''Holes'' is a 2003 American neo-Western comedy-drama film directed by Andrew Davis and written by

Louis Sachar Louis Sachar ( ; born March 20, 1954) is an American young-adult mystery-comedy author. He is best known for the ''Wayside School'' series and the novel ''Holes''. ''Holes'' won the 1998 U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature

, based on his novel of the same name, originally published in August 1998. The film stars Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight,

Patricia Arquette Patricia Tiffany Arquette (born April 8, 1968) is an American actress. She made her feature film debut as Kristen Parker in '' A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors'' (1987). Her other notable films include ''True Romance'' (1993), ''Ed Wo ...

, Tim Blake Nelson and Shia LaBeouf. The film was produced by

Chicago Pacific Entertainment Andrew Davis (born November 21, 1946) is an American film director, producer, writer, and cinematographer who is known for directing a number of successful action thrillers including ''Code of Silence'', '' Above the Law'', ''Under Siege'', and ...

in association with

Phoenix Pictures Phoenix Pictures is an American film production company that has produced films since the late 1990s with features including ''Black Swan'' (2010), ''Shutter Island'' (2010), ''The People vs. Larry Flynt'' (1996), '' The Thin Red Line'' (1998), an ...

, presented by

Walden Media Walden Media, LLC or Walden Media is an American film investor, distributor, and publishing company. Its films are based on children's literature, biographies or historical events, as well as documentaries and some original screenplays. The corpo ...

and

Walt Disney Pictures Walt Disney Pictures is an American film production company and subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company. The studio is the flagship producer of live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Studios uni ...

, and distributed in many markets by the

distribution company Distribution (or place) is one of the four elements of the marketing mix. Distribution is the process of making a product or service available for the consumer or business user who needs it. This can be done directly by the producer or service p ...

Buena Vista Buena Vista, meaning "good view" in Spanish, may refer to: Places Canada *Bonavista, Newfoundland and Labrador, with the name being originally derived from “Buena Vista” *Buena Vista, Saskatchewan *Buena Vista, Saskatoon, a neighborhood in ...

. ''Holes'' was released in the United States on April 18, 2003, earning $71.4 million worldwide and received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its cast, faithfulness to its source material, and sense of nostalgia. The film is dedicated to Scott Plank, who died in a car accident six months before the film's release in October 2002.

Plot

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

, the Yelnats family has been cursed to be unlucky, which they blame on their ancestor Elya's failure to keep a promise to fortune teller Madame Zeroni over a century earlier in

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

. One day, Stanley Yelnats IV is wrongfully convicted of stealing a pair of sneakers that were donated to charity by

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

player Clyde "Sweet Feet" Livingston, and is sentenced to 18 months at Camp Green Lake, a juvenile detention camp, in lieu of jail time. Stanley arrives to find that the camp is a dried-up lake run by warden Louise Walker, her assistant Mr. Sir, and camp counselor Dr. Pendanski. Prisoners, known by their nicknames—including Zero, Zig-Zag, Armpit, Squid, X-Ray, and Magnet—spend each day digging holes in the desert; they may earn a day off if they find anything interesting inside the holes. One night, Mr. Sir rescues Stanley from a yellow-spotted lizard, which he warns Stanley are aggressive, venomous, and lethal. After finding a golden lipstick tube initialed K.B. and a fossil, Stanley is accepted into the group and given the nickname Caveman. After taking the blame for Magnet's stealing of Mr. Sir's sunflower seeds, Stanley is taken to the warden's house, where old wanted posters and newspapers lead him to realize that "KB" stands for Katherine "Kissin' Kate" Barlow, a schoolteacher turned outlaw from the past. Walker asks Stanley to grab her box of nail polish and mentions that it contains rattlesnake venom. After he and Mr. Sir explain what happened with the sunflower seeds, Walker injures Mr. Sir and allows Stanley to return to his hole. Camp Green Lake's history is revealed in a series of flashbacks as a flourishing lakeside community in the 19th century. Barlow is wooed by the wealthy Charles "Trout" Walker, whom she rejects, and by an

