Taglines: When the world turns upside down, the trick is coming out on top.
King of the Hill movie storyline. Steven Soderbergh, after the success of “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” and the commercial failure of “Kafka”, pulls a rabbit out of his hat with this quiet and evocative recollection of a childhood lived in the Depression, based on A. E. Hotchner’s memoir.
Twelve-year-old Aaron Kurlander (Jesse Bradford) is coming of age in a rotting working class section of St. Louis in 1933. As the film begins, Aaron’s family is coming apart at the seams due to the increasingly bleak economy. His father (Jeroen Krabbe) ekes out a living with a series of failed sales jobs as the family lives in the dilapidated Empire Hotel in a seamy section of town.
When his younger brother (Cameron Boyd) is sent to live with relatives to save expenses, his consumptive mother (Lisa Eichhorn) goes away to a sanitarium and his father abandons him to sell watches in Iowa. At first Aaron retreats into a concocted fantasy world but he gradually becomes drawn into the shattered lives of the tenants of the hotel. Aaron sees the rotting social fabric laid bare and discovers he must temper his childhood dreams with the hard-hitting realities of adult existence.
King of the Hill is a 1993 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.
King of the Hill (1993)
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Jeroen Krabbé, Lisa Eichhorn, Karen Allen, Spalding Gray, Elizabeth McGovern, Jesse Bradford, Adrien Brody, Amber Benson, Kristin Griffith, Katherine Heigl
Screenplay by: Steven Soderbergh
Production Design by: Gary Frutkoff
Cinematography by: Elliot Davis
Film Editing by: Steven Soderbergh
Costume Design by: Susan Lyall
Set Decoration by: Claire Jenora Bowin
Art Direction by: Bill Rea
Music by: Cliff Martinez
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for thematic elements.
Distributed by: Gramercy Pictures
Release Date: August 20, 1993
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