Hayden’s review published on Letterboxd:
Where to even start....
John and the Hole is the directorial debut of Pascual Sisto and what a debut it is. This is a weird movie, which I don't normally enjoy whether it be The Lobster, Art of Self Defense, the list goes on but you get what I mean. Typically in these films it just feels too removed from real life that it's like an AI made it, which I mean I guess you could say about this film, but man does the weirdness work for me here. It leads you astray with it's storytelling and structure, which quite honestly I wasn't digging in the first act, however once it gets going this film zings.
Movies are supposed to make you feel something and this will make you feel all kinds of emotions. Will it makes sense? No probably not, however it is definitely a film that benefits from that. It is balancing comedy and darkness so perfectly for me and every choice it makes just excels at making you feel both these emotions. You'll never know which emotion you're about to feel, but you are guaranteed to feel one of them.|
The main thing this film excels at is thinking like a 13 year old boy. We're awkward, we're stupid, we're weirdos, obviously this film takes these ideas to the extremes but it's still so grounded in the concept of "Teenage Boys are Really Weird".
On top of this it has incredible actors, fantastic dialogue, an incredible score, and phenomenal pacing. This film is a banger period, and such a strong debut from Sisto. Looking forward to see what the general public thinks of this because it will definitely be a divisive film.