Susan Granger’s review of “Run Rabbit Run” (Netflix)
If you’ve been intrigued by Sarah Snook as sly Shiv Roy on HBO’s “Succession,” you may find it interesting to see how she tackles a very different role in this Australian psychological thriller.
She plays Sarah, a fertility doctor, raising her daughter Mia (Lily LaTorre) as a single mother in suburban Melbourne. Ever since her seventh birthday when she ‘rescued’ a white rabbit, precocious Mia seems to be acting strangely and attentive Sarah cannot figure out why there’s been such a change in her behavior.
Is it because Mia’s father – Sarah’s ex-husband Peter (Damon Harriman) – and his new wife Denise (Naomi Rukavina) are expecting a baby? Or is Mia being bullied at school? And why is Mia, donning a makeshift rabbit mask, suddenly demanding to see Joan (Greta Scacchi), Sarah’s mother from whom she’s long been estranged.
Reluctantly, Sarah takes Mia to visit her grandmother, who suffers from dementia and lives in a nursing home. When Mia claims to ‘miss’ Joan, Sarah reminds her that she’s actually never met her grandmother, but Mia notes, “I miss people I’ve never met all the time.”
Although Joan greets Mia fondly, she calls her ‘Alice,’ the name of Sarah’s younger sister who mysteriously disappeared many years ago when she was Mia’s age.
Then Mia begins to identify herself as lost-lost Alice, which Sarah finds extremely unnerving. Hoping to clarify family history for Mia, Sarah takes her to the rural, weather-beaten house in windswept Waikerie where she was raised, but that only serves to ensure Mia’s ominous obsession with Alice.
“You’re a terrible person!” Mia screams at distraught Sarah whose mental health is rapidly crumbling as repressed traumas from the past resurface.
Screenwriter Hannah Kent, director Daina Reid and cinematographer Bonnie Elliott have cobbled together a eerie, minimalist glimpse into guilt and motherhood, never quite developing Sarah’s conflicted character and backstory enough to emotionally engage the audience.
And, finally, the creepy, ambiguous symbolism of the white rabbit is far too vague to sustain any aspect of horror.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Run Rabbit Run” is a fearful. frustrating 5, streaming on Netflix.
