A Hole in My Movie Viewing

I was aware of the 2003 movie Holes, in as much as I knew the title and knew it was the movie that gave us (inflicted upon us?) Shia LaBeouf. I didn't really have it in my mind as something ever to watch. But it showed up on HBO or something one night, and my husband suggested we watch it.

Let me tell you, this is a really strange movie to go into not knowing just what it is you're going to see. Twenty minutes in, it appears that it's going to be Cool Hand Luke with teenagers. ("Are we watching a child prison movie?!") Then you get these strange flashbacks that initially feel untethered to anything else in the plot, a who's who of 2000s television starring Patricia Arquette and Dulé Hill. Next thing I know... "wait, Sigourney Weaver is in this movie?"

The movie pretty much continues on like that, whipping this way and that, and surprising at pretty much every step. Only after a considerable chunk of its two hour run time do the pieces begin to come together and indicate that yes, there is a method to the madness. Say whatever else you want about the film, it certainly fits together tightly. In a mostly satisfying way, too.

But it's also so lightweight in tone that it's hard for it to ever get that satisfying. There is some truly serious stuff at play in this movie: institutional poverty, child detention policy, racism, illiteracy. And it's not like I seriously expect a kids movie to treat all that in the most dramatic manner. But it's all yoked to other material of a jarringingly different tone. The lead character's family feels ripped from the Nutty Professor or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. A plot thread about the pursuit of hidden gold is like adding a dash of The Goonies. An incapable and ineffective authority figure (played by Jon Voight) is a pinch of Dukes of Hazzard or something. This movie shops at the "story grocery" like a Supermarket Sweep contestant, something hapzahardly tossed into the cart from every aisle.

Still, some of the performances rise to the top like cream. Sigourney Weaver makes a delicious villain -- and I wonder if this was among the first in her string of such roles. Patricia Arquette might feel like she's in an entirely different movie, but she's perfect for the "movie" she's in. There's something a bit Westworld about her vibe here, something that Evan Rachel Wood might have been inspired by for her performance in that show. Hell, even Shia LaBoeuf isn't half bad.

Though the parts of the movie do ultimately connect, it's nothing to blow your mind. It was a pleasant enough watch, if a bit of an odd choice to pluck out of the air. I give Holes a B-.