“I’m Thinking of Ending Things” Raises the Bar for Film Surrealism
(Photo via Netflix)
By Brittany Aufiero
A psychological thriller and skillful enterprise in the art of subdued horror, director Charlie Kaufman’s latest film purports to follow the story of a young woman (Jessie Buckley) who contemplates the longevity of her relationship during an evening of “meet-the-parents” with her boyfriend Jake (Jesse Plemons). Released Aug. 28 in select theaters and available on Netflix as of Sep. 4, the apparently simple premise of “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” is made complicated as viewers realize that the truth is subjective and nothing is truly as it seems in the lives of this young couple.
Although the young woman’s perspective is front-and-center, including voice-over monologues and asides that tell viewers exactly what she’s thinking, her name is never made entirely clear. She is Lucy, then Lucia, then Louisa - a revolving door of L-starting names, never claiming a single one for more than a moment. Her profession, too, changes at key moments in the film, such as when Jake beams while telling his parents over dinner that she is an artist, but later mentions she is studying microbiology, then gerontology.
The strangeness begins with her, but Jake and his family are also an experiment in contradictions. While he is quiet and cheerful when alone with his girlfriend, he’s quick to anger in the presence of his parents, who seem to embarrass him. In one scene he shouts and slams his fists on the dinner table, furious that his mother pronounced the name of a game he was good at in childhood wrong. His parents only deepen the unease. His mother (Toni Collette) ricochets between periods of sullenness and intense euphoria - crying, speaking loudly, and laughing at inappropriate moments. Jake’s father (David Thewlis), on the other hand, looks worn and wears a bandage on his forehead that is never explained.
Jake (Jesse Plemons) and his girlfriend (Jessie Buckley) prepare to sit down to dinner with his parents (Left to Right: Toni Collette and David Thewlis) in his childhood home. (Photo via of Netflix)
“I’m Thinking of Ending Things” is a master director’s dream realized, and at the dinner our unnamed - or overly named - narrator sees firsthand what the rest of her life will look like if she and Jake remain together. Jake’s parents grow old and fragile between one scene and the next. Jake’s father is in full control of his mental faculties in one moment, and then suffering from the late stages of dementia minutes later. She begs Jake to take her home as she watched him spoon-feed his dying mother, who was only minutes ago in good health, sipping wine. Kaufman confronts mortality and the human ego with startling clarity as the narrator realizes that she will eventually exist to Jake merely as a source of validation for his life choices.
Kaufman is no stranger to viewer speculation on the hidden messages and underlying meanings in his projects. He won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as a writer for “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” in 2005 and made his directorial debut in 2008 with the film “Synecdoche, New York,” a postmodern comedy-drama which also blurs the lines between reality and fiction.
A gem of surrealism, “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” evokes feelings of existential dread but does so while appealing to our most intrinsic desire to understand what we are watching. Our narrator is relatable and women will empathize with the conflicting feelings she voices on her relationship with Jake. Jake, too, is an enigma up until nearly the very end, when we can finally start to piece together the reality of what is going on. It’s surely a film you’ll need to experience twice, but you’ll savor every minute of it.
