Rabbit Hole was the best movie I saw in 2010. John Cameron Mitchell’s honest portrait of grieving parents trying to piece their lives back together following the death of their child punches you hard in the gut, then holds out a hand and pulls you back up in its comforting embrace. It was brilliant, so I’m incredibly encouraged by the news that the movie's lead, Nicole Kidman, will team with the movie's screenwriter, David Lindsay-Abaire, for The Family Fang, which sounds a little lighter, at the very least.
The plot comes from author Kevin Wilson's best-seller, which casts Kidman as part of a married couple of performance artists, according to Deadline, but the story focuses on their kids, who routinely get pulled into the mom and dad’s bizarre displays. The central plot thread involves the parents' desire to stage their last great act ... and the anxiety that creates in the entire family. It sounds like this material could be played for laughs. Then again, it could go the opposite way, so we’ll wait and see how it shakes out.
Lindsay-Abaire has been on a tear as of late. He recently received a Tony Award nomination for his show Good People, and he penned the screenplay for Sam Raimi’s Oz: The Great and Powerful. That anticipated prequel to the legendary Wizard of Oz stars James Franco, Mila Kunis and Michelle Williams.
Kidman, meanwhile, can next be seen in the HBO production of Hemingway & Gelhorn with Clive Owen before appearing in Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy, which will be at the Cannes Film Festival. Not enough? Good, because she also has Park Chan-wook’s Stoker, Railway Man with Colin Firth, and Grace Of Monaco, where she’ll play the title role.
