The Hole (2001 film)
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| The Hole | |
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| Directed by | Nick Hamm |
| Produced by | Jeremy Bolt Lisa Bryer Pippa Cross |
| Written by | Ben Court Caroline Ip |
| Starring | Thora Birch Desmond Harrington Keira Knightley Daniel Brocklebank Laurence Fox |
| Distributed by | Pathé (UK), Buena Vista (USA direct-to-video) |
| Release date(s) | 20 April 2001 (UK) |
| Running time | 102 min |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | £4,158,370[1] |
| IMDb profile | |
The Hole is a 2001 psychological horror-thriller directed by Nick Hamm, based on the novel After the Hole by Guy Burt.
The film starred Thora Birch, whose headlining credit and highly-publicized seven-figure salary was attributed to her appearance in American Beauty.[2] It also featured Keira Knightley in her first significant role in a feature film and British supermodel James Rousseau in a deleted scene at the end designed to set up a possible sequel.
The film premiered in the United Kingdom in April 2001. Dimension Films, which in October 2001 acquired the rights to distribute the film theatrically in the United States, never did so; it was instead released direct-to-video nearly two years later, by Dimension's then-fellow Disney subsidiary Buena Vista Distribution.[3] The film was shot largely in and around Downside School, in Somerset, UK.
The film is about the experiences of four British private school students: Liz (played by Birch), Mike (Desmond Harrington), Geoff (Laurence Fox), and Frankie (played by Knightley). It begins with Liz arriving at their school, seemingly in shock. The audience soon sees her talking to a psychiatrist (played by Embeth Davidtz), and the first in a couple of points of view are presented about the events that the four students experienced in "The Hole" (an abandoned, underground shelter) during their school break. Daniel Brocklebank plays Martyn, a fifth student, who soon becomes part of the tale.
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[edit] Plot
The events of the film are told from multiple perspectives, with conflicting versions forcing the audience to try to figure out what really happened, and who if anyone is responsible for what the audience sees.
The film opens with a dishevelled and dirty girl trying to run down a dirt road. She is clearly distraught for reasons the audience does not yet know. As the camera changes views and follows her, "missing" posters are seen with 4 teenagers faces on them. A large school comes in to view. The girl runs inside the school and makes her way to a pay phone, at which she dials 999. Once the operator answers the phone, the girl is in too much shock to do anything but scream. She then collapses on the floor.
An aerial view follows a police car as it makes its way into the enormous school's parking area. News reporters' voices are heard explaining, on air, the situation. It is explained that the 4 teenagers that have been missing for 18 days have been found, among them Mike Steel, son of rock star Stevie Steel. The scene switches to the girl from the beginning (Liz) screaming and contracting in to the fetal position when she is touched between her legs by a doctor.
Liz is seen sitting in a chair in what looks like a small hotel room by herself. She has a vision of maggoty flesh, a blood-stained tile wall, and herself screaming at someone off camera "No Stop!!". Liz opens her eyes and the vision ends. A middle-aged woman knocks at her door and lets herself in. She says that she wants to help Liz. The two are then seen being let in to a larger hotel room by a maid. Liz looks around the room cautiously, checking each space for something unseen. She tells the psychiatrist not to put her on any medical drugs because she is "not crazy." Liz sits down in front of a camcorder on a tripod. The psychiatrist sits behind the camera and operates it. She starts recording. Liz starts her story.
[edit] Liz's story
"This is how it is at Bravewood. If you want to exist, you have to be pretty. You have to be thin." She says that she was a nobody and learned not to dream to become one of them. Her friend, Martin, has a similar philosophy- take what you can from the conformists, don't become one of them. At a rugby game, Liz tells Martin about her love for Mike Steel, the American dream guy. Martin tells her that she shouldn't like him because she doesn't know him and he's just like everyone else in the school. He tells her how she should love him, not Mike. Liz tells him that he's "more like a gay friend, not a boyfriend."
Mike Steel is seen in his room with his best friend, Geoff. The two decide that they have to ditch the school field trip to Wales.
Liz walks in to a bright pink room with pop music playing. Three of the popular girls are in the room. Liz has her hair wrapped in a towel. She asks one of the girls, Frankie, to help her. When the other 2 girls laugh and make fun of Liz, Frankie stands up for her. Liz had tried to dye her hair blond with peroxide from "the lab", and Frankie helps her fix it.
