This is a beautifully made film, with powerfully eloquent photography and an amazing central performance that together work hypnotically upon the viewer and build up a relentless mood of tension and disquiet.

As we approached the ending, I realized it was likely going to just peter out, and it did, which was a disappointment. Some kind of larger payoff, the clear result and culmination of everything that had been introduced before, would have been far more satisfying than life going back to normal and the family just eating dinner all over again.

So I'm not really at all happy with the ending, but here's what I think it's trying to say (badly):

The side story of Gloria and Lilly is set in the future: we know this because they refer back to two of the events we observe - "Charlie (the gardener) and The Spider" and "John and The Hole" - as bedtime stories to retell again and again. Either this means the events actually happened in the past or else the entire story of John we're watching is simply a fiction being told by Gloria to her daughter.

In both time periods, none of these people seem to have any great feeling: the father even says while down the hole, "I've never been hungry before", and when John gives the pile of money to his gaming friend, he cannot understand that he doesn't want to buy anything with it: that's all he knows anyone do. John is prepared to drown himself just to experience something real.

John is the forerunner of the coming generation, blank, selfish, soulless, coddled and emotionless children growing up into blank, selfish, soulless, coddled and emotionless adults, with no natural insticts remaining, who will think nothing of abandoning their 12 year old child to die on a passing whim if they can tell themselves to do so is "empowering" or "liberating". We can tell that this is the mother Gloria's primary internal narrative by the fact she makes a point of repeatedly telling her daughter "my daughter is nobody's ASSISTANT" even as she abandons her forever. She has been taught since birth that oneself is all that matters.

Right now John is increasingly becoming accepted as only mildly abnormal (hence no punishment or repercussions for his actions at the end),but in the future, EVERYONE is like John, and that's why Gloria and Lilly behave the way they do, which still seems frighteningly alien to us at present.

So yes, that's what I think it's getting at, though it could have done so much better and clearer, or else just followed a more traditional thriller storyline and given us some entertainment instead. It's still a very engrossing tale, because of the aforementioned cinematography and the fantastic young actor playing John, but its inability to wrap all its loose ends up satisfactorily leaves it feeling a little anticlimactic, amateurish and underwhelming.

When I saw what a great cast this movie has I could not understand how it received such low ratings and then I watched the entire thing. There wasn't a boomer within the entire production as the values the movie portrays are new and part of the woke world. There's a 13 year-old boy who puts his family in a deep bunker. No reason is ever given why a spoiled child would do this. He starves his family while spending the parents money, driving the car and making a general mess. The kid is a sociopath without the slightest doubt but the parents promise to do nothing if only the kid would let them out. Maybe the filmmakers were trying to portray evil but instead one feels it is the filmmakers who are evil and the cast are idiots for reading those lines. These people only care how they look to the outside world and care not to even look at the problems within the family. In the end, I felt the parents deserved what they got and I wouldn't feel empathy for them if their kid grows into a full blown serial killer and then kills the family. This type of people, the world can do without. I can forgive the cast for taking these roles because there is so little content of substance anymore.

John and the Hole is elevated by its methodical pacing, pretty cinematography, and engaging performances from the entire cast; but the film is ambiguous to the point of frustration, and all these aforementioned strengths can't make up for the fact that it tests the audience's patience over and over again and never rewards them for it.

There are several scenes in the movie in which a VERY intriguing character motivation or plot element will be introduced, and every single one of these moments is immediately forgotten and never mentioned again.

I was never bored because I kept wondering where the story was going to go next and why John was doing the things he did; what role did his family play in driving him to his breaking point, if any? But my intrigue never payed off.

I won't spoil anything because there isn't anything to spoil. There are no revelations, twists, or anything of the sort. The movie just plods along introducing a bunch of red herrings, and then it ends.

This ends this film and my memory of its existence.

The end.