: Holes
I hadn’t read (or even heard of) the children’s book this film was based on, but after seeing the movie, I’m sure I would have loved it when I was younger. The tone is a lot like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It’s a modern tall tale, with absurd reality hilariously presented. The main character is Stanley Yelnats (The last name is the first spelled backwards!), a boy who’s family has a history of bad luck due to a predecessor who failed to keep a promise. The boy is mistakenly arrested for stealing a pair of shoes he finds by accident. Instead of being sent to jail, however, he’s sent to Camp Green Lake, a work program in the middle of the desert. The people there are bizarre. Stanley discovers he and the other “campers” have to dig a five foot wide and five foot deep hole every day, to “build character.” But eventually Stanley figures out the warden is really seeking buried treasure… treasure, it turns out, that is linked to Stanley’s past and the curse on his family! The film’s excellent: the tall tales of the past are told via hilariously campy flashbacks, the modern kids bring a mild edginess to the film that keeps things hip, and the outrageous and bizarre adults make the children all seem rational and normal. The story is great the way everything comes full circle and every little detail is explained, linked through past events to the present, but one thing I really appreciated is that the movie doesn’t try to hammer those links home: they are often subtle and require you to put the last couple of pieces together (as challenging as putting the last piece in the jigsaw puzzle, but at least you’re doing some thinking). For example, the explanation of how the boys didn’t get bitten by the lizards is causually mentioned in one line narration that many might miss (it has to do with what the boys ate to survive in the desert) but it makes total sense and has a nice link to the past. This is a great movie: it’s well written, acted, and directed, and though it seems to be wild and crazy fun, it actually has some serious meaning behind it. There’s a good debating starting point on the nature of Fate and Luck here, and I think many young children who feel like the world’s against them (who doesn’t at that age), might find comfort and inspiration in the plucky attitude of the main character. Excellent. I didn’t see this in theatres because it seemed targeted at kids, but it’s intelligent and doesn’t talk down to kids at all, making it a wonderful experience for adults as well.
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