A quarter of the tax breaks given to movie companies under Massachusetts’ film tax credit program have gone to help filmmakers cover the paychecks of millionaire Hollywood stars.

An Associated Press review of a Department of Revenue report on the tax credit program found that $82 million of the $330 million in film spending eligible for credits in 2009 went to pay the salaries of nonresident actors earning more than $1 million.

Under the program a filmmaker can apply for a tax credit equal to 25 percent of a film’s production and payroll costs.

In 2009, film companies applied for a total of $82.4 million in credits in Massachusetts.

Critics have complained the state shouldn’t be giving what amounts to tax subsidies for Hollywood stars, but supporters say that without the program, there would be virtually no feature films shot in Massachusetts.

The Department of Revenue considers every feature film shot in Massachusetts in 2009 as new spending directly related to the tax credit program. Forty-four states and the District of Columbia also have film tax credit programs, some more generous than Massachusetts.

While movie star wages make up sizable chunk of the tax credits, the salaries of Massachusetts workers also factored into the equation.

The report said film companies paid more than $42 million in salaries and wages to local workers in 2009. Supporters of the film credit program said those jobs wouldn’t exist without the tax breaks.

“What we consider most important about the film tax credit is its long-term results, including the jobs created not only within the film industry but in local businesses,” said Joe Maiella, president of Massachusetts Production Coalition, which represents the film industry.

Supporters of the tax break point out that movie stars do not directly receive a tax break. Instead the film companies that hire them are able to use their salaries, and other production costs, to request tax credits.

David Lindsay-Abaire may have come up with the perfect exchange for two parents arguing over the grief of losing a child.

“I was just trying to make things nice.”

“You can’t. You just can’t. Things aren’t nice any more.”

In “Rabbit Hole,” a husband and wife are eight months into the emptier lives they now lead after losing their son. And things aren’t “nice” any more, and possibly never will be nice again.

It’s a “Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars” movie. Becca, played by Nicole Kidman in a surprisingly full-blooded, brittle and fuming performance, is Becca, a woman deep in the rabbit hole of grief and in denial about it. She can’t or won’t let go of her emotions and as the cliche goes, “get it all out.” She is moving on but shutting down.

Howie (Aaron Eckhart, very good in a turn pitched as a practical, more emotional counterpoint) is the one trying to fix things, to get them to support group meetings. He seems further along in the process, but is he? Maybe he’s just starting to resent the distance that’s come between them, emotional and sexual.

“It’s been eight months.”

“Oh? So who’s keeping track?”

“I’m keeping track.”

Becca gardens with a manic intensity, throwing herself into their beautiful waterfront home, impulsively removing traces of their son from their life. And nobody — not Howie, not Becca’s dizzy, working class mom (Diane Wiest, adding another stunning characterization to her resume), not the folks they meet in the parents’ group (including Sandra Oh) can snap her out of it.

Kidman sparkles in scene after withering scene, rolling her eyes and then exploding at other grieving parents for going on and on about how “God must’ve needed another angel” as a way of coping with their loss.  Becca’s story arc will take her back to the source of their loss.

Eckhart’s Howie treads a more dangerous path. He starts going to support group meetings by himself, and his vulnerability and a liberal application of pot set him up for an affair.

Meanwhile, things at home go from bad to worse as these two people at opposite ends of the grief spectrum re-debate the way their child died, accuse one another of not grieving enough and deliver jolting details of what a parent faces every day in a house that their child once lived in. When Kidman, voice-cracking, assures Howie that she sees the boy’s fingerprints on a doorway, we get it and wonder how anybody moves on from that sort of loss.

Lindsay-Abaire, who adapted his play for this surprisingly tender film from the director of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” John Cameron Mitchell, packs a lot of living, remembering, grieving and healing into 90-odd minutes. Characters — Howie, Becca, Becca’s mom and Oh as the too-long-in-group-therapy parent — begin at one point, show us who they are, and then, out of nowhere, peel off a layer and become someone else.

