For Steven Soderbergh's third feature film, the acclaimed director adapts A.E. Hotchner's 1972 memoir. Set in 1933 St. Louis, KING OF THE HILL follows 12-year-old Aaron Kurlander (a magnetic Jesse Bradford), a bright, affable boy coming of age during the heart of the American depression. His financially troubled family consists of a salesman father (Jeroen Krabbe) who must leave home to search for employment, a chronically ill mother (Lisa Eichhorn), and a younger brother (Cameron Boyd) who has been sent away to live with relatives. Their home in a poverty-stricken neighborhood is the dank Empire Hotel, where Aaron befriends hotel guests and management, including Lester (Adrien Brody) and Mr. Munco (Spalding Gray). When Aaron's not at school--where he's an honor student and master marble player--he's at the hotel trying to cope with the familial and economic adversities that consume his world and keep his stomach growling. Eventually, the broken family is reunited when Mr. Kurlander secures a job as a clerk, but it is up to Aaron to forgive his father for abandonment if they're to become a family again. Soderbergh films KING OF THE HILL with colorful photography, adding optimism even when things are at their most hopeless.