PLOT: A divorced mother (Sarah Snook), reeling from the recent death of her father, begins to have disturbing interactions with her daughter, Mia (Lily LaTorre), who has started having inexplicable temper tantrums.
REVIEW: Run Rabbit Run is a low-key psychological thriller offering star Sarah Snook an excellent showcase. Already famous for her role on Succession (and a cult icon for the underrated Predestination), Snook is expertly cast as Sarah, a fertility doctor amid a harrowing ordeal. When we first meet her character, Sarah, she seems to have a decent life, despite his lingering disappointment over the disintegration of her marriage to her decent ex (Damon Herriman). She’s civil with her ex’s new family and has an idyllic relationship with her daughter, Mia, who she affectionately calls Bunny. Yet, coinciding with the arrival of a rabbit who wanders into their home, Mia throws weird tantrums. At first, her behavior is just annoying, wearing a pink bunny mask at all times, but it gets more unnerving. She begins to refer to herself as Alice, which happens to be the name of Sarah’s sister, who disappeared at seven years old, the age Mia is now.
While there is a Midnight selection here at Sundance, Run Rabbit Run isn’t a horror movie. It’s a deep dive into generational trauma, offering Snook a complicated and not altogether innocent role to play. We never really know whether Mia is actually acting out the way Sarah perceives or whether or not this is all in her head and the result of something more deep-seated. It’s almost a two-hander for Snook and young Lily LaTorre, who spend large chunks of the movie alone. We watch Sarah evolve from a lovely mother into someone that might be unhinged, with her decaying mental state not apparent to anyone, except perhaps Mia.
LaTorre, while young, is good as Mia/Alice, with director Daina Reid and Hannah Kent, leaving her ultimate behavior ambiguous. She could be a possessed hellion, but she could also be an abused child at the hands of her mother, and what she is or isn’t is left up for us to decide. While Snook and LaTorre dominate, Greta Sacchi also has a good role as Sarah’s estranged mother, whose riddled with dementia and blames her daughter for Alice’s disappearance. Damon Herriman has a small part as Sarah’s nice guy ex, although he seems a bit naive to what’s going on with his daughter and ex-wife until very late into the proceedings.
Reid also uses the isolation of the outback in Australia to excellent effect, with the last act mostly taking place in a remote outback home. It’s slickly made, with Reid a veteran of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Shining Girls (star Elisabeth Moss was originally supposed to play the Snook part). While a lack of traditional genre elements may turn off those expecting a horror film given the midnight slot, Run Rabbit Run, which just got picked up by Netflix, should play well on streaming and is further evidence of how gifted of an actress Snook can be.