That’s the marvel of “Rabbit Hole,” which opened in some cities in late December, and reaches Orlando Jan. 14. The film sets us up to judge and then upends those judgments.  It’s a long journey back, the movie suggests, and any means you use to get out of that hole is allowed.

That message, this script and these actors make “Rabbit Hole” one of the best films of 2010.

See for Yourself
“Rabbit Hole”

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, Diane Wiest, Sandra Oh

Director: John Cameron Mitchell

Running time:  1 hour 31 minutes

Rating: PG-13 for mature thematic material, some drug use and language.

(01-12) 18:59 PST LOS ANGELES, (AP) —

“Tangled” ascended to the top of the international box office race in its seventh weekend of release, jumping from sixth place in 21 territories to the top spot in 28 territories and earning $24.8 million as it crosses the $350 million mark in worldwide revenue.

Astonishingly, at No. 2, the Italian comedy “Ma che Bella Giornata” (translated as “But What a Beautiful Day”) earned an incredible $24.3 million in just two international territories in its debut weekend, with nary a North American screen in sight.

In notable action outside of the top five, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1” crossed the $900 million mark in global revenues, fueled by an $8.4 million weekend in an impressive 40 international territories after just two months in release.

Here are the top 20 movies at international theaters last weekend, followed by international gross for the weekend (excluding North America), number of theater locations, number of territories, worldwide gross to date (including North America), and number of weeks in release as compiled Wednesday by global media measurement company Rentrak Corp. and provided by Hollywood.com:

1. “Tangled,” $24,745,055, 5,129 locations, 28 territories, $350,496,102, seven weeks.

2. “Ma Che Bella Giornata,” $24,286,111, four locations, two territories, $24,971,340, one week.

3. “The Tourist,” $19,257,529, 5,123 locations, 43 territories, $161,088,229, five weeks.

4. “Little Fockers,” $19,142,084, 7,298 locations, 40 territories, $233,665,110, 24 weeks.

5. “Gulliver’s Travels,” $15,392,425, 5,083 locations, 24 territories, $95,533,406, three weeks.

6. “Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” $11,914,063, 6,773 locations, 44 territories, $318,599,262, six weeks.

7. “Tron Legacy,” $10,552,856, 5,160 locations, 38 territories, $282,323,324, four weeks.

8. “The King’s Speech,” $8,455,667, 1,279 locations, four territories, $51,724,343, seven weeks.

9. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1,” $8,398,980, 4,158 locations, 40 territories, $910,775,383, eight weeks.

10. “Unstoppable,” $8,206,293, 984 locations, 12 territories, $139,504,549, nine weeks.

11. “Season of the Witch,” $6,916,301, 3,260 locations, six territories, $18,283,137, one week.

12. “Megamind,” $6,897,952, 3,606 locations, 38 territories, $293,122,453, 10 weeks.

13. “Hereafter,” $6,655,831, 322 locations, nine territories, $39,571,721, 13 weeks.

14. “Eyyvah Eyvah 2,” $5,813,364, 426 locations, three territories, $5,813,368, one week.

15. “Love and Other Drugs,” $5,472,787, 1,184 locations, 15 territories, $49,726,648, seven weeks.

16. NA

17. “Burlesque,” $3,610,859, 1,053 locations, 18 territories, $56,080,023, seven weeks.

18. “The Next Three Days,” $3,495,953, 1,270 locations, 16 territories, $40,675,321, eight weeks.

19. “Nutcracker: the Untold Story,” $3,375,712, 15 locations, four territories, $12,172,437, three weeks.

20. “127 Hours,” $3,357,380, 398 locations, one territory, $14,257,536, 10 weeks.

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Paul Dergarabedian is president of the Box Office Division of Hollywood.com and a longtime box office analyst for The Associated Press.

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Online:

www.Hollywood.com/boxoffice

www.rentrak.com