MY MOVIE SHELF: Rabbit Hole

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 164  Days to go: 158

Movie #219:  Rabbit Hole

God, I love this movie. Rabbit Hole might honestly be one of my all-time favorite films, and that’s not a distinction I make lightly. In fact, I usually refuse to make such a distinction at all since I love so many films for so many different reasons. And yet, if it hadn’t been for Nicole Kidman’s Best Actress nomination for her performance as Becca, I probably never would’ve seen it. Rabbit Hole was a small film, barely distributed, barely marketed — especially not in smaller cities — but an Oscar nomination bears a certain distinction. I don’t have the resources — or lately the time — to attempt an Oscar Death Race, but I do take pains to see all the nominated films in major categories (Best Picture, Best Director, plus all the acting and screenplay categories), and that’s how Rabbit Hole and I came to be acquainted.

The story is of Becca and her husband Howie (Aaron Eckhart), who have suffered the unbearable tragedy of losing their four-year-old son. What I love most about the film, though, is how it handles that tragedy. Namely, it doesn’t exploit it, it doesn’t play up the maudlin nature of the tale, it doesn’t even show it. No, it plops the audience down right in the middle of these people’s fully formed lives eight months after the fact and lets them figure out for themselves, over the course of the film through pacing and dialogue, what exactly happened and how these two are coping. There’s no exposition, no ham-handed delivery, no shoe-horned revelations. When Becca’s sister Izzy (Tammy Blanchard) reveals she found out she was pregnant a few weeks ago and Becca asks why she didn’t tell her sooner, Izzy’s response is a familiar “You know why.” Nothing else needs to be said between the sisters, so nothing else is.

Everyone speaks in coded language, particular to these people and this situation, giving the audience the feel of being immersed into real lives in progress. It’s one of the most authentic and organic atmospheres I’ve ever experienced from a film. Even the reveal of how, exactly, their little boy died occurs within a well-worn argument, clearly traversed several times before, both vocally and as part of each individual’s internal monologue. External conflicts and difficulties are alluded to but not over-explained. And the trials of both Becca and Howie are made visible — almost tangible — rather than verbalized.

Rabbit Hole is the story of two parents who lost their child and who are struggling in different ways with their mourning. One wants to withdraw, to never discuss it, to never allow the pain to take over because it does her no good. The other wants to feel, wants to remember, wants to share his grief with his wife and let it wash over them both. As a result, they find a widening distance between them, despite their clear and obvious love, contentment and comfort level with one another. (Their intimacy and camaraderie — despite tension — is perhaps never more obvious than when Becca accuses Howie of trying to rope her into sex. He denies it, saying he was just playing some music. She responds, incredulous, “Al Green isn’t roping?! Al Green!?”) Becca was a mother and wants to take care of people. She cooks and provides and tries to mother her sister and resents the companionship and outreach of her mother (Dianne Wiest). She finds herself drawn to and ultimately connecting with Jason (Miles Teller), the boy who shares in her tragedy from another angle — similar, but not the same, with guilt that is just as debilitating, just as haunting, just as pointless and nonsensical, as Becca’s own. Howie, on the other hand, finds solace in socializing, in commiserating. He wants a connection with his wife, but since his wife is emotionally unavailable, he finds himself drawn to and connecting with a woman named Gabby from their grief support group (Sandra Oh). He loves his wife, though, and I love that the movie doesn’t take the easy route of infidelity, so often used to exhibit marital strife and dissatisfaction. He recognizes the internal struggle he is having, and the cause for it, and he rebuffs the idea of Gabby because, well, she’s not Becca.

The other aspect of Rabbit Hole I love so much is the origin of the title — a comic book Jason writes and illustrates about a boy whose scientist father discovers these portals to alternate universes. Then the father dies, and the boy goes through all these portals to find his father, only his father is dead, so it isn’t the same. Becca reads the comic and it gives her comfort and closure in a way that support groups and religion can’t. It gives her the idea that somewhere her son is alive, that “this is just the sad version of us,” that “somewhere out there I’m having a good time.”

