King of the Hill (1993 Steven Soderbergh & scr)

Based on 'The Boyhood Memoirs' by A.E. Hotchner (1972) - his own impoverished childhood in St. Louis in the thirties (the sequel, 'Looking for Miracles', takes place three years later).

1933. Jesse Bradford is essentially left to fend for himself, penniless, as his father Jeroen Krabbé leaves to be a travelling salesman, mother Lisa Eichorn is in a sanatorium and little brother Cameron Boyd is sent away.

Friend Adrian Brody helps. Plus we meet a supportive teacher (Karen Allen), an elderly neighbour (Spalding Gray) and his girlfriend Elizabeth McGovern, an epileptic girl (Amber Benson) and a school girl (Katherine Heigl). (The lift operator is none other than Lauryn Hill!) With Joe Chrest as the bellboy and John McConnell the bully cop.

It is episodic, and builds to a welcome conclusion in which the boy has become a young man - he never reveals to his father just what he's put him through. Loved the moment where he steals all the keys so no one in the hotel can be locked out again.

It's a gripping monocular story in which we feel every pang of hunger and warm to the boy's innate politeness and goodness in the face of desperation.

Shot by Out of Sight's Elliot Davis, music Cliff Martinez, editing Soderbergh, production design Gary Frutkoff.