Charlie Shotwell stars as a disenchanted teen with an unusual plan in John and the Hole
JOHN AND THE HOLE (Pascual Sisto, 2020)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Opens Friday, August 6
212-255-2243
quadcinema.com
You can add the thirteen-year-old title character of John and the Hole (Charlie Shotwell) to the cinematic list of creepy kids who do bad things, populated by such children on the edge as eight-year-old Rhoda Penmark (Patty McCormack) in The Bad Seed, Holland Perry (Martin Udvarnoky) in The Other, Ronald Wilby (Scott Jacoby) in Bad Ronald, and Rynn Jacobs (Jodie Foster) in The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane.
Adapted and expanded by Oscar-winning Argentinian writer Nicolás Giacobone from his 2010 short story “El Pozo” (“The Well”) and directed by Spanish visual artist Pascual Sisto, who previously teamed up on the 2003 short Océano, John and the Hole is a tense coming-of-age psychological thriller about a boy from a good family who commits a horrific act for no clear, apparent reason.
John lives in a lovely glass house in the woods with his successful parents, Brad (Michael C. Hall) and Anna (Jennifer Ehle), and his older sister, Laurie (Taissa Farmiga). When we first see them, it’s from outside their home, as they eat their dinner in silence, each off in their own world. It soon becomes clear that there’s something not quite right about John; he has trouble answering a math question at school, he lies about losing a drone, he kicks his skateboard down an incline and doesn’t go after it, and he drugs the sweet-natured gardener, Charles (Lucien Spellman).
The family seems to love him but understands that he’s different. It’s more than just teen angst or ennui, a spoiled child disenchanted with his privileged life. That becomes evident when, one night, he devises a plot involving his parents and sister and a mysterious underground bunker that was meant to be a safe place when it was constructed five years ago for an unrealized property. John goes on with his life, playing video games with his best friend, Peter (Ben O’Brien), continuing his tennis lessons, and trying to act like an adult, but he has a lot to learn. He remains distant even as his family suffers, growing more feral by the day.
Sisto (Steps) and Giacobone (Biutiful, Birdman) play with horror-movie tropes throughout the film. Early on, Brad says good night to John, suggesting he check under his bed, which is rarely a good thing. There’s a framing story between a mother, Lily (Samantha LeBretton), and her young daughter, Paula (Tamara Hickey), which reveals that the tale of John and his family might be a local legend while reenforcing the tenuous relationship between parents and children and who is responsible for whom. “Last month, John asked me something. It was a weird question,” Anna tells Brad. “He wanted to know what it’s like to be an adult. When do you stop being a kid?”
Brad (Michael C. Hall), Laurie (Taissa Farmiga), and Anna (Jennifer Ehle) play three characters in search of an exit in John and the Hole
Cinematographer Paul Özgür makes terrific use of Jacqueline Abrahams’s splendid production designer, topped off by composer Caterina Barbieri’s ominous electronic score. Sisto and Giacobone have referred to the film as Michael Haneke’s version of Home Alone; to that I would add Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Exit and Hiroshi Teshigahara’s Woman in the Dunes, in which people are trapped in utterly prosaic situations that are at the same time terrifyingly inexplicable.
Shotwell (All the Money in the World, Eli) is mesmerizing as John, fully embodying the enigma of a teenager creating his own self-imposed isolation, although he’s been lost in his mind for years. Six-time Emmy nominee Hall (Dexter, Lazarus), two-time Tony winner Ehle (The Real Thing, Saint Maude), and Farmiga (The Nun, The Bling Ring) are excellent as his confused family, wanting to help John but not knowing exactly what he wants and what to do. Like the best scary movies, there’s a constant undercurrent of fear about just how far John might go in his personal quest, right up to the very end.