Rabbit Hole
Directed by John Cameron Mitchell
Review by Thomas W. Campbell
On November 16, 2010 I did a Q and A with David Lindsay-Abaire, Nicole Kidman, John Cameron Mitchell, and Aaron Eckhart following the NBR screening of Rabbit Hole. It was a treat to have producers, actors, the director and the writer in the same room. Kidman’s commitment to the film was evident as she discussed her creative relationship with the process of putting together the film and the great degree of freedom granted to Lindsay-Abaire in adapting his own play to the screen.
Rabbit Hole is a loving adaptation of David Lindsay-Abaire’s 2006 Pulitzer Prize winning play of the same name. Although the film, based on it’s theme, will probably not become an adored holiday classic the journey from play to screen has been unusual in it’s fidelity to the original source and quite successful in terms of storytelling and performance. One of the first and most unusual aspects of the project is that the playwright was hired to adapt his original work, without a co-writer, to the screen. Producer Nicole Kidman and director John Cameron Mitchell, both with experience in theater, felt so strongly about the play that they were comfortable handing the screenplay to Abaire. The result is a film that reflects the original work–a young couple lose their son in an accident that remains mysterious to the viewers and to themselves–but is adapted in ways that subtly and effectively fit the needs of cinema.
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