I’m Thinking of Ending Things
Remember how, when watching “Being John Malkovich” or “Adaptation.” or “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” we were all just blown away from the invention and complexity of Charlie Kaufman’s writing, like we had never seen anything else like it brought to the screen? Now remember how he has used his directing choices to make us realize those films are fundamentally simple at their core?
I’m not nearly as familiar with Kaufman’s directing work as I am the films of his that were brought to us by Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry and George Clooney. It’s not that I think less of Kaufman’s two films as a director, “Synecdoche, New York” and “Anomalisa”- I just don’t find myself easily drawn back into them compared to the films his reputation as a screenwriter were built on. The accessibility of approach to big concepts by Jonze and Gondry is a big part of why those films succeed- with his own directorial approach, the emotional connection with the characters is not as easily made, his vision is more esoteric and personal, though no less brilliant, making his un-distilled ideas a challenge to wrap our head around. His third directorial effort, “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” is no exception; thankfully, it’s on Netflix, so I can revisit it at will to attempt to dig deeper into the film.
In reading a bit about the book by Iain Reid that Kaufman has chosen to adapt here, I understand why he was drawn to it. The story starts out as being two young people going out to the the young man’s parents’s house for dinner. The perspective we get is the womans’s, and she has a persistent idea in her mind- I’m thinking of ending things. This could, initially, be taken in a couple of ways, but as the film progresses, it’s clear that it is about her ending the relationship with Jake, whom she has been seeing for months, and she just doesn’t think it’s going anywhere. Once they get to the house, and begin to sit down with his parents for dinner, the film begins to take shape (or re-configure it’s shape, if you so prefer) into a story about the nature of identity, past and present, and the focus becomes more about Jake than the woman, with a school janitor seeming to be the key unlocking it all.
The structure of the film is unlike anything Kaufman has worked with before- it is, essentially, three long scenes. I do not get all of the literary references in the dialogue, but that’s where repeat viewings can help focus things. We do get the characters, however, through the performances by Jessie Buckley (as the Young Woman) and Jesse Plemons (as Jake) as they drive, in the snow, to Jake’s childhood home, and then later, when they are driving back. The two driving sequences make up the majority of the film’s 134 minute running time, and if the dialogue Kaufman gives them makes that sound like an arduous task, I understand, and empathize. It says a lot about Buckley and Plemons’s work that we remain engaged with these characters even as they talk around their relationship, and the issues they are having, while spending about 60 minutes of the movie in a car together, during a snow storm. In between the driving is a visit with Jake’s parents (played by Toni Collette and David Thewis), and the way Kaufman’s film morphs into a psychological horror movie, where the Young Woman is faced with uncertain realities as Jake’s parents appear to shift in age, and mental capacities, and she is unable to connect with Jake. This stretch of film is remarkable in the way Kaufman allows us to see both outside of the Young Woman’s perspective, and within it, as she is faced with questions of her own existence, and those of the people around her, which will only be compounded on the trip back.
I’ll admit that, in writing this review, I’m still not entirely sure what I think about it. Kaufman has made an excellent movie on a technical level- he always does, and his use of the TV frame with cinematographer Lukasz Zal is marvelous- but the dialogue is dense and makes it hard to get brought into the film emotionally in a lot of times. But he is a master in getting the right emotions out of his performers, and everyone from the four I’ve already mentioned to the two girls running an ice cream shop at night, in the cold, to the janitor we see throughout the film is superb at drawing us in, and making us interested in what their character is doing. It’s enough to make me want to watch it again, and unlock more of his challenging, and riveting, movie.
