FILM REVIEW: HOLES

By Derrick Clements

The following article is not a film review; it's an act of public service.

I am going to attempt to persuade everyone who is within the sound of this paper to go and see the film "Holes." Call it missionary work.

To put it simply, "Holes" is not your average PG Disney movie.

For one thing, an "ordinary" director (with some "extra-ordinary" talents) directed the film: Andrew Davis. Think you've never heard of him? He's the "Fugitive" director (not to be confused with Roman Polanski, the fugitive director).

For another thing, the script is one of the smartest in years. Written by first-time screenwriter Louis Sachar, that's saying something. On top of that, it's a perfect adaptation; in other words, it leaves the important things in, and finds a way to generate the same emotions that the book created with additional scenes or narration. This better way of adapting book-to-movie contrasts with the more common, and less talented, method of leaving the important things in, as well as the less important scenes, then cutting the movie to pieces in the editing room, then releasing a totally cool DVD with 20 hours of bonus footage because the screenwriters couldn't concisely adapt the "brilliant novel."

You know who you are, adapters.

Another thing that makes the script so amazing is that Sachar wrote the award winning, best selling, critically acclaimed novel. This is amazing because writers don't usually like to modify their timeless, critically accepted masterpieces.

I know; I am one.

Most filmmakers know that emotion is an important piece of the story. But often, in movies, these emotions look phony, as if they were only there to create a shield around the vacant story, manipulating the audience into thinking there really is one.

In "Holes," the emotions are genuine, and the story is everything but vacant.

Basically, it's about Stanley Yelnats IV, an unlucky kid who is wrongly convicted of a crime and as a consequence goes to Camp Green Lake, a camp for law-breaking boys where campers are forced to dig one hole a day, every day, five feet across in every direction. The convincingly terrifying Warden (Sigourny Weaver) and her obedient camp assistants (Jon Voight and Tim Blake Nelson) have forced the boys to dig these holes out of the big dry lake in order to "build character."

A number of back-stories soon unravel, and the audience begins to question the simplicity of Camp Green Lake, and the reasons for all the digging.

"Holes" is fast-paced; even beautifully random at times, but it's not choppy. For each conflict or laugh, viewers are given a clue that shows how it all fits together, how each scene relates to Stanley's situation. The audience is allowed, for once, to figure the movie out for themselves. The holes begin to fill on their own.

The intricacy of the plot could have easily been made confusing, and the film would've been deemed by a small cult of critics as "artistic," but audiences probably wouldn't have liked it; audiences don't like movies that are in some sort of code, artistic or not. "Holes" spites silly tradition, proving that it's indeed possible to tell an intricate story so visibly. Audiences are taken right into the middle of the evolving story with bits of humor, action, romance and suspense, making piecing together the film's unresolved middle just as fun as its conclusion.

Well, my work here is done. I leave you now with two words of solemn encouragement:

Dig in.