MOVIE REVIEW

Holes (2003)

Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Sigourney Weaver, Patricia Arquette, Khleo Thomas, Tim Blake Nelson, Jon Voight
Director: Andrew Davis

Rating: PG

Studio: Walt Disney

Review Posted: 4.18.03

Spoilers: Minor

By Sara Michelle Fetters

"A Hole in One"

Having never read Louis Sachar’s acclaimed novel Holes, I admit I didn’t know what quite to expect from director Andrew Davis’ latest. The director of The Fugitive hasn’t exactly been on a hot streak of late, what with costly disasters like Chain Reaction and Collateral Damage taking up valuable space on his resume. What more, the violent action maestro seems like a highly unlikely choice to helm such a kid-oriented picture, leaving me scratching my head just pondering what this film could possibly be like well before I’d actually seen it.

Now that I have, let me just say I’m seriously considering going again. Davis does a splendid job with the film, Holes being far more complex and adult that it would appear in the trailers. Featuring excellent performances across the board, especially from its gifted young cast of newcomers, and an amazingly surreal ethereal quality, which achieves a near haunting like effect, Holes is one of the better films to come along this year.

The male members of the Yelnats family are troubled. For a hundred years they’ve been the victim of a curse due to the unwitting forgetfulness of patriarch Elya (Damien Luvara) placed upon them by the mysterious Madame Zeroni (Earth Kitt) just before he made the Trans-Atlantic journey to America, a curse which has touched the lives of every male member since.

Poor Stanley Yelnats IV (Shia LaBeouf) definitely believes. His father (Henry Winkler) is a never-been-successful inventor currently working on a cure for shoe odor, while his grandfather (Nathan Davis) has faced more unexplainable disappointment in his life than can be recounted. Even the first Stanley (Allan Kolman) – all the male members in the Yelnats family are named Stanley; it’s their last name spelled backwards – in America suffered from his own string of bad luck, making millions in the stock market only to have it stolen by legendary outlaw Kissin' Kate Barlow (Patricia Arquette).

Now young Stanley has to face first hand this strange Zeroni curse placed upon his family as he is sent to the waterless Camp Greenlake – a work camp for wayward youth – wrongly convicted of stealing a famous baseball player’s (Rick Fox) shoes. The camp’s mysterious warden Linda Walker (Sigourney Weaver), along with her assistant Mr. Sir (Jon Voight) and camp doctor Mr. Pedanski (Tim Blake Nelson), have the boys head into the desert each morning to dig five-foot deep holes believing the manual labor helps build character. It’s tiring, dirty work, and Stanley discovers quite quickly he’s particularly bad at it.

Soon, however, he starts to wonder why the warden is so interested in anything interesting the boys find in the desert, coming to believe there may be much more to this hole digging than he ever first considered. With the help of a burgeoning friendship with fellow campmate Hector "Zero" Zeroni (Khelo Thomas), Stanley becomes obsessed with finding out. Could the secret of the holes and this friendship with Zero finally be the key that unlocks and frees the Yelnats from their curse?

Holes has a lot on its mind. The film goes forward and backward through time easily and swiftly, essentially telling four stories at once, each linked to the continuous digging of young Stanley. Davis handles each of these stories delicately and with a light touch that borders on brilliance. In fact, one of these tales focuses on a doomed interracial romance, a touchy subject for an adult film let alone one geared towards families. Somehow, director Davis doesn’t sensationalize or dumb down these proceedings instead treating his audience with respect and intelligence believing child and adult alike can handle and decipher the mores of what is going on.

The entire film is like this, though. Sachar’s screenplay is far more adult and complex than I ever would have expected. There is nothing one-dimensional about Holes, and even stock villains like Mr. Sir end up being far more emotionally elaborate creations than I’d usually expect from a film of this type.

The adult actors, while all excellent, are secondary to Holes gifted ensemble of youngsters. While all very good, showcasing a genteel edgy chemistry that’s movingly authentic, it is the central friendship between Stanley and Zero that is most effecting. Known mostly for the Disney channel’s Even Stevens, this is LaBeouf’s first feature film credit, and he’s wonderful as Stanley. His ease at working with the equally gifted Thomas is sublime; the two of them achieving richness to their performances that borders on priceless.

There is so much to like about the film, it is hard to know when to stop praising the movie. I guess I should just stop with commending Disney for saving this small gem of a film from the trash heap. Originally slated for January release in just a handful of theaters, someone at the studio talked their bosses into picking up this quirky independent movie and imprinting it with the Disney moniker.

Good show, for Holes is just the type of edgy, smart and intelligent live-action family adventure the studio used to be known for. While not a picture made expressly for the studio, giving it a second life and a chance at a mass audience still equals a feather in their mouse-eared cap as far as I’m concerned. Holes isn’t just a movie to see, it’s also one to be proud of.

Rating: 3.5 out of 4

TOP