In a wildly unprecedented move, Netflix has decided to release its next original series one episode at a time, week-to-week. How cutting edge of them! It was announced this week that their series Between, a plague thriller where no one lives past the age of 21, would shun the network’s binge experience model for a more traditional release schedule. It remains to be seen if this opens more doors for Netflix to try out multiple release approaches concurrently (maybe not a bad idea given all the content they are putting out now), but if you are feeling a little anxious about an upcoming lack of binge-worthy films and TV, have no fear. Check out what’s new to all the streaming platforms below!

Netflix

Rabbit Hole (John Cameron Mitchell, 2010)

Starring Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart as grieving parents, Rabbit Hole is one of the most devastating and emotionally complex American films in recent years. Coming off of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Shortbus (two very good films), director John Cameron Mitchell showed unequivocally that he could tell a mainstream drama with just as much care to character and theme. The film delicately grasps the inner struggle and effects on personal relationships after a tragic event. It never asks for melodramatic, cheap tears, instead relying on two intricate character portraits and very good performances to make you all weepy. Also, for fans of sudden star Miles Teller, he is featured in the first role that got him notice—as a teen partly responsible for the tragedy. It is a quiet and powerful performance from the young Teller, very different from the persona we now know, and the first step in his promising career. If you somehow have missed this wonderful film (or avoided it because of its heavy content), grab the tissues and watch it now on Netflix.

Other titles new to Netflix this week:
Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler, 2013)
Late Phases (Adrián García Bogliano, 2014)
The Liberator (Alberto Arvelo, 2013)
Maidan (Sergei Loznitsa, 2014)
Sagrada: The Mystery of Creation (Stefan Haupt, 2012)

Amazon Prime

Art and Craft (Sam Cullman & Jennifer Grausman, 2014)

One of the stranger doc profiles from last year, Sam Cullman and Jennifer Grausman’s Art and Craft is an intimate portrait of Mark A. Landis, possibly the most notorious art forger ever. The weird thing about Landis, though, is that he doesn’t rip off famous pieces of art for fortune, but much more complicated reasons. The doc gets a lot of access to Landis and his process, as well as the people he’s duped over the years. The film really challenges its viewer by presenting a very talented man who is using his gifts in ethically grey ways. Landis is also a very sad and perhaps sick man, adding more complex levels to this portrait and his actions. Ultimately, Art and Craft will make you reconsider questions around artistic license, forgery and intent. For more thoughts on the film, check out our review from earlier this year. Art and Craft is an Amazon Prime exclusive, so you won’t find it streaming anywhere else.

Other titles new to Amazon Prime this week:
Defiance (Season 2)
Slugterra: Slug Flu Showdown (Logan McPherson, 2014)
Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas (Tyler Perry, 2014)

Fandor

Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)

With the 2015 Cannes Film Festival is full swing, Fandor is using its huge selection of Criterion Collection films to highlight past winners at the festival. Tarkovsky’s moody and striking Solaris is among them. The nearly three-hour epic is the story of a psychologist sent into space and the effects that loneliness, distance and timelessness have on his psyche. Often regarded as one of the greatest and most thoughtful science fiction films ever, Solaris won the Grand Jury prize and esteemed Palm d’or at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. If you’re looking for a great double feature, it can be excellently paired with Christopher Nolan’s recent epic Interstellar, which is available for rent on VOD. Now my weekly reminder: many of Fandor’s selections are only available for a limited time, and Solaris will be streaming until May 24, so don’t wait around if you are interested in this one. Other selections in Fandor’s Cannes collection are Antonioni’s L’eclisse, underseen Lars von Trier Europa, and a few other titles listed below.

Other titles new to Fandor this week:
The Double Life of Veronique (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1991)
Giuseppe Makes a Movie (Adam Rifkin, 2014)
Kwaidan (Masaki Kobayashi, 1964)
A Tale of Winter (Eric Rohmer, 1992)
Z (Costa-Gavras, 1969)

Video On-Demand

Slow West (John Maclean, 2015)

Released on VOD the same day as it hits theaters, John Maclean’s feature debut Slow West has garnered incredibly high praise from critics throughout its festival run. When we saw the Western throwback at Tribeca, we said “[Slow West] is the perfect example of a first time filmmaker who knows what he wants and how to invoke talent, making for a visionary and excellently executed film.” The film stars Kodi Smit-McPhee as a teenager travelling west in search of the woman he loves, accompanied by a mysterious man (Michael Fassbender). Now you have the chance to see what is bound to be one of the best indies of 2015 whether its playing in a theater near you or not.