The movie, it turns out, is about how life, whether you like it or not, goes on, and figuring out how to do that. It ends with Becca and Howie talking, making plans for the future — not years away, but weeks: a barbecue — and just going through the little steps, day by day, that will get them through the next thing and the next and the next. And that’s how they’ll go from now on. Really, that’s how we all go on.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Moulin Rouge!

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 192  Days to go: 197

Movie #185:  Moulin Rouge!

If you’re looking for a movie that’s wildly theatrical, over the top and amazing, director Baz Luhrmann is the gold standard. It’s his signature style and I don’t know anyone who does it better. His films are glorious spectacles — feasts for the eyes. Though not my favorite of his films, Moulin Rouge! is the best, most shining example of this .

Set in 1899 Paris and the “Bohemian revolution,” a young writer named Christian (Ewan McGregor) happens into an opportunity to pen the show “Spectacular, Spectacular” for production at the Moulin Rouge club. Championed by Toulouse-Lautrec (John Leguizamo), he goes there one evening to win over the star, a courtesan named Satine (Nicole Kidman), with his poetry so she will approve of him taking over the show’s script. Meanwhile, Satine is being encouraged by her manager Harold Zidler (Jim Broadbent, being amazing and virtually unrecognizable) to quote-unquote entertain a Duke in attendance that evening (Richard Roxburgh) to get him to invest in the show. Naturally, Satine mistakes Christian for the Duke and attempts to seduce him, but his earnest adoration (and impeccable singing of modern tunes) captivates her and she falls for him. Unlike a lot of those mistaken identity stories, this misunderstanding is rectified almost immediately and the real tension of the film comes from Satine trying to hide her growing love for Christian from the Duke while also stringing the Duke along so as not to jeopardize the show or the club. Also, she’s dying. (Any woman who coughs roughly in the first act of an old-timey story, must die of consumption in the third. It’s Chekov’s tuberculosis.)

The real draw, though, and the thing that sets Moulin Rouge! truly apart, are the musical performances to popular songs from the twentieth century. Satine does a mash-up of “Material Girl” and its reel world inspiration “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” while Madonna gets another nod as Zidler knocks out a great cover of “Like a Virgin.” Elton John’s “Your Song” gets to play very large in the plot, meanwhile, and The Police’s “Roxanne” is featured nicely. The rest of the songs are incredible medleys, from “Zidler’s Rap” featuring “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and a modernized “Lady Marmalade,” to a show-stopper on top of Satine’s elephant that brings together nearly every iconic love song it can think of (by everyone from The Beatles to U2 to Dolly Parton) as part of a unique call and response.

The original music is great, too, though, and the marquee song, “Come What May” lives up to every expectation. It’s a powerful, anthemic, soaring love song that builds passion and hope in equal measure. The ridiculous rules technicality that kept it from Oscar eligibility  is just another reason the Best Original Song category needs a serious revamp (not that I begrudge Randy Newman winning his first Oscar, but come on). As far as I’m concerned that was the best original song in a movie that year.

I know a lot of people who shirk Moulin Rouge! because of its crazy, flamboyant, musical nature, and if that’s not typically your thing, fine. I get it. But I think Moulin Rouge! is the type of film that’s surprisingly, unexpectedly enjoyable for those who go in not really into it, and incredibly fabulous for everyone already predisposed to like it. So it’s a win-win. What more can you ask for? Kylie Minogue as an absinthe fairy hallucination? Done!

MY MOVIE SHELF: Cold Mountain

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 304  Days to go: 293

Movie #69: Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain is almost two different movies altogether. At first, it is a slow, mournful tale of the delicate beginnings of love being snatched away from two shy, quiet souls at the start of the Civil War. Inman (Jude Law) goes off to fight, as all men of a certain age must. Ada (Nicole Kidman) waits for him to return. Things fall apart for both of them, and they can no longer bear this separation, even if they barely know what it’s like to be together. The movie — this first part — is an embodiment of sorrow and longing. It wrenches my heart with each sweeping vista and soaring note of its score. When Ada begs, “Come back to me,” I can feel her need as if it were my own. And then, suddenly, Ruby Thewes (Renee Zellweger) shows up and breathes life and hope into the whole wide world. It’s such a dramatic shift in tone, as I said, it’s hard to believe the two halves exist in the same film.

