I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020)

Weird Drama - I'm Thinking of Ending Things review by GI

This surreal, ever so weird drama does give you feelings of disquiet and occasionally foreboding but ultimately I found it lacking in depth and just a little too far out there to make it either riveting or enjoyable. Director Charlie Kaufman has a gift for comedy which is sadly missing here although the claustrophobia and themes of loneliness and hopelessness this film purveys have a way of getting under the viewer's skin. An unnamed young student has reluctantly agreed to go with her boyfriend Jake (Jesse Plemons) to meet his parents. They undertake the journey in a snowstorm and the woman is already having doubts about the future of her relationship with Jake. When they arrive at his parents farm the nightmarish elements of the film really begin, with his strange parents (Toni Collette and David Thewlis) who's appearances keep changing along with the furnishings and photographs. Insisting on going home their drive back gets repeatedly interrupted especially when Jake decides to stop at his old high school. If you need to your films to have a straight forward story then this isn't for you, as the narrative veers off in some very strange and incomprehensible directions. This is an unexpected and unsettling psychological drama and isn't for everyone and to be honest I didn't enjoy it as much as some of Kaufman's earlier work.

Enjoyable, but trying to tease out hidden meanings will leave you frustrated - I'm Thinking of Ending Things review by WS

I liked the interaction between Lucy and Jake during the car journeys. You get the impression that Jake isn’t really much of a ladies’ man; he’s probably the type who’s bullishly confident in an all-male environment but awkward around women. During the journey, they talk about movies, poetry, science, and psychoanalysis - both seem very well-read and erudite, and you get the feeling that in some ways they might be a good match, even though there’s a lack of evident passion or intimacy between them, and I think it's fair to say that on looks alone, Lucy is "dating down".

Jake’s mom and dad (Toni Collette and David Thewlis) are an affable and affectionate pair, but a little cringey in their overenthusiasm and exaggerated reactions; Jake is awkward in their company, even though Lucy warms to them. Even before dinner, a few things seem not quite right. Why are there scratches and tape-marks on the basement door? When the family dog comes in from outside, why isn’t it covered in snow? But it’s only after dinner that the movie descends into non-linear weirdness, with alternative timelines and identities superimposed on the main narrative, and the couple’s past, present and future (if indeed they are a couple), colliding.

So how does this fit into Kaufman’s body of work? Does it show a new direction? Well, it’s another film about powerlessness, disappointment, thwarted ambition, and the apparent futility of our lives. But compared to Kaufman's earlier offerings, which are mostly about middle-class and creative angst, this is more a film about the universality of suffering. It’s about the stages of life, about the passage of time and how we process our past experiences; more specifically it’s a reminder that at no stage in our existence – childhood, adolescence, maturity, old age – are we ever going to get all the parts of our lives to click into place like a completed Rubix cube. There’s no final moment of redemption or triumph for any of us, and that if there is meaning and dignity to be found in life, it is in small everyday acts of kindness. Feels oddly contemporary in touching on the themes of long-term middle-aged loneliness, whilst not having anything very incisive to say about it.

It offers a somewhat bleak worldview, I feel that many aspects of it are intentionally confusing and opaque and that sometimes even the writer wasn't sure what he was trying to do. Attempting to unpack this film's meaning could be like unpacking a suitcase and finding a false bottom . . . that turns out to be empty. But it's still the most humanistic and least acerbic film he's made so far, and based on my own enjoyment, rather than it's philosophical depth, I would say it's his best since "Adaptation" and would have no hesitation in giving it a 4.