Other titles new to VOD this week:
John Wick (Chad Stahelski & David Leitch, 2014)
Maggie (Henry Hobson, 2015)
Still Alice (Richard Glatzer & Wash Westmoreland, 2014)

Rabbit Hole is a raw and painful filled domestic drama that was based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by David Lindsay-Abaire. Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart put on great performances playing characters that have flaws and vulnerabilities. The story is one that is found on day-time television daily, but none are nearly as well done as this.

Rabbit Hole is about a young married couple who are trying their best to cope with the fact they had lost their 4-year-old son, Danny, who had chased their dog into the street and was hit by a car. The couple find it difficult to talk about the subject to each other, let alone friends and family. So instead, they avoid bringing that subject up, which we all know is never the best solution but it is the easiest.

Admitting you have a problem is always the first step, this is something Becca (Nicole Kidman) does not understand. When she and her husband Howie (Aaron Eckhart) go to a support group for parents that have lost their child, it becomes apparent she is ignorant about the situation. She has this sort of passive aggressive attitude about losing her child but eventually she lashes out at a couple who claims God took their child because He needed another angel. Her argument, which is valid but obviously highly inappropriate, is why did He not just make another angel if He needed one?

Going to the support group was only one way they attempted to cope with situation. Howie brings up the fact they have not had sex for eight months now and maybe a new baby is what they need. Becca does not go for that idea but does realize something drastic needs to change.

Becca seems to avoid eating with others frequently, this may be due to the fact she knows the subject will eventually come up about Danny. At the very beginning of the film, a neighbor asks if she wanted to come over for dinner, to which she pretends she already had dinner plans. In a scene shortly later, she rejects her own mom’s offering of cake after her sister refused her offer of Danny’s clothes for her newborn.

As a school bus passes Becca one morning, she gets a glimpse of a boy who we can assume she thinks is her kid. Even red-lights do not stop her in following the bus as she eagerly wants to get a better look. He eventually gets off the bus and enters his home, but that is not the last time she follows that bus. The next time the boy gets off the bus he is off to return a book to the library. She not only follows him into the library but even checks out the same book he returned. The book was appropriately titled, “Parallel Universes” which is both ironic and fitting. Is she just latching one to someone who represents her lost child?

One of the best scenes of the film comes in at about the half-way point, when the two finally explode. It is an incredibly emotional and powerful scene where the stop holding in all the things that have been bothering them. They talk about things that they have avoided to speak about in the first place, mostly pointing fingers on the cause of their child’s death.

The result of that fight puts in perspective how differently the two deal with the loss. Howie is trying to hold on to the memories of Danny. He relishes old videos he took of him and keeps his car-seat in his car. On the other side, Becca is trying to get rid of the things that remind her of Danny. She dreads seeing his fingerprints on the glass door or school paintings that were done by him up on the fridge.

What they do have in common is they both wrongfully take the blame out on other people. They do this both physically and vocally. The scenes these take place are done well enough to evoke emotion as you start to feel for them.You start finding yourself rooting for these characters as they expose themselves with their raw emotional outbursts.

Another thing they share in common is each of them has their own secrets. Howie smokes pot with a lady from the support group and Becca is spending time with the boy she follows from school. Both end up finding out about each other’s secrets and realize it was yet another way of them dealing with the pain.

They both tried so hard to change their lives in hopes that the pain would just go away. They found out that does not work. The moral of the story is that it does not go away, you will carry the memory around. It is something that you just need to accept and try to move on with in life.

Kidman and Eckhart do nothing short of spectacular work here. The interactions between them seem as natural as they would from a young married couple in their situation. Where they excel most at are the most difficult parts, subtle details. The way Kidman’s character seems so passive before she snaps slightly. Her performance led to a well-deserved Oscar nomination for Best Actress as well as a Golden Globe nomination.

For me, the best part about Rabbit Hole is how it showed each of the characters coping differently yet at the same time how similar their behaviors were became. Not only that, but showing the characters putting on their brave face but then also exposed with their guard down was fantastically done. Because the general story is not at all interesting, Rabbit Hole is surprisingly better than you might expect.