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

onion seller named Sam, whom she loves. One night, the jealous, racist Walker and the town's citizens burn down the schoolhouse and murder Sam. In retaliation, Barlow kills the local sheriff, who ignored her pleas for help, and becomes an outlaw hunting down Walker's men; at one point, she steals a chest of gold from Stanley Yelnats Sr., Elya's son. Twenty years later, the now-bankrupt Walkers track Barlow down and tell her to hand over her treasure. Barlow refuses and tells them to dig for it, after which she dies from a lizard bite and the Walkers set about digging for the treasure. In the present, when Pendanski mocks Zero, whose name is actually Hector Zeroni, the latter hits Pendanski with a shovel and runs off. After some deliberation, Stanley searches for Hector. The pair have difficulty surviving in the desert without water. Eventually, Stanley carries the ailing Hector up the mountain, where they find a wild field of onions and a source of water, helping them regain strength; at the same time, Stanley unknowingly fulfills his ancestor's promise to the fortune teller and breaks the curse. While camping on the mountain, Hector tells Stanley that he stole Livingston's sneakers and threw them over the bridge to evade the police, only for them to inadvertently hit Stanley's head. Returning to the camp, Stanley and Hector investigate the hole where Stanley found the lipstick and discover a chest before they are discovered by Walker, Mr. Sir, and Pendanski. They soon realize that Walker, who is Trout's granddaughter, is using the inmates to search for Barlow's treasure. The adults are unable to steal the chest from the boys, as the hole has swarmed with lizards, which do not bite Stanley and Hector due to the onions they ate earlier. The adults, puzzled, wait for the lizards to kill the boys. The next morning, the attorney general and Stanley's lawyer arrive, accompanied by Texas Rangers; the chest Stanley found is discovered to have belonged to his namesake great-grandfather. Walker; Mr. Sir, who is revealed to be a paroled criminal named Marion Sevillo; and Pendanski, who is a criminal impersonating a doctor, are arrested. Stanley and Zero are released and it rains in Green Lake for the first time in over 100 years. The Yelnats family claims the chest, which contains jewels, deeds, and promissory notes, which they share with Hector, who uses it to hire private investigators to find his missing mother, and both families live a life of financial ease as neighbors.

Cast

* Shia LaBeouf as Stanley "Caveman" Yelnats IV * Khleo Thomas as Hector "Zero" Zeroni *

Brenden Jefferson Brenden Richard Jefferson (born June 3, 1986) is an American child film and television actor and songwriter. He played X-Ray in the film ''Holes''. Life and career Born in San Bernardino, California, Jefferson was an only child. He made vari ...

as Rex "X-Ray" Washburn * Sigourney Weaver as Warden Louise Walker * Jon Voight as Marion "Mr. Sir" Sevillo *

as Katherine "Kissin' Kate" Barlow * Tim Blake Nelson as Dr. Kiowa "Mom" Pendanski * Jake M. Smith as Alan "Squid" * Byron Cotton as Theodore "Armpit" Johnson * Miguel Castro as José "Magnet" *

Max Kasch Joseph Maxwell Kasch (born December 6, 1985) is an American actor and musician. He played "Zig-Zag" in ''Holes'' (2003), T-Dog in '' Waiting...'' (2005), and Troy in '' Shrooms'' (2007). Early life Kasch was born in Santa Monica, California, t ...

as Ricky "Zig-Zag" * Dulé Hill as Sam, The Onion Man *

Henry Winkler Henry Franklin Winkler, OBE (born October 30, 1945), is an American actor, comedian, author, executive producer, and director. After rising to fame as Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli on the American television series ''Happy Days'', Winkler has ...

as Stanley Yelnats III * Siobhan Fallon Hogan as Tiffany Yelnats * Nathan Davis as Stanley Yelnats Jr. * Noah Poletiek as Brian "Twitch" * Rick Fox as Clyde "Sweet Feet" Livingston * Nicole Pulliam as Mrs. Sweetfeet * Scott Plank as Trout Walker *

