I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020)
Director: Charlie Kaufman
Writers: Charlie Kaufman, Ian Reid
Actors: Jesse Plemons, Jessie Buckley, Toni Collette, David Thewlis
Kaufman has proven to be a formidable writer. With incredible work such as Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and the highly adored Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, it seemed like anything he touched turned to gold. However his career took a turning point when in 2008 he decided to direct his own film with Synecdoche, New York. A film which at the time was harshly criticized by high profile critics garnering a low metacritic & rotten tomatoes score. The critical response hit Kaufman in a way that was not expected and he took it to heart. Years go by and Synecdoche, New York ages like fine wine, garnering a passionate group of supporters (for which I am one of them) and have raised this film’s status to one of the greatest not only of the 2000s but of all time. His next film Anomalisa, is an animated feature that personified complex feelings of loneliness, depression, and despair. Similar to Synecdoche, Anomalisa split critics in half as some gravitated with Kaufman’s borderline pessimistic view on relationships while others found its take to be pretentious, sloppy, and somewhat excessive. I again fell in the former, as it was another of his directorial projects that impressed me and was one of my favorites of the decade. With the release of his new project on Netflix, I was hopeful as the burden of flopping at the box office would not be as big of an issue anymore and it may be a way for Kaufman to safely experiment as he pleases (not that it stopped him before). Regardless, I went into this project with no prior knowledge on the source material and came out of it shocked, confused, but mostly impressed.
I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a film inside the mind of Jake, a janitor who lives his present days monotonously repeating a bland lifestyle. By day he goes past the lively crowd in the school hallways as every individual stands out as a moment of what could have been, and intensifies his fantasies. At night the empty corridors are the perfect breeding grounds for his delusions to infest that ultimately lead him to his fatal demise. We are introduced to Jake as a sharp young man taking his Girlfriend to meet his parents in the middle of nowhere. What first seems like a story of a woman who is battling with the need to be in a relationship is slowly revealed to be so much more. The journey of Young Woman and Jake lives inside Jake’s mind as he goes about his daily routine as a janitor. It is a fantasy of what could have been and is ultimately lost due to his decisions. The Young Woman represents the girlfriend Jake always dreams of, one that in this case is personified by someone he met at a trivia quiz night. She is a quantum physicist, a student, a doctor, a waitress. Even in his idealized fantasies Jake is still able to wish for someone even if they are merely a waitress. Something that is triggered as well by the satirical Robert Zemeckis film which features Yvonne a waitress that ends up getting fired but ultimately finds love. This is not the only time movies are used as a key element in Jake’s fantasies. In one of the conversations Jake talks about his love for movies. Possibly due to the hundreds of nights he spends in the AV room at the high school watching movies on his own, or the stack of DVDs found in his childhood bedroom. Films such as A Woman Under The Influence is heavily discussed along with the inclusion of the Nobel Peace Prize speech from A Beautiful Mind at the end. Both featuring characters that are mentally unstable, that Jake may share likeness to in his own frail psyche.
The film takes us on a hazy journey, one with changing facts, set pieces, and time frames. It is the nature of memory and fantasy. Kaufman is showing us the unpredictable and somewhat weak basis in which the mind builds thoughts/dreams. As the plot moves forward, metaphorically represented by Jake’s journey with Young Woman, we see the fantasies Jake wishes his life could have been. To be dating a competent/smart woman, being able to take care of his parents as they grow old or frail, or having the courage to give his number to someone he found interesting. The film is filled to the brim with moments Jake wishes to go back to as he somberly cleans the hallways for the 100th time. It is a testament to the detrimental effects of a mentally frail person who relies on self loathing to correct himself. You can even see the self loathing seep through in his fantasies as even in his idealized reality of having a quantum physicist as a girlfriend she still feels the need to “end things”. Ending things here pertains to both his idealized girlfriend wanting to end the relationship and also his thoughts on committing suicide. Trying to analyze every conversation piece and symbolic reference would take ages, as Kaufman truly managed to create on of the most densely packed pieces of cinema in the past couple of years. Simple aspects like a shot showing a similar rash to the one in Tulsey Town can be interpreted in so many ways. As for myself, I saw it as the remnants of an old past he used to live. Him working in Tulsey Town as a young adult while having his female coworkers poke fun at him. It also explains his routine of getting a “Brrr” everyday to the point in which he fills up the school dumpster. Not for actually liking the dessert but hold on to a past that keeps slipping away with age. It is a subtle scene but one that further emphasizes Kaufman’s intensive need for detail.
The journey concludes at the high school where Kaufman turns the intensity to eleven, and the surrealist in him flourishes. We are subjected to a short dance sequence of seemingly Jake and the Young Woman, that ends with a janitor taking the woman away from the husband and stabbing him. It is a representation of how Jake views his current lifestyle/self to have literally taken away all that he wanted. To the point in which he killed whatever remnants of the idealized Jake could have existed within him. This suddenly transitions to the speech scene which as explained before was taken directly from A Beautiful Mind, even down to the shots. It is another example of Jake’s obsession with movies and how hollow his personality is that even his fantasies are ones taken directly from other medium. This then leads to the films conclusion as Jake sings the song Lonely Room from the musical Oaklahoma. Which he has grown accustom to due to the amount of times he has seen students practice musicals in the auditorium as he is cleaning. The song is sung by the villain of the play Judd who dreams of lusting/being with women but ultimately realizes how lonely he really is. This is directly paralleled with Jake’s fantasies of being with these women whom he barely knows their names yet has vivid interpretations of how they may act, behave, and think. It is then we have the final sequence as Jake locks himself in the car leading to his paradoxical undressing as he is experiencing hypothermia. He is then lured by a delusion of the pigs that once lived on his parent’s farm. Eaten by maggots they are metaphorically linked to Jake as he himself is being eaten by his own mental illness and self loathing. Both the maggots and Jake’s illness lead both the pigs and him to their ultimate demise. As Jake’s final moments are spent in a hallucinated haze dying in his own car.
It may be too early to call this film one of the best of the year. However, even with one viewing and revisiting multiple scenes for this review I saw the amount of detail and work went into it. The film is a masterclass of metaphorical imagery and dialogue. It is filled to the brim with references that inject themselves into the world of the film along with our own lingering thoughts by the end of it all. Although this is a topic that is done multiple times in Kaufman projects, I loved the approach. Maybe not as much as Synecdoche but it is still one that I enjoy. A film riddled with symbols, depth, and inner messages feels like a playground. One that I cant wait to come back to in order to find everything that I missed in my first viewing. In my eyes Kaufman is three for three, his filmography is perfect so far and I can’t wait for his next project. Even if it takes another five years, I think it is safe to say that it will be well worth the wait. Even if you don’t connect with any of his films, you can’t deny the unique experience this man presents.
9.6/10
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