Rabbit Hole
Lionsgate | Release Date: December 17, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
76
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
32
Mixed:
6
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJan 12, 2011
Sounds depressing, although Rabbit Hole isn't, with David Lindsay-Abaire presenting a perceptive, subtly dark-humored adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Read full review
100
TimeRichard CorlissDec 14, 2010
Kidman, in a career-best performance, and Eckhart lend pitch-perfect calibration to the couple's shared and separate agonies. It's as if previous treatments of the subject were a series of failed experiments, and Rabbit Hole is the Eureka! moment. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsDec 16, 2010
Rabbit Hole is a tremendously sad movie, but it's also the furthest thing from a miserablist wallow. Read full review
90
NewsweekDavid AnsenJan 4, 2011
Rabbit Hole deftly sidesteps sentimentality and still wrenches your heart. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinDec 20, 2010
The Kidman in Rabbit Hole is a revelation. Read full review
90
Boxoffice MagazinePete HammondDec 7, 2010
It's an unforgettable, moving and brilliantly acted drama that richly deserves to be seen by anyone who cherishes great filmmaking. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonJan 14, 2011
Might be mistaken for a mere soap opera. But it's actually an emotional symphony. Read full review
88
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreJan 12, 2011
That message, this script and these actors make Rabbit Hole one of the best films of 2010. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertDec 24, 2010
Entertaining and surprisingly amusing, under the circumstances. The film is in a better state of mind than its characters. Its humor comes, as the best humor does, from an acute observation of human nature. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy BurrDec 24, 2010
Rabbit Hole is a personal project for Kidman - she produced the film after falling in love with the play - and it seems to have revived the quickness in her. That ice-blue gaze has found its focus again, and it looks deep into the one thing none of us want to face. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 22, 2010
Uncompromising, painful, and at times difficult to watch, this movie lays bare more than a few raw nerves. Some viewers will find it too real, too immediate. It's an experience, to be sure, but I wouldn't classify it as entertainment. Read full review
88
ObserverRex ReedDec 20, 2010
This meticulously nuanced, sensitively acted film version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by David Lindsay-Abaire gives Nicole Kidman her best role in years, and she chews it like raw steak. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenDec 17, 2010
Don't go down this Rabbit Hole unless you wish to see a superb film that treats a sad topic with unflinching honesty. Don't go down this Rabbit Hole unless you believe that tragedy's grief, when transmuted through art's protective lens, can feel liberating, even joyful in its painful truths. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 17, 2010
Nicole Kidman is just astonishing in Rabbit Hole - subtle, fierce, brutally funny, tender when you least expect it, and battered by the feelings that hit her when she forgets to duck. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia PuigDec 16, 2010
Profound and superbly acted, with a moving script superbly adapted from David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer-winning play. Read full review
85
NPRElla TaylorDec 17, 2010
Mitchell brings respect, tenderness and a generous helping of his antic wit to Rabbit Hole, not to mention a rare gift for adding visual radiance to a talky stage play. Read full review
80
EmpireHelen O\'HaraJan 31, 2011
Kidman, in particular, hasn't been this good since "To Die For" and maybe not even then. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzDec 28, 2010
The film is quiet, patient, allowing for lived-in performances that get at the enormous change in the characters' lives. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesDec 24, 2010
John Cameron Mitchell directed, making an impressive detour in style and subject matter after his flamboyant "Shortbus" (2006) and "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" (2001). Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternDec 16, 2010
Nicole Kidman places the bereaved heroine of Rabbit Hole in a nether land between life and not-quite-life. Her beautiful performance transcends the specifics of the script, which David Lindsay-Abaire adapted from his play of the same name. Read full review
80
MovielineStephanie ZacharekDec 15, 2010
Director John Cameron Mitchell - adapting David Lindsay-Abaire's play - has a surprisingly deft touch with this admittedly downbeat material; he builds dramatic intensity in subtle layers, rather than slapping it on with a trowel. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeDec 7, 2010
Grief may be the topic under examination, but humor -- incisive, observant and warm -- is the tool with which it's dissected in Rabbit Hole, a refreshingly positive-minded take on cinema's ultimate downer: overcoming the death of a child. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenJan 14, 2011
Although it is achingly sad, Rabbit Hole is not maudlin or depressing. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanJan 13, 2011
Mitchell keeps the direction simple and well-behaved, usually just pointing the camera at the speaker, but you can see why this topic appealed to him. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezJan 12, 2011
Absorbing and hugely compelling, a thoughtful portrayal of the myriad ways in which we learn to deal with the unthinkable. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayDec 25, 2010
What on the surface seems to possess all the melodrama and photogenic suffering of a banal prime-time weepie instead becomes a lucid, tough, deeply sensitive examination of emotional fortitude. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie RickeyDec 25, 2010
Wrenching, poignant, and quietly healing. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsDec 24, 2010
Rretains 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. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanDec 8, 2010
Eckhart shows a new kind of foreboding anger. He's powerful as a man who will do anything to crack the ice. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneDec 28, 2010
Against all expectations, you approach Rabbit Hole with a heavy heart and leave with a lighter one. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottDec 16, 2010
Rabbit Hole could easily have been maudlin, grim or exploitative, and it is none of those things. It is sensitive, considerate, and, in the end, not entirely persuasive. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJan 22, 2011
Although the filmmakers try to avoid roteness, the conflicts tend to play out along circumscribed lines. This gives the film a seesaw sameness. It's all a bit too diagrammed. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranDec 16, 2010
A tragedy devastating to experience can feel generic when transferred to the screen, and that, despite everyone's best intentions and an outstanding performance by Nicole Kidman, is what happens with Rabbit Hole. Read full review
60
Time OutDavid FearDec 14, 2010
Easily the most gracefully performed grief-porn you'll see this season. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttDec 7, 2010
The film does achieve moments of catharsis, but it can be heavy going. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleDec 25, 2010
As a viewing experience, the film is by turns heartrending and stultifying, but mostly stultifying. Read full review
50
Village VoiceKarina LongworthDec 14, 2010
Becca and Howie's extracurricular relationships are the saving grace of a movie that's otherwise a sledgehammer of plot and score. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierDec 17, 2010
Kidman is able to draw you in even as the movie's solemn, morbid obviousness wears you out. Read full review
38
New York PostKyle SmithDec 17, 2010
It contains no poetry. It simply conjures up a horrible feeling -- and then sits back awaiting congratulation. Read full review
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