King of the Hill (1993 film)
King of the Hill is a 1993 American drama film written and directed by Steven Soderbergh. It is the second he directed from his own screenplay following his 1989 Palme d'Or-winning film Sex, Lies, and Videotape. It too was nominated for the Palme d'Or, at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.[2]
For the unrelated 1997 animated series, see King of the Hill.King of the Hill
Steven Soderbergh
King of the Hill
by A.E. Hotchner
- Albert Berger
- Barbara Maltby
- Ron Yerxa
Steven Soderbergh
- Wildwood Enterprises
- Bona Fide Productions
- August 20, 1993
103 minutes
United States
English
$8 million
$1.2 million[1]
Plot[edit]
Based on the Depression-era bildungsroman memoir of writer A. E. Hotchner, the film follows the story of a boy struggling to survive on his own in a hotel in St. Louis after his mother enters a sanatorium with tuberculosis and his younger brother is sent to live with an uncle. His father, a German immigrant and traveling salesman working for the Hamilton Watch Company, is off on long trips from which the boy cannot be certain he will return.
Reception[edit]
In her review in The New York Times, Janet Maslin says, "The film does a lovely job of juxtaposing the sharp contrasts in Aaron's life, and in marveling at the fact that he survives as buoyantly as he does."[3]
The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 91% rating, based on reviews from 33 critics with an average score of 7.8/10, the site's critical consensus reads: " A subtle, affecting, character-driven coming-of-age story, King of the Hill is one of Steven Soderbergh's best and most criminally overlooked films."[4]