Eartha Kitt Eartha Kitt (born Eartha Mae Keith; January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was an American singer and actress known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 recordings of "C'est si bon" and the Christmas novelty song "Santa Ba ...

as Madame Zeroni * Roma Maffia as Attorney Carla Morengo * Zane Holtz as Louis "Barf Bag" *

Shelley Malil Shelley Mathew Malil (; born December 23, 1964) is an Indian-American actor. Malil emigrated to the United States in 1974. He appeared in a number of television shows and films, including ''The 40-Year-Old Virgin'' (2005). In 2010, Malil was co ...

as The Yelnatses' Landlord * Allan Kolman as Stanley Yelnats Sr. * Damien Luvara as Elya Yelnats *

Sanya Mateyas Sanya Mateyas ( hr, Sanja Matejaš) is a Croatian–American actress and singer. She moved to the United States in 1999. She was a leader and a composer for her Los Angeles-based hard-rock band Duda Did It, with an independent album released ...

as Myra Menke *

Ravil Isyanov Ravil Akhmedullovich Isyanov (russian: Равиль Ахмедуллович Исьянов; 20 August 1962 – 29 September 2021) was a Russian actor who appeared in over 70 film and television roles, primarily in the United States. He was most ...

as Morris Menke * Ken Davitian as Igor Barkov * Steve Koslowski as "Lump" * Michael Cavanaugh as Judge Austin Gorg

Production

''Holes'' was filmed in California in the summer of 2002, and produced with a budget of $20 million. When looking for a child actor to play the role of Stanley, director Andrew Davis asked for an actor like "a young

Tom Hanks Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. Known for both his comedic and dramatic roles, he is one of the most popular and recognizable film stars worldwide, and is regarded as an American cultural icon. Ha ...

". Shia LaBeouf, who ended up receiving the role, read the script before reading the original novel. In the original book, Stanley is depicted as obese, shedding considerable weight as the book progresses. The filmmakers chose to drop this aspect from the movie, as they believed it would have been difficult to convincingly portray the loss of weight in a live-action film. The film was shot in several locations, including

Ridgecrest, California Ridgecrest is a city in Kern County, California, United States, along U.S. Route 395 in the Indian Wells Valley in northeastern Kern County, adjacent to the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake (NAWS, or China Lake). It was incorporated as a ...

. LaBeouf was simultaneously doing work for the

Disney Channel Disney Channel, sometimes known as simply Disney, is an American pay television channel that serves as the flagship property of Disney Branded Television, a unit of the Disney General Entertainment Content division of The Walt Disney Compan ...

show '' Even Stevens'', and worked on the film after taping ''Even Stevens''. To show the seven kids' holes being dug gradually throughout the day, different "phases" were used, for each of which the seven holes were given different levels of depth. For the yellow spotted lizards, fourteen bearded dragons were used, four of which were used for the main parts, and the rest used as "background atmosphere lizards".

Release

The film was released theatrically in the United States on April 18, 2003, by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution.

Music

The film's music includes the

Grammy The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pre ...

-winning single "Just Like You" by Keb Mo', and "Dig It" by The D Tent Boys (the actors portraying the D Tent group inmates), which included a video that was played regularly on the

. The soundtrack also includes contributions by the Eels, Devin Thompson,

Dr. John Malcolm John Rebennack Jr. (November 20, 1941 – June 6, 2019), better known by his stage name Dr. John, was an American singer and songwriter. His music encompassed New Orleans blues, jazz, funk, and R&B. Active as a session musician from t ...

Eagle Eye Cherry Eagle-Eye Lanoo Cherry (born 7 May 1968) is a Swedish singer and stage performer. His 1997 single "Save Tonight" achieved commercial success in Ireland, the United States and the United Kingdom, and was voted song of the year in New Zealand. Cher ...

, Fiction Plane,

Little Axe Skip McDonald (born Bernard Alexander, September 1949)Allmusic biography/ref> is an American musician who also performs under the stage name Little Axe. Career Early career Grounded in blues music learned from his father, a steel worker who p ...

