White Rabbit

Though swathed in good intentions, White Rabbit comes off as a generic and often painfully slow drama whose problems are compounded by a bland and thoroughly forgettable protagonist. The familiar narrative follows put-upon teenager Harlon (Nick Krause) as he attempts to survive an abusive household and a bully-filled high-school experience, with the character’s only respite a tentative friendship with a fellow outsider named Julie (Britt Robertson). Filmmaker Tim McCann, working from Anthony Di Pietro’s screenplay, proves unable to draw the viewer into the deliberately-paced proceedings to a decidedly disastrous extent, as there’s simply nothing contained within the thin storyline for one to wholeheartedly latch onto – with Krause’s terminally lackluster ensuring that one’s continuing efforts to sympathize with his increasingly unstable character fall completely flat. It’s consequently clear that Harlon’s transformation from a nice, normal teen to a seriously unhinged figure isn’t able to pack the punch McCann has aimed for, with the perpetually uninvolving atmosphere preventing the emotional final stretch from even partially justifying all that precedes it. White Rabbit is, in the end, a wholly misguided endeavor that fails on most of the levels it attempts, with Krause’s distractingly amateurish performance merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of the film’s many faults.

*1/2 out of ****