John and the Hole 2021

Very much a slow-burn mood-board of a movie, John and the Hole portrays the hastened death of modern adolescence in a suffocating, eerie directorial debut from Pascual Sisto. All the stages we go through upon reaching adulthood (eating whatever we want, buying whatever we want, doing whatever we want until the eventual snapback of reality puts us in our place) are visualised here in a creeping, droning style that is oppressive as much as it is unsettling. Much to muse over, and might even make my second viewing list, but a difficult recommendation to those who are not accepting of arthouse heavy features.

Edit: I wrote up a few things on Reddit which I'll share here. These are my interpretations of the plot and what the movie is truly about. Spoilers will be discussed, so please refrain from reading until after watching the movie!

My interpretation is that the movie is a mood piece about the death of adolescence and how the ending of childhood is hastened for some people. It's a visualisation of the "coming to terms" we all go through at different times of our life when we finally hand the baton on from being a child to being an adult.

When John is told what it's like to be an adult, a hole inside him is opened as he realises that he will have to make his own way, make his own decisions, take on all the responsibilities that come with being an adult. This is visualised in the movie via the bunker/hole John finds near the house. This turns John into an apathetic husk as it dawns on him what the next stage of life brings. This "awakening" is visualised by him putting his family in the hole, a dramatised way of us leaving our families to find ourselves and what we want to do in life.

John then goes through the stages I think most go through when they find themselves in "adulthood" and the freedom it brings as apposed to childhood. He eats anything and everything he wants, he buys all the material things he can afford and does only the things he wants to do (play the piano, listen to classical music, play video games and eat pizza). Then he realises that he cannot continue to do only what he wants to. He must find the balance between what he wants to do, what he needs to do and what he's supposed to do. We see the messy, awkward fumbling of someone trying to find their way with many scenes throughout, from John trying to hit on his mothers friend, to him finally putting down the chicken nuggies and teaching himself to cook risotto.

Once he's had this rocky coming-of-age, John returns to his family and frees them from the hole. He's found himself, his childhood is now over, and he must go forward as an "adult". I'm not sure if it's inferred in the final dinner scene that none of this actually took place, that all this was in Johns head during the table scene earlier when his sister ran off to be with her boyfriend? I'd have to rewatch to confirm, but that would be my take away.

As far as the off-shoot subplot, I think that's actually the main plot of the movie, and the mother in that plot is telling her daughter the story of John to prepare her for the walkout she's about to do.

Really solid movie, but a difficult one to recommend if you're not into moodboard/arthouse-y films.