Mind you, the worlds of Ada and Inman — and Ruby, for that matter, and Sally (Kathy Baker) and Sara (Natalie Portman) and Stobrod (Brendan Gleeson) and nearly everyone else — is still swathed in misery after Ruby’s arrival. The war has ravaged the land, the population, and the whole society of the South. The people are at the mercy of the Home Guard and the marauding Yankees, both of whom viciously abuse the power they have over everyone else, acting solely in their own interests, to their own ends, for their own amusement. Ruby doesn’t change that. What Ruby does, however, is take action. She is not one to sit back and let life happen to her. She is a woman of strength and determination who will not abide foolishness or laziness or mistreatment. She saves poor Ada’s life, no doubt about it, simply with her force of will and take-charge personality. And she faces everything in front of her with integrity and verve. “I despise a flogging rooster.”

When Ruby discovers her father still alive, the first time, she is justifiably angry yet also thrilled. When she thinks he’s been foolishly killed again, she is mad and frustrated and heartbroken. When she finds him alive the second time, she is awash with relief and fear. Ruby is fully realized in this way, capable of experience a broad spectrum of emotions about a single event because of all that came before it. She has a past and a future and a strong presence equally matched by her point of view. I love Ruby. If I had another baby girl, I would name her Ruby in a heartbeat and sing to her all the time, “Ruby with the eyes that sparkle.”

The movie uses vignettes throughout to represent the passage of time, the changing conditions, and the various trials of both the folks back at Cold Mountain and Inman as he makes his way back there on foot. Like the dozens of letters Ada writes, we see a small sampling of events: the death of her father (Donald Sutherland), the continuing encroachment of the Home Guard, the crows in the well, Ruby’s firm and vital charge of the farm, Sally’s tragedy, and brief glimpses of happiness shared with Stobrod, Pangle (Ethan Suplee) and Georgia (Jack White). Meanwhile, Inman’s journey is long and arduous and fraught with danger. He encounters the Reverend (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) twice and is appalled how a man of God can be so full of sin. At Junior’s (Giovanni Ribisi) house, the inhabitants are dirty and debauched but rewarded for their dishonesty. Maddy (Eileen Atkins) saves Inman’s life and nurses him back to health, even though it could be a risk to her and even though she has very little herself. And the young widow Sara offers him shelter and allows him to comfort her, but shows no mercy to the Yankee soldiers who would show her none. All these people have been changed by the war, some becoming opportunistic and jaded, others becoming hardened but no less human, and Inman finds that he, too, struggles to keep his head above water and to still be a man worthy of someone like Ada waiting for him. All he wants is that peace and the quiet contentment of home. It keeps him moving forward, intent on fulfilling her request. “Come back to me. Come back to me is my request.”

The vignettes also work well in highlighting how Ada and Inman’s entire relationship is just a collection of moments — brief, stolen moments — and very few words shared between them. Their love, if they have one, is more idealized fantasy than reality, and yet it’s stronger and more compelling than everything else around them, as it keeps them both going — moving forward toward each other. Their reunion is similarly brief, similarly stolen. It’s the moment she realizes the man before her is him, the moment they talk by the fire, the moment they trade vows — “I marry you. I marry you. I marry you.” And it’s the sweet, fleeting moments of their lovemaking — the moment between marriage and death.

In 2004 I was in L.A. on Oscar night (of all Renee Zellweger’s performances, I’m so glad this is the one she got an Oscar for), standing outside the Vanity Fair party when Jude Law arrived. I fell in love with him as Inman — that quiet, simple longing and fortitude of his — and shouted “I marry you” three times across the throngs of photographers. But I’m not sure it counts if he doesn’t say it back. It’s just as well, though, because my husband now infuses me with that same feeling. Our lengthy separations (due to the nature of his job) keep me always looking forward to and longing for our time together, so much that I cherish it all the more. And every day I’m without him I fill myself up with all the things I’m going to say the next time we talk; I’m forever composing messages to him in my head. And if (God forbid) I ever were to lose him, I’d still be writing to him every day. That’s what love is, to me.

Cold Mountain is a film about the preservation and perseverance of love, about the constancy of it, even through hard times and tragedies. I carry that message with me, inside my heart, always. “I like that.”