FANTASIA 2023: #Manhole Gives Simple But Dynamic Thrills

Simple genre films are my favorite. They know how to drive tension and emotion with limited surroundings and trust the actor to sell it all. With all of its twists and pivots, #MANHOLE accomplishes just this, relying on its lead, the attractive and charismatic Yûto Nakajima, to sell every single bit of emotion and suspense. Screening at the 2023 Fantasia International Film Festival, #MANHOLE starts slow before it descends into chaos, just like when a post goes viral, and a milk-shake-duck ensues.

With tight writing from Michitaka Okada and even tighter direction from Kazuyoshi Kumakiri, #MANHOLE focuses on Shunsuke Kawamura (Yûto Nakajima), the top salesperson at the real-estate firm set to marry his boss’s daughter. Extremely handsome but self-effacing, Shunsuke earns the respect of his friends and colleagues. When his friends hold a surprise party the night before his wedding, he drunkenly stumbles down a manhole. Still slightly drunk and injured, Shunsuke is alone in a dirty concrete manhole with no way up or out. No ladder but, more importantly, no one to hear his calls for help. Shunsuke’s hope dwindles when his phone calls go unanswered and the police offer no help.

So what’s a guy to do, right? Well, apparently, creating a fake social media profile and branding yourself as #ManholeGirl is the answer Shunsuke chooses, and it works…until it doesn’t. While the support rolls and the hope of luring assistance grows, so do the complicated consequences of being someone else.

Told from Shunsuke’s perspective, actor Nakajima has the challenging task of building up a protagonist that makes us root for him. We have to hear and feel his fear and desperation, and we need to hope that he escapes. But that empathetic line between Shunsuke and the audience must be malleable enough to make us question his as we learn more. Nakajima’s performance sells everything as we wind through a singular story with a bevy of twists that will make you audibly say “what the f*ck” more than a few times.

Absolutely wild and at times, unhinged, #MANHOLE is a surprising suspense film that builds up its thrills through elements of survival and social drama in equal measure. There is only so much you can do at the bottom of a hole, and Nakajima’s performance does it all. He and his phone give strong enough exposition without overwhelming the story allowing for reveals to come up naturally. The film is able to be multiple things at once. Shunsuke is capable of being endearing and unnerving. The film embraces escape room flair and then twists its genre selling points midway through. And finally, #MANHOLE captures a scathing social commentary as we see Shunsuke constantly interact with the outside world.

While #MANHOLE is a single-location film, the claustrophobia never really sets in. Instead, the height that opening of the hole has makes Shunsuke’s surrounding feel large and cavernous, accentuating the fact that it’s insurmountable, even as men on the internet do what they can to save #ManholeGirl. Additionally, because Shunsuke is technically talking with the outside world constantly, director Kazuyoshi Kumakiri is able to create a false sense of security in that there is always hope, making the last act of the film’s pivot in his character lands even more.

#MANHOLE easily has one of the craziest endings of any film at Fantasia 2023 and sticks its bone-breaking landing in a fantastic fashion. Driven by Nakajima’s stellar performance, this simple film takes big suspense swings that are all worth it—even though it may divide some viewers.

#MANHOLE screened as a part of the 2023 Fantasia International Film Festival.