Liz goes into the hallway and positions herself at an angle so that Mike would notice her new look. When she realizes that Mike doesn't notice her, she also notices that all the girls are laughing at her and her hair. She goes in to Martin's room and begins complaing to him about how she is in love but Mike doesn't even know she exists. Martin says he can help her. Scene switches to Mike, Geoff, and Frankie sitting in a stairwell. Martin meets them and says that everything is set for their plan to ditch the trip to Wales and that he is adding another person to their group.
Martin, Mike, Geoff, and Frankie are seen in a patch of woods. Mike and Geoff are standing on top of a large bump in the ground. Liz approaches from the distance with a large camping backpack. Marting shows the group where they will be staying for the three days that the school is on its trip to Wales. He opens a metal door camouflaged in the hill and reveals the hole. It is a WWII bomb shelter. The group goes in, and Martin closes the door and, unknown to the group inside, locks it.
Everyone is having a great time inside the bunker. They're screwing around and having fun. When Mike realizes that the only food he remembered to pack was gum, Liz offers to share her food with him. He thanks her, sits down next to her and interlocks arms with her.
The group is sitting in a circle in the dark with candles and flashlights telling ghost stories. Geoff says that the scariest thing would be if something happened to Martin and no one came back for them. Frankie is frightened by this and tells him that he might jynx them.
On the third day, they realize that Martin isn't coming back for them. They start worrying about it and trying to get out themselves and begin turning on each other. One night, Liz wakes up and sees a shadow pass the door, look in the small window, and walk away.
The next night Liz wakes up again and shines her flashlight on the rest of the group individually. When she gets to Mike, she sees that he is also awake. She says she wants to talk to him, and he comes over to her and gets under the blanket with her. She says that she thinks that Martin is locking them in because she wants to see that Mike is not what she wants. Mike says that her loving him is "cool." The two then get up and open a small air shaft, revealing a microphone. They open another one and find the same thing. They wake up Frankie and Geoff and show them too.
The next day, they act using only their voices, like Frankie is sick and that Mike hates Liz and Liz hates Mike in order to make Martin believe that his plan worked. That night, Martin comes, opens the door, and runs away. The group climbs up and all make it out okay.
[edit] The Truth
The audience eventually finds out that it is Liz who has locked the group into the shelter. It was a last-minute change to an adolescent plan to win Mike's affection; the locking of the entrance was Liz's spontaneous response to the realization that both Geoff and Mike are attracted to Frankie. Her obsession with him leads her to believe, with time, she could win Mike over.
The group remains locked up for days, awaiting rescue. After ten days and a night of vomiting, Frankie dies, for reasons unknown by the group but which the psychiatrist and the audience learn is due to side effects of her bulimia. The group gradually runs out of food and water, but when it is revealed that Geoff is hoarding Coke in his bag, Mike cannot control himself and kills Geoff in an outburst of violence.
Hearing Mike's profession of love (under stress) finally prompts Liz to climb the ladder towards the shelter's entrance and unlock the door. Perched on a landing high above the shelter's floor, she tells Mike she's had the key all along. Mike is overwhelmed by the events of the past few days (death to 2 of his close friends, and one even by his own hand) and cannot believe that Liz was behind it. In rage he rushes up the ladder which breaks (as glimpsed in several scenes beforehand, showing the loose screws) and falls to his death.
After three deaths, all caused by Liz's near-delusional unwillingness to let them all leave the shelter, the final twist is revealed. The audience (and the psychiatrist) learn from the police that Martyn's body had been found near a weir. The audience had earlier seen a confrontation between Liz and Martyn; it turns out that the confrontation ended with a struggle that had resulted in Martyn's drowning.
The police find the key to the shelter on Martyn's body; it helps lead them to conclude that he had committed suicide in response to the deaths in the shelter.
Director Nick Hamm calls the film a "triangle of love" and "triangle of obsession"; he believes the "sole reason for the film" can be summed up in a single line spoken by Liz: "Have you ever loved anyone so much you didn't care what happened to yourself?"[4]
[edit] References
- ^ IMDb estimate
- ^ Interview with Birch, just after the film's release in the UK
- ^ Preview and Summary from Yahoo! Movies
- ^ Director's commentary track for the film
[edit] External links
- The Hole at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Holeat IMDb
