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Rabbit Hole (DVD)
by thedevilinme
Somewhere out there I'm having a good time.
Star - Nicole Kidman
Certificate - PG13
Run Time - 91 Minutes
Country - USA
Blockbuster Rental - £0.99p per night
Awards - 1 Oscar nomination
Amazon -£2.50 DVD (£10.12 Blue Ray)
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Rabbit Hole, ... based on the David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway play of the same name, is coming to us via director John Cameron Mitchell, he of 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch' and the rather perverted 'Shortbus', only the fourth movie in the directing cannon from the 50-year-old baby faced actor, more known for his many American TV roles. Mitchell was attracted to the screenplay about the death of a young child in a road accident after losing his own 10-year-old brother when he was just 16 to a heart defect. Well, that's his excuse.
The star is Nicole Kidman, who is also the producer, clearly a move to make sure the film got made and with her in the lead, a performance that would earn her an Oscar nomination in 2011 for Best Performance in a Leading Role, losing out to Natalie Portman for the overblown and tedious Black Swan. I would have given it to Jennifer Lawrence for Winters Bone, another dull movie but a very talented actress.
= = = Cast = = =
Nicole Kidman ... Becca
Aaron Eckhart ... Howie
Dianne Wiest ... Nat
Miles Teller ... Jason
Tammy Blanchard ... Izzy
Sandra Oh ... Gabby
Giancarlo Esposito ... Auggie
Jon Tenney ... Rick
Stephen Mailer ... Kevin
= = = The Plot = = =
Rebecca (Nicole Kidman) and Howie Corbett (Aaron Eckhart) are grieving for the loss of their four -year-old son Danny, who ran into the street chasing the family dog and hit by a car driven by a young college freshman (Miles Teller). Rebecca wants to give away Danny's possessions and move house to heal that way but Howie angry at that. Hubby also wants to resume their life by having sex and maybe have a new Danny, Becca not in that place yet.
Becca's mother (Dianne Wiest) compares and competes for her daughter's grief as she lost a 30-year-old son to drugs. But Becca believes the two are not comparable and the fact her sister Izzy (Tammy Blanchard) is pregnant just adding to the tensions.
Becca and Howie attend self help groups where they compete with other couples grief, Becca dropping out when a religious couple say its Gods will that they have lost their loved ones.
Here Howie is drawn to Gabby (Sandra Oh from Shortbus), who has been going to the group much longer, the two attracted to each other. Becca is also meeting someone on the sly to suppress her guilt, Jason, the fresh faced youth that ran over little Danny, all searching for away to end their pain and grief, which anyone who has lost someone close know can never be. But will the couple pulling apart and reaching out be the mechanism to get hem to snap out of it and get back together again.
= = = Results = = =
Inevitably, Rabbit Hole is a film that's easier to commend than it is to like. Although the acting is all very fine it just doesn't really work as a film. From its $5 million budget it did just $5.2 million back, all you need know what the mostly middle-class audience thought of it. But in art house circles that tiny gross is considered a success. Like I said, you can see Kidman produced this film to make sure it was made so she could get back in the winners enclosure with a chunky role, drawing a few blanks of late now that she has been cut free of Tom and Scientology. Parochial and sprawling melodramas like 'Australia' with shirt rippers like Hugh Jackman are not going to get her back on high in Hollywood.
Anybody could have played the Aaron Eckhart role, as proved the case, the new Dennis Quaid texting in his performance. The intelligent script from the original Broadway play has been chain-sawed down to this flimsy screenplay, why the film loses the original pathos and emotion, I presume. It really is a hollow experience and if anyone else was cast in it then it would have disappeared off the radar. The Kidman name can still make a film get the eye of the critics but that's where the interest ends as this is all rather contrived and dull. Don't believe those critics on this one. It often resorts to cliché and with no twist or chemistry between Kidman and Eckhart I can only presume they were banking of the plays success to drive this movie as far as interest goes. It just doesn't get going folks.
To be honest I know exactly who this film will appeal to and I'm sure they will sip away their Pinot Grigot along to it and reassure themselves they are watching the films the great unwashed wont. But this is as boring as it feels when you watch it and nothing really profound going on here. These indie movies only really work with relatively unknown casts and quirkier scripts and the themes of loss and grief don't really come through hear to raise a tear. Intelligent, maybe? Boring, yes. The moral of the story is don't put movie stars in actor's films.
= = = = RATINGS = = = =
Imdb.com - 7.0/10.0 (30,310 votes)
Metacrtic.com - 76% critic's approval
Rottentomatos.com - 86% critic's approval
= = = = Critics = = = =
The Guardian -' The sheer excruciating, stultifying good taste of this movie is almost unbearable - so tasteful it could have started out as a coffee-table book, though actually it is based on a Pulitzer-winning play by David Lindsay-Abaire'.
The Times -'It's a slight, well-acted tale in search of an epiphany'.
The NY Post -'Rabbit Hole is hardly what you'd call a date movie, and it's difficult to see what kind of audiences it'd appeal to outside of awards season chin-strokers'.
This simply didn't transfer from stage to film to deliver enough pathos and power for it to work.
Digital Spy -'The actors don't flinch from the task and there is hope at the end, though it may feel like small reward after so much digging'.
The LA Times -'Director John Cameron Mitchell's restrained handling of the film's rawest moments keeps it from descending into soul-wrenching lamentations'.
