These glowing reviews are written by a buncha people who sniff their own farts and love it. They're more concerned with trying to look cultured than being honest. Well I think I have a pretty good read on this movie myself...and it's still not that great. There's not much dialogue or story here, it really is some kid that traps his family in a hole, but there is a meaning to it. At least I think there is.

So you have this kid John. He's quiet and shows basically no emotion or interest in really connecting with anyone, including his own family. He's prone to either just saying "Okay" or "Why" in response to instruction. So it's easy to think that the kid is either just a jerk, on the spectrum, or soulless. But I think what he's symbolizing what it's like to be a child on the verge of young adulthood while understanding next to nothing about the world. Growing up we're given instructions and told to do things simply because it's "normal" or "what people do". You ask why and are told to stop asking questions and just do it. Many people are fine with this, they grow up to be adults who are great at being told what to do without the need to think for themselves. As a kid who irritated everyone by asking "Why?" constantly I actually understand John.

So my belief is that as a way to communicate this to his parents, because he clearly can't use words properly, he puts them in the position he sees himself in. He puts them in a hole where they're constantly asking him to talk to them, to tell them "why?", why are they in the hole, why doesn't he just answer? That is John's perspective of the world, trapped in a hole that no one will explain to him.

Now here's why it's not that good of a movie. For one, no it's not a dark comedy whatsoever, that's nonsense. It's also not a thriller. It IS psychological, but so slow and with no exposition at all it leaves too many questions. There is a plot point that touches on John trying to drown himself a few times to see what's there at the verge of death. It's just him floating face down in a pool, nothing else happens, but when he does let his family out of the hole they come across him face down in a pond and panic in a rush to save him. I think this made a connection as to the "why" in John's mind...that even after what he did they still loved him and wanted him to live. So I suppose that's a reason to continue on into adulthood. But who can be sure, it's not explained. There is also a completely random plot point of a mother talking to her young daughter about things like needing to abandon her and then the movie ends with scenes of the young daughter wandering around the woods alone. No clue who they were or what that was about, I definitely didn't understand that.

So I think I might have understood parts of this movie, but it was really boring and I wouldn't watch it again. Not the absolute worst but it definitely isn't anything above maybe a 5-6 depending on the individual. These people acting like it's art house magic are hacks.

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.