Rabbit Hole

 This film from 2010, directed by John Cameron Mitchell and written by David Lindsay- Abaire, shows different ways of the process of grieving. The story follows the couple Becca (Nicole Kidman) and Howie (Aaron Eckhart) after the loss of their son.

Their son was killed in a car accident where he was just running after his dog and crossed the road. Here a young man named Jason is driving down the street and is unable to stop.

The focus is on the grieving process of Becca, Howie and Jason after eight months after the accident.

Howie’s process is to keep every memory of his son alive: his toys, his clothes, videos of him, and even his fingerprints.  He has a need to feel his son around him, which is a problem when his wife box up all of her sons things and even donate his clothes. Howie feels that Becca is trying to erase their son away from their lives, and looses it when Becca accidently deletes a video of him on Howie’s phone. Becca is a housewife, she has to look at her son’s belongings everyday and because that she feels she can’t move on and tells Howie that she wants them to find another house.

Howie convinces Becca that they should try group therapy to meet other people in the same situation. Listening to others talking about their loved once being with God and that he needed another angel and it’s all a part of Gods plan, gets Becca annoyed so she leaves and tells Howie, she wont go back there.

Becca’s sister, Izzy reveals that she is pregnant and has known it for weeks, feeling she it was a bad time and therefor didn’t tell Becca. Becca shows that she is happy for her and that she shouldn’t feel like that, even though deep down shows the unfairness of it all.

Becca absence herself from Howie, who tries to be intimate with her, which makes him finds comfort with Gabby from the group therapy, though stating that this is just a friendship, as he loves his wife. 

Becca is out driving and sees Jason. She follows him to the library, curious to what he is doing there, she finds the book he turned back in and borrows it. She finds it is about parallel worlds. She reads the book and later starts meeting Jason at the park, and finds out that he was doing some research for a comic he was making. He tells her that she can read it when it is done, if she’d like to.

Meeting Jason several times in the park is Becca’s way of being comforted. Jason doesn’t tell her to move on, he apologize and she let him know that they don’t blame him.

Howie finds out that Becca has been meeting Jason, when he shows up at their house to give Becca his comic book that he has finished. Howie feels betrayed. This makes him lie to his wife telling her he’s going to the group therapy, but is really meeting up with Gabby to show affection. When he gets to her, he can’t pull through with it and goes back home only to find that Becca is not home.

Becca has read the comic book and wants to give it back to Jason. The comic is how we see Jason’s grieving. He made a story where the boy loses his father, and travel through different parallel worlds to find him and sees that in other worlds he is alive.

A conversation between Jason and Becca gives us the idea that his father is dead and Becca believes that the story evolves around the death of his father. The story shows us not only how he wish his father would be alive in another parallel world, but also how he tries to release the pressure of guilt by convincing himself with the thought that the boy he killed is alive in another universe.  This thought is the only healing Becca has found consolation with.

“And so this is just the sad version of us...

Somewhere out there I'm having a good time. ”

Howie and Becca decide to fake it. They will throw a party for some friends and family and show them that they are moving on and appreciate the people around them.  Taking the steps of healing together.