Travesty

Rabbit Hole was probably an excellent theater production, and probably warranted the interest to adapt it into a screenplay, thus resulting in the current film of the same name featuring excellently solid performances by each Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart and Dianne Wiest, as well as the ensemble itself.  There are some disappointing pencil lines still visible on this finished painting though, and the sketch marks are mostly aesthetic crutches that should have either been removed or replaced. 

The film implements socio-economics to convey the disparity between several of the main characters in a way that is very transparent making it feel like the viewer can see how the writer(s) needed to kickstart a beginning by dividing characters into different buckets according to the kinds of cars they might drive which brings me to the initial transparency of this film that loosened the boulder of its trite visual and characterization aesthetics. 

Kidman and Eckhart's characters are married and seemingly well to do in a classic Ethan Allen white picket fence sense; ok, I can accept that as this couple's circumstances until it becomes a blatant imposition on the plot, as in, trying to convey their socio-economics actually pulls me out of the story.  The latter is especially egregious when it does so unconvincingly.  My first clue: the couple owns two new'ish model vehicles, hers a Mercedes Benz SUV and his a Saab sedan.  (The movie having been released in 2010 this is before Spyker obtained Saab), so I'm not buying that this upper middle class, apparently discerning (because they read and they utilize the iPhone) couple would have in the same garage a vehicle of German engineering and the other fairly hot off the GMC press.  Be that as it may (and I'm sure there is some couple who actually suffers this vehicular mismarriage), I felt like this was the hangnail to irritate my sense of disbelief.  The story was strong; the plot was well-executed (although I think the drama is more akin to its original theatrical setting because the subtleties innate to film bland it out a bit); the acting was all around excellent.  It was the visual aesthetics which were trite. 

Once becoming conflagrated over the vehicle misappropriation, it irked me that "they" tried so hard to get Eckhart into Banana Republic sweaters and over-design the kitchen set to drip Pottery Barn, and this all the more wasp-y white in sharp contrast to the overt chain link fence and African American token character in order to distribute an "other side of the tracks" feel to the other half of the caste (pun intended).  Not necessary.  Demographics can be entirely relevant to a story in which they legitimately augment it and/or perpetuate the storyline, but demographics was a shortcut that this production used to get at plot points, and it could have stood very well without those pencil lines.  Rabbit Hole the film is a lot like a delicious homemade cherry pie still sitting in its pan with the Le Creuset label pointedly facing the audience, as if to say maybe the guest will think the pie is good because it was baked in this known to be nice form, but the pie would have been better left to stand alone on any old plate.  I didn't want to see this film's panty lines, and when they come in the form of automotive incongruency, I have to holler.

Life sometimes can be travesty.
Travesty: –noun 

  a literary or artistic burlesque of a serious work or subject, characterized by grotesque or ludicrous incongruity of style, treatment, or subject matter