AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
One moment the woman is Lucy, the next one she is Lucia. source: NetflixĪt this point, the concepts of time and space have been thrown aside, and what’s left looks like a mystery you can’t quite comprehend. What first seems like a casual “meeting the boyfriends’ parents and having dinner together” kind of scene slowly morphs into something more disturbing and indescribable. Though of course, in a classic Kaufman style, things get even stranger first, especially once the young woman and Jake arrive at the home of his parents ( Toni Collette and David Thewlis) to have dinner with them. ![]() Through what’s happening inside the car between Jake and the young woman, I’m thinking of ending things teases us about the idea of how the human mind and thoughts can inform our reality - a subject that not only is integral to the original source but one that the movie will also transcend and explore even deeper during its final 20 minutes. It’s weird, yes, and at first, it looks like Jake’s reaction toward the thought inside his girlfriend’s head is only meant to heighten the strangeness of the movie, which is not wrong. ![]() Anytime the young woman contemplates breaking things up with Jake, he stares right at her to ask her whether she’s saying something or not like he knows what’s happening inside her head. Jake seems to realize what she’s thinking. “I’m thinking of ending things,” the woman says inside her head, over and over again as if she’s already given up about the future of their relationship. In fact, we can sense that there’s something off about their relationship that there’s an invisible gap between the two that just keeps getting wider and wider every second they’re together. Judging from how equally knowledgeable the couple is, it seems like things are okay between them on the surface. At one point, she and Jake get into an almost-heated discussion about Pauline Kael‘s review of the classic movie A Women Under the Influence, which in some way feels like a spiritual aunt to I’m thinking of ending things. The young woman, however, is not less intellectual than Jake she knows about a lot herself. In a cliche attempt to show Jake’s pretentious side, Kaufman even gives this man an opportunity to mansplain David Foster Wallace and Wordsworth to his girlfriend. The boyfriend’s name is Jake ( Jesse Plemons), and he seems like a nice regular Joe who knows about things from art to philosophy, though the longer you spend more time with him the more you realize that he’s a bit of a snob. A Snowy Road Trip to HellĪdapted from Iain Reid‘s psychological thriller book of the same name, I’m thinking of ending things centers its story around an unnamed young woman ( Jessie Buckley) who reluctantly agrees to go on a snowy road trip with her boyfriend of seven weeks to meet his parents for the first time. So even when things get pretty weird along the way - and trust me, it will get really weird, especially in the last 15 minutes - I’m thinking of ending things will always find a way to hook you in and never let go. But Kaufman‘s script and characters are not only layered with intellectuality, but they’re also grounded in emotions and reality. On the wrong hand, all these big ideas may end up making the movie impenetrable, especially if it barely scratches the surface of what it’s trying to tell in the first place. And while doing so, it confronts you with so many cerebral questions and/or dilemmas about life, perception and memory, loneliness, regret, and a lot more other stuff. Like all of Kaufman‘s previous films, either the ones he only wrote or the ones he wrote and directed, I’m thinking of ending things will challenge you to think outside of the constraints of what a movie can accomplish. To put it simply, trying to categorize I’m thinking of ending things into one box would be an exercise in futility. But at the same time, it’s also none of those above. It blends horror and drama, with a sharp bite of surreal humor and existential dread. This may sound like a lot, yes, and even confusing, but that’s because it’s indeed a lot and confusing. ![]() And when you think that you have it all figured out, it will present you a new reality and an enigma that’s even harder