Holes (2003)

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I remember how big a deal it was when Louis Sachar’s novel, Holes, was released! I feel it quickly became a new classic in young adult literature that everyone would eventually read. I myself read it when I was younger, although to be honest, I didn’t remember much from the novel other than a character who ate sunflower seeds.

It wouldn’t be long before a film adaptation of the novel would be made, however I never saw it until now. Read on for my review of the Disney/Walden Media film, Holes!

And remember, SPOILERS AHEAD!

Directed by Andrew Davis, the film introduces us to Stanley Yelnats IV, a young teenager, played by Shia LaBeouf. He is often the bearer of bad luck which his grandfather tells him is due to an 150 year-old curse which started because of Stanley’s great-grandfather.

One day in particular though, Stanley is walking minding his own business when a pair of shoes fall on him from above. He doesn’t know where they’ve come from, but as his bad luck would have it, they happen to be stolen shoes and the police think he’s the one who stole them.

As a result, he’s sent to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile detention camp of sorts seemingly in the middle of a desert. At the camp, he along with a group of other “juvenile delinquents” must dig holes in the desert to build character.

If they find anything interesting in the holes, they must inform either Mr. Sir, a no-nonsense sunflower seed-chewing overseer, played by Jon Voight, or Dr. Pedanski, a camp psychiatrist of sorts, played by Tim Blake Nelson. They will then inform the Warden of the discovery and if the Warden likes it, the boy who found it will get a day off from digging holes.

At the camp, Stanley meets the other boys in the group he’s been assigned to.

As it turns out, the other boys don’t like using their real names and instead use nicknames such as Armpit, Zig-Zag, Squid, X-Ray, Magnet, and Zero. At first, the other boys treat Stanley like an outsider, but when he stands up to a bully, they warm up to him and give him the nickname, Caveman.

As the digging goes on, we learn through flashbacks the histories of both Stanley’s ancestral curse as well as Camp Green Lake.

As for the curse, it started in Latvia with one of Stanley’s ancestors named Elya Yelnats who fell in love with a girl and wanted to marry her. He goes to the local shaman lady, Madame Zeroni, played by Eartha Kitt, for advice. She tells him he must take a piglet up the mountain every day until it becomes big and strong and then must come back and take Madame Zeroni up the mountain. He does this with the pig, but the girl ends up marrying someone else, so he gets despondent and moves to America. Because he didn’t take Madame Zeroni up the mountain, he and all his descendants are cursed.

As for Camp Green Lake, it was once your typical Western town wherein lived a schoolteacher, Kate Barlow, played by Patricia Arquette. She falls in love with an African-American onion seller, Sam, played by Dulé Hill, and the two are spotted kissing one day. This enrages the townspeople to see a white woman kiss a black man and they go after Sam and kill him. Even the Sheriff doesn’t prevent this from happening.

In her grief, Kate reimagines herself as an outlaw known as Kissin’ Kate Barlow who robs, kills, and then kisses the men she kills on the head or cheeks as her calling card. Elya’s son, Stanley Yelnats Sr., comes across Kissin’ Kate Barlow and while he isn’t killed, he’s robbed and left to fend for himself in the desert, another example of the Yelnats curse.

Returning back to the present-day, Stanley finds what appears to be a shotgun shell in one of the holes he’s digging. He wants to turn it in, but one of the other boys wants it for himself to turn in, which Stanley acquiesces to.

The other boy reports it to Dr. Pedanski (claiming he found it in his hole) who alerts the Warden. The Warden, played by Sigourney Weaver, is pleased with this finding and the boy gets his day off work. She then wants his hole to be dug further hoping to find more interesting things, but nothing else is found since it wasn’t his hole that the shotgun shell was found in. So it’s back to the drawing board!

The youngest boy there, Zero, played by Khleo Thomas, was always friendlier to Stanley than the other boys and would open up to him. He makes a deal with Stanley that if he teaches him how to read, he will help Stanley dig his hole. Stanley agrees to this arrangement, but this causes the other boys to feel resentment.

