KING OF THE HILL: There's poor, and then there's Depression poor. I'm
talking about The Great Depression of the Thirties, a brutal time of
breadlines and tent cities, of starvation and suicides so routine they
went unreported. Upon this melodramatic but dirt-real canvas,
writer-director Steven Soderbergh--the wunderkind best known for sex,
lies, & videotape--has drawn a stunning picture of a twelve-year-old
boy's desperate, daring struggle to endure. Basing his narrative on A.
E. Hotchner's autobiographical novel, Soderbergh sets the scene
primarily in a seedy St. Louis hotel where the hapless Kurlander family
faces imminent eviction. Dad's a customerless salesman who'll soon be
hitting the road, Mother's a conspicuous consumptive--sanitarium-bound,
at best--and brave little brother is about to board a bus destined for
distant relatives. So, long before we have penetrated the core of this
resonant drama, young Aaron Kurlander--acted with charm and unwavering
credibility by Jesse Bradford--is left to fend for himself among the
inhabitants of the Empire Hotel, from the poignantly needy to the
repulsively greedy.
Will he scrounge the pennies for the bakery buns to quiet his rumbling
belly, scavenge a suit to wear to his grade-school graduation, live to
see the day when his loving but unlucky family is reunited? If this all
sounds too drearily Dickensian to fill your entertainment bill, then
I've described it wrong. For Soderbergh's compassionate study of our
past--with its clear but unstrident message for our present--is, in the
end, an exhilarating adventure woven with respect for the human spirit.
Another reason to rejoice: a superb cast that includes Lisa Eichhorn,
Jeroen Krabbe, and Cameron Boyd as downtrodden Kurlanders; Adrien Brody
as Aaron's role model, a teenager with a gift for theft; Karen Allen as
a teacher who learns more sad truths than she needs to know; Elizabeth
McGovern and Spalding Gray as a prostitute and her perpetual trick;
Amber Benson as the mysterious girl down the hall; and Joe Crest as the
slimiest bellhop ever to peep into a keyhole. They all help make King a
royal pleasure.
Copyright © 1993 Hearst Corporation