Review: John and The Hole (spoilers)

John and The Hole has lingered with me more than any other film at Sundance this year.

I filled out a critics poll a few hours before writing this review and it was a very odd experience. How does one define "the best?" Is it the easiest to consume? Most pleasurable? Most enlightening? Most personally powerful?

For me, the great movies leave me with questions, not every answer. And John and The Hole left me considering everything about being a parent and what it was to be a 13-year-old boy.

Pascual Sisto adapts the Nicolás Giacobone screenplay. If you know Giacobone a little, you know that he is not a literalist. And that is certainly true in this film. I mean, the most basic element... how does John gets his 2 parents and his older sister into the hole? Yes, he drugs them so he can manipulate the situation. But it is physically impossible for him to have gotten them into the hole with seriously hurting them, if it is physically possible for a boy of his size at all.

For me, the film is a…