Rabbit Hole (2010)

Pitched as the most depressing film of the year – a New York yuppie marriage crumbles after the death of the couple’s young boy – “Rabbit Hole” actually is darkly funny, and finally redeeming. Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart are the couple, barely existing in a bleached life of grief and memory. She wants to wash away all evidence of the boy. He clings to every video and memento. Based on a play and directed by John Cameron Mitchell, “Rabbit” could have hit every cliché in the book – the hubby flirts with another woman (Sandra Oh), while the wife befriends the shattered teen (Miles Teller) who faultlessly ran the child down -- but it avoids pitfalls. The pain is real and grisly. But those dark laughs, and the trace of light at the end of the tunnel are huge. I wish we had more background on the couple, and ended sooner then its 90 minutes. As well, Kidman’s inexplicably technophobe wife’s Queens accent comes and goes. But, this is fine filmmaking. B+