jason); Giancarlo Esposito (Auggie); Sandra Oh (Gabby).

Credits: Directed by John Cameron Mitchell; written by David Lindsay-Abaire, based on his play; produced by Leslie Urdang, Dean Vanech, Nicole Kidman, Per Saari and Gigi Pritzker. A Lionsgate release.

 

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