Moby Richard Melville Hall (born September 11, 1965), known professionally as Moby, is an American musician, songwriter, singer, producer, and animal rights activist. He has sold 20 million records worldwide. AllMusic considers him to be "among the ...

North Mississippi Allstars North Mississippi Allstars is an American blues and southern rock band from Hernando, Mississippi, founded in 1996. The band is currently composed of brothers Luther Dickinson (guitar, lowebow, vocals) and Cody Dickinson (drums, keyboards, elect ...

, Pepe Deluxé,

Shaggy Shaggy may refer to: People *Shaggy (musician) (born 1968), Jamaican American reggae rapper and singer *Shaggy 2 Dope, half of the hip hop, horrorcore band Insane Clown Posse *Shaggy Flores (born 1973), Nuyorican poet, writer and African diaspora ...

, Stephanie Bentley, and

Teresa James & the Rhythm Tramps Teresa (also Theresa, Therese; french: Thérèse) is a feminine given name. It originates in the Iberian Peninsula in late antiquity. Its derivation is uncertain, it may be derived from Greek θερίζω (''therízō'') "to harvest or rea ...

. The score was composed and conducted by Joel McNeely. # "Dig It" – D-Tent Boys # "Keep'n It Real" –

# "Mighty Fine Blues" – Eels # "

Honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...

" –

# "I'm Gonna Be A Wheel Someday" –

# "Just Like You" –

Keb' Mo' Kevin Roosevelt Moore (born October 3, 1951), known as Keb' Mo', is an American blues musician and five-time Grammy Award winner. He is a singer, guitarist, and songwriter, living in Nashville, Tennessee. He has been described as "a living link ...

# "Everybody Pass Me By" – Pepe Deluxé # "I Will Survive" – Stephanie Bentley # "Shake 'Em On Down" –

# "Don't Give Up" –

# "Happy Dayz" – Devin Thompson # "Let's Make A Better World" –

# "If Only" – Fiction Plane # "Eyes Down" – Eels # "Down To The Valley" –

Reception

Box office

''Holes'' grossed $16.3 million in its opening weekend, finishing #2 at the box office behind '' Anger Management''s second weekend. It went on to gross a domestic total of $67.4 million and an additional $4 million in international revenue, totaling $71.4 million at the box office, against a $20 million budget, making the film a moderate financial success. The film was released in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

on October 24, 2003, and opened at #9.

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

the film holds an approval rating of 78% based on 139 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Faithful to its literary source, this is imaginative, intelligent family entertainment." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which uses an average of critics' reviews, the film has a 71 out of 100 rating, based on 28 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by

CinemaScore CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data. Background Ed Mintz founded Ci ...

gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

of the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...

'' rated the film 3.5 of four stars and wrote, "Davis has always been a director with a strong visual sense, and the look of ''Holes'' has a noble, dusty loneliness. We feel we are actually in a limitless desert. The cinematographer, Stephen St. John, thinks big and frames his shots for an epic feel that adds weight to the story. I walked in expecting a movie for thirteen somethings, and walked out feeling challenged and satisfied. Curious, how much more grown up and sophisticated ''Holes'' is than '' Anger Management''", which was released the same month.

Awards

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Holes 2003 films 2000s Western (genre) comedy films American Western (genre) comedy films Neo-Western films 2000s adventure comedy-drama films 2000s buddy films American adventure comedy-drama films American buddy films American comedy-drama films American mystery films 2000s English-language films Films directed by Andrew Davis Films based on children's books Films about curses Films about lizards Films set in the 1850s Films set in the 1890s Films set in the 1900s Films set in the 1990s Films set in Texas Films shot in California Films shot in Los Angeles Films about interracial romance American prison films Walt Disney Pictures films Walden Media films Films based on American novels Films scored by Joel McNeely Phoenix Pictures films Films set in deserts Films based on young adult literature American children's comedy films Films about child labour Films about juvenile delinquency 2000s American films Magic realism films