The Hole (2001 film) (4 Stars)

Some films stick in my mind vividly after I watch them. For instance, "The Hole". When I picked it up to watch it again I was sure I'd watched it two or three months ago, but I checked my blog and found it was 16 months ago. I can remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday.

This is a gripping psychological horror story. Four rich kids from an expensive private school spend three days in a World War Two bomb shelter. Two boys, two girls. Two weeks later Liz, one of the girls, walks back to the school, exhausted and in a bad physical state, covered in dirt and her clothes torn. The other three children are found dead in the bunker. A police psychiatrist interviews her and she explains what happened. The story doesn't make sense. A week is missing. Liz is obviously traumatised and has forgotten what happened. The only solution is to take her back to the bunker in an attempt to jog her memory.

One of the reasons that I remember this film so clearly is the performance of Keira Knightley as Liz's best friend Frankie. She isn't one of my favourite actresses, but in this film I have to stare at her in amazement. In this role she's one of the sexiest young women I've ever seen.

What makes a woman sexy to me? Is it her legs or her breasts? Ask me again. Is it her eyes or her hair colour? No. There might be some physical attributes that I like more than others, but it isn't a woman's outward appearance that excites me. So, is it a woman's intelligence? You're getting closer, but that's still not the right answer.

What thrills me about a woman is self-confidence. I like a woman who's determined and fearless. I like a woman who has her eyes on her goal and doesn't consider failure an option. Whether it's sport or business or anything else, I find a woman who is confident in her abilities extremely sexy.

Confidence is  something that Keira Knightley shows as Frankie, Liz's best friend, in "The Hole". She wants to talk to her friend Jeff, who's in the shower room after playing sport; in a school like this I assume it was Rugby. She could have waited outside the boys' locker room for him to get dressed. Instead of that she walks in, not being put off when she's surrounded by naked boys. She doesn't stop to ask questions like "What if they attack me?" She's the Alpha student in the school, and the boys are the Betas. Her self-confidence scares them. They scatter in all directions when they see her, grabbing their towels to cover themselves. She isn't embarrassed by them, they're embarrassed by her. When she finally confronts Jeff none of the other boys are in sight. They're hiding.

That's sexy.