John and the Hole Movie Storyline. While exploring the neighboring woods, 13-year-old John (Charlie Shotwell) discovers an unfinished bunker—a deep hole in the ground. Seemingly without provocation, he drugs his affluent parents (Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Ehle) and older sister (Taissa Farmiga) and drags their unconscious bodies into the bunker, where he holds them captive. As they anxiously wait for John to free them from the hole, the boy returns home, where he can finally do what he wants.
John and the Hole is a 2021 American drama film directed by Pascual Sisto and written by Nicolás Giacobone. A feature-length adaptation of Giacobone’s short story, El Pozo, the film stars Charlie Shotwell, Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Ehle, and Taissa Farmiga. The film revolves around a boy who discovers a hole in his family’s backyard.
The film was selected for the 2020 Cannes Film Festival and had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on January 29, 2021. It is scheduled to be released on August 6, 2021, by IFC Films.
In his directorial debut, visual artist Pascual Sisto mines this alarming pulp premise for an enigmatic and unsettling meditation on adolescent angst. Adapted by screenwriter Nicolás Giacobone from his own short story, John and the Hole is both a harrowing psychological thriller and a potent coming-of-age fable exploring the difficult passage from childhood freedom to adult responsibility.
Through precise, shallow-focus compositions, immersive sound design, and a suspended sense of time, Sisto conveys John’s uncanny experience of “playing house.” Shotwell’s chilling performance suggests an innocent yearning beneath John’s cold, blank exterior, while Hall, Ehle, and Farmiga are exceptional as his beleaguered family.
John and the Hole (2021)
Directed by: Pascual Sisto
Starring: Charlie Shotwell, Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Ehle, Taissa Farmiga, Tamara Hickey, Elijah Ungvary, Samantha LeBretton, Georgia Lyman, Pamela Jayne Morgan, Ben O’Brien
Screenplay by: Nicolás Giacobone
Production Design by: Jacqueline Abrahams
Cinematography by: Paul Özgür
Film Editing by: Sara Shaw
Costume Design by: Alex Bovaird
Art Direction by: Alexander Linde
Makeup Department: Maya Landi
Music by: Caterina Barbieri
MPAA Rating: R for language
Distributed by: IFC Films
Release Date: January 29, 2021 (Sundance), August 6, 2021 (United States)
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