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I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020) Charlie Kaufman

Updated: Dec 11, 2020

Full of misgivings, a young woman travels with her new boyfriend to his parents' secluded farm. Upon arriving, she comes to question everything she thought she knew about him, and herself.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a film adaptation by Charlie Kaufman of the same-titled novel by Iain Reed. If you haven’t read the book, the movie is a complex watch that definitely requires some research after it ends, otherwise you’re going to be left wondering if you wasted the last 2 hours and 15 minutes of your life in some strange nonsensical story.


This story does not have a linear structure. There’s a lot of things happening at once, and it’s hard to discern what’s real and what isn’t. However, the talented and convincing main cast helps the viewer power through. Toni Collette, per usual, is outstanding in her role as the main character’s mother, and David Thewlis is strangely unsettling as the father. Jesse Plemons has a shy and uncertain exterior about him in his portrayal of Jake (this is important for later), and Jamie Buckley remains sharp despite her extremely confusing role as The Woman. Guy Boyd especially plays the necessary moroseness and futility of The Janitor to great effect.


While confusing, each scene is deliberate. If you’re looking for a cerebral watch that leaves you thinking well after the movie ends, this Charlie Kaufman flick may be your match. Especially if you’re hungry for breadcrumbs.


Spoilers ahead.

 

At first watch, I didn’t really understand what happened but I felt a deep level of sadness that was hard to shake. Each character went through a very specific disjointed journey throughout the film and it didn’t feel like a happy ending for any of them.


Then I watched it again, and read about the book.


In the first half of the movie, Jamie Buckley’s character, The Woman, is internally-monologuing as she drives in a snow storm with her boyfriend Jake to meet his parents. The relationship is on the rocks and she seems deeply unsatisfied. “I’m thinking of ending things” sounds like the end of a relationship and the idea that a dumping is imminent. During the first act, I was convinced this was going to be another horror about a violent spurned man and his victim but as time went on, the film turned into something else entirely.


Once the couple reaches the home of Jake’s parents, everything goes awry. It’s twisty and turny, and like The Woman, we as the viewers are left just as confused as she is. Slowly we start to realize perhaps this isn’t a break-up movie after all.


The movie is a visual representation of thinking about suicide, and the fantasies of the man that lead him to that final decision. While the movie-watcher is spared from the graphic ending of the novel, what is inferred on screen is easy to understand. Once the gears click with the film’s intended premise, you begin to put together what’s really taking place. We come to realize that the “things” in “I’m thinking of ending things” is not in fact a relationship but rather life itself, and we are seeing the deliberations of The Janitor before he makes that final decision.


Jake is the young version of The Janitor - except in his delusion, it’s a do-over and Jake is the culmination of all the ambitions The Janitor had as he was growing up. He’s successful, he gets the girl, and most importantly, he is profound. Jake is a fantasy, a what-if for The Janitor; what if he pursued his hobbies, what if he left town, what if he had spoken to The Woman he saw so many years ago, what if, what if, what if. The film switches back and forth between The Woman and The Janitor's perspective, until The Janitor’s true memories come leaking into the fantasy, merging reality and delusions into one.


Interestingly, despite The Woman being The Janitor’s own creation, she manages to retain agency; The Janitor recognizes her love for him is out of character, and her dialogue is her trying to rectify that imbalance. Despite The Woman being a delusion, she still manages to reject The Janitor. It feels like an apt commentary on how deep depression works really -- you cannot escape the feelings of sadness and immense loneliness even in fantasies. All of the hope The Janitor had turned rotten. He will never know The Woman, his parents are long dead, and he no longer can escape reality.


In the final act of the film, all of a sudden the characters start singing and the story turns into a musical The Janitor loved: Oklahoma. If you know the plot of it, it's more of a bread loaf than a crumb when figuring out what comes next. It then quickly switches to an award ceremony with an older Jake receiving a prestigious award, thanking all of his friends, wife and family, all seen in the audience as aged with caricatured makeup on.


While all of this is happening, we as the viewers know The Janitor is actually in his truck late at night in a snowstorm in front of the school. We know he is going through hypothermia as he strips off his clothes and fantasizes one last time about what it would feel like to be truly beloved. What he could have been like if he tried.


While my synopsis breaks down the central themes, there is so much more that goes on until the end that I don't think any review could do justice. “I’m thinking of Ending Things” is a devastating watch that haunts you in a way you don’t forget, but only if you’re willing to let it. It’s a tragic story that feels almost inescapable and suffocating if you aren’t careful. But I think that's the beauty of it.


8.5/10

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