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Read the complete review |
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Rebel Without A Cause (DVD)
by GentleGenius
RELEASED: 1955, Cert. AA
RUNNING TIME: Approx. 111 mins
DIRECTOR: Nicholas Ray
PRODUCER: David Weisbart
SCREENPLAY: Stewart Stern
MUSIC: Leonard Rosenman
MAIN CAST:-
James Dean as Jim Stark
Natalie Wood as Judy
Salt Mineo as John/Plato
Jim ... Backus as Frank Stark
Ann Doran as Carol Stark
Edward Platt as Ray Fremick
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FILM ONLY REVIEW
Rebel Without A Cause opens with a very drunk 17-year-old Jim Stark rolling around in the street, then being arrested and taken to a police station. After being interviewed by youth counsellor Ray Fremick, Jim's parents come to collect him.
At home, things are fraught, as Jim is unable to relate to or talk to his parents in the way that he'd like. His mother Carol is a domineering woman, whereas his father Frank is easy going but ineffectual, unable to provide Jim with the fatherly support that he sometimes needs.
Jim attends his first day at his new school and is immediately picked on by the 'in crowd', whilst simultaneously making friends with a troubled boy called John who is nicknamed Plato.
By and by, Jim rises up to the bullies, proving himself to be the tough guy. Meanwhile, fellow pupil Judy who is the 'property' of Buzz, the gangleader, takes more than a passing interest in Jim.
Youth rebellion gets very out of hand when Jim and the gang play a dangerous game one night, where the competitors get into their cars and drive to a cliff edge....the aim is to jump out of the car before it hurtles over the cliff, but the first one to jump is derided, labelled 'chicken', and mercilessly hounded.
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Rebel Without A Cause was James Dean's second major film role (his first being East Of Eden), but he died just before it was released.
The opening scene is set very nicely, as Jim lies on the ground playing with a children's toy that he has found. When in the police station, there are is a couple of amusing moments...particularly, and for me, when the sozzled Jim impersonates the sound of police car sirens wailing outside. It is in the police station that Jim first lays eyes on both Judy and John/Plato, but aside from offering his jacket to John/Plato who complains of feeling cold, no interaction with them takes place until he meets them again on his first day at school.
Jim, Judy and John/Plato all come from fairly affluent, but troubled families. Youth rebellion is running high in the classy Los Angeles suburb where they live, as teenagers begin to question the values of their parents' generation.
The acting in Rebel Without A Cause is pretty good, especially that from James Dean who is utterly superb as the mixed-up Jim. Natalie Wood is OK as Judy, although nothing wildly special, and Sal Mineo is wonderful as the very sad and inadequate John/Plato. As far as James Dean is concerned, his must have been a fairly demanding, complex role to play, and he delivered the goods with what I can only described as a concentrated sparkle.
A very young Dennis Hopper puts in an appearance, but his role is minor....and, I didn't realise he was in the film until I read the cast list.
The music to Rebel Without A Cause is typical of the spate of edgy teen angst films which were in fashion during the early to mid-1950s, it being popular jazz-flavoured, tinged with a 'dirty', bluesy feel.
A lot of care appears to have been taken with the direction and production of Rebel Without A Cause, and it is one of the few films from its era and of its genre which was shot in colour. I must say that the recording has been extremely well-preserved, as on my DVD copy, the clarity of both sound and picture are excellent....almost as if the film were made last week!
To appreciate Rebel Without A Cause fully, I feel it is necessary to adopt an early 1950s mindset, otherwise it could be viewed as 'dated' - but, of course it is dated, as it is 58 years old! 58 years before then wasn't even in the 20th century, so I think this film was perhaps ahead of its time rather than of it. The rebellious activities of the teenagers is put across well, breaking a few boundaries with the 'angry young man' syndrome which arose in the wake of WW2. I don't doubt for one minute that the parent generation at the time when Rebel Without A Cause was released, were shocked to their very core...but it seems relatively tame by today's standards.
Although typically 1950s in style, some of the dialogue in this film is excellent, particularly a stand-up argument that Jim has with his father. That little section of the script I'm sure would resound well with today's teenagers, in that it focuses on the issue of a parent trying to help and support their child, but not actually taking the time to listen to what their offspring is saying. Hence, a huge wall of alienation springs up between parent and child....this is dealt with superbly in Rebel Without A Cause. To a perhaps lesser degree, similar is happening in Jenny's home whereby she is totally unable to relate to her parents, and with John/Pluto, we see an extremely troubled young boy who feels totally alone in the world. His increasing dependency on Jim's friendship cleverly, together with Sal Mineo's superb acting, beautifully portrays the isolation of a teenager who simply feels as though he doesn't fit in anywhere.
Over the decades, Rebel Without A Cause has become a classic, although I do wonder if had James Dean not died, would it have been pushed onto a back shelf somewhere and forgotten about?
Whenever I watch this film (and East Of Eden), it always sets my mind on a path of wondering where James Dean would have gone with his acting career, had he not been tragically killed in a car crash at such a young age.
Would I recommend Rebel Without A Cause? The answer is a resounding "yes!!", although I can hear a chorus of people who've seen it in recent years proclaiming it to be 'dated'...but, of course it is dated...it is almost 60 years old, so what does anyone expect? My recommendation would be to shrug off the idiosyncratic trappings of the modern world, cast your mind and self back to the mid-1950s, then enjoy this classic cinematic feast in exactly the way it was meant to be enjoyed.
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At the time of writing, Rebel Without A Cause can be purchased on Amazon as follows:-
New: from £2.67 to £12.88
Used: from 95p to £6.99
Collectible: only one copy currently available @ £4.99 (appears to be used)
Some items on Amazon are available for free delivery within the UK, but where this doesn't apply, a £1.26 charge should be added to the above figures.
Thanks for reading!
~~ Also published on Ciao under my CelticSoulSister user name ~~
Read the complete review |