This leads to a fight which Dr. Pedanski tries to break up. However due to his constant berating of Zero, Zero runs away from the camp. Since it’s considered impossible to survive in the desert, nobody goes after Zero assuming he will be dead soon. However, Stanley later runs away from the camp as well in pursuit of Zero, after trying to steal Mr. Sir’s truck and ending up crashing it in a ditch.

Stanley finds Zero who hasn’t died due to finding what he calls “sploosh” to drink. It’s actually leftover canned peach juice from back when Camp Green Lake was a Western town. How that hasn’t spoiled by now, I dunno! The two take refuge in a nearby mountain which Stanley has to carry Zero up as he starts to feel sick.

Apparently Zero’s last name is Zeroni which means he’s a descendant of Madame Zeroni. So Stanley carrying him up the mountain actually breaks the Yelnats curse, although he doesn’t realize it at the time.

After Zero gets better, he reveals that he’s responsible for Stanley being in Camp Green Lake as he was the one who stole the shoes. He was homeless for a while as his mom went missing and he decided to steal the shoes. When he saw the police were after him, he tossed the shoes over a bridge underneath which Stanley had been walking. That’s how Stanley got hit with the shoes from above. Stanley isn’t upset and accepts this as part of fate.

Eventually, the two sneak back to the camp at night and dig further in Stanley’s hole to find a treasure chest. The Warden, Mr. Sir, and Dr. Pedanski find them and we learn that the Warden’s grandfather was from the original Camp Green Lake and was always searching for Kissin’ Kate Barlow’s treasure. Ever since then, the Warden took up the search which is why she started this whole hole-digging juvenile detention scheme hoping that one of the boys would find the treasure.

The boys refuse to hand it over to the Warden, but before she can get violent, Stanley’s lawyer arrives with a Texas ranger. His lawyer had come earlier for Stanley, but was concerned when the Warden wouldn’t let her see Stanley (as he had run away by then), so she’s returned with a Texas ranger. We also discover that Mr. Sir is a paroled criminal and Dr. Pedanski is impersonating a doctor. The ranger arrests the trio and Camp Green Lake is shut down.

Stanley is free to go and insists that Zero be released with him too. They take the treasure chest back to Stanley’s house where he’s reunited with his mother, father, and grandfather, played by Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Henry Winkler, and Nathan Davis, respectively. The treasure chest actually has the name “Stanley Yelnats” embedded on it, so it’s actually the buried treasure chest of Elya’s son, Stanley, who was robbed by Kissin’ Kate Barlow.

Inside are treasures aplenty which they share with Zero. Stanley’s family uses the money to aid with their financial troubles and Zero uses the money to hire private investigators to find his missing mother. The two families then live as neighbors with the other boys from Camp Green Lake coming over for pool parties and barbecues!

And that was Holes! It was a very interesting film and one that I’m really surprised I didn’t remember from reading the book. I really enjoyed how the stories of the past and present-day were woven together via flashbacks.

I thought most of the acting of the kids and camp personnel were really good! The standouts to me were definitely Shia LaBeouf, Khleo Thomas, and Jon Voight! It’s hard for me to believe that Jon Voight in this film and Jon Voight in Disney’s National Treasure which would be released the following year are the same actor!

My criticisms aren’t many. The CG was definitely dated and I felt the film got a bit too long at the end. I also didn’t fully understand whether the treasure chest was full of Kissin’ Kate Barlow’s treasure that Stanley Yelnats (the old one) found or whether this was treasure belonging to Stanley Yelnats himself.

They also added a new kid to the Camp Green Lake group near the end of the film which we barely got to know. It felt like such a weird addition so late in the movie and didn’t need to be included!

I also felt that Stanley’s immediate family was sadly wasted. I mean, you have Henry Winkler in your film and you barely get to use him?? What’s up with that??

Besides that though, this film was a pleasant surprise and one that I’m happy that I watched! Maybe I’ll even re-read the book…maybe…

So, my final score for this film is 30/35 = 85.71% (B) !

The next review will be posted on May 7, 2024.