A charming and gentle period piece set during the Depression. Jesse Bradford stars as a teen whose family, along with so much of America, is not doing well financially. They've moved into a hotel, and the father's traveling salesman gig is going terribly. Bradford's younger brother is sent away to their uncle's place and, soon after, his mother has to go stay in a sanitarium. Finally, his father gets a job selling watches out west, and is forced to leave Bradford alone in the hotel room, surviving on a very small sum. Bradford's a resourceful kid, but he struggles to outlast the ordeal. Jeroen Krabbe and Lisa Eichhorn play Bradford's parents. Other familiar faces include Spalding Gray, Elizabeth McGovern, Karen Allen and Adrien Brody (I don't think I'd ever seen him in a movie before The Pianist, although, looking it up, apparently he shows up in an uncredited role in Natural Born Killers). The film is somewhat reminiscent of the classic Depression-era film Wild Boys of the Road, though this one is actually a lot less gritty. This film has never been available on DVD (it was on VHS), but it has recently popped up on Netflix Instant. It streams in its original aspect ratio and, all around, it looked gorgeous.
Review of King of the Hill
