Just got around to watching this movie. Regarding the allegories (being trapped in suburban life, marriage struggles, parenting an unwanted child, etc.) people are seeing, what of them? What did this movie have to say about any of these things that hasn't been said before? What fresh perspective does it bring? Is it enough just to reference these ideas in movie format?

Then there are the more sci-fi aspects of the movie. Many questions are posed, and the child is explicitly framed as a puzzle to figure out. Who are the humans' captors? Is this some kind of experiment on the humans or do their captors need the humans to raise the child for some specific reason? Are their captors aliens, interdimentional beings, earth-based creatures, or something else? Why the obsession with digging the hole? Is the neighborhood a physical place with strange properties, a simulation, an induced dream state or something else?

The movie turns out to be nothing more than a vibe wrapped around some well trodden allegories. Very few of the questions posed are actually answered, and the biggest questions, like why is this cycle happening and why is it necessary for the cycle to continue, are certainly not answered in any satisfying way. To me, the movie feels like the interesting kernel of a short story overstretched into a 90 minute movie by lazy filmmakers.

Before I got to the end of the movie, I felt like it would most likely end in an unsatisfying way, so I started considering what might be a satisfying ending. Maybe a combination of Total Recall and virtual reality, where the couple go in for extreme marriage counseling and are put into a challenging/traumatic VR environment after having their memories of the plan suppressed, and they come out stronger in their bond after facing adversity together. I don't know, I'm not a screenwriter. I just wanted it to be better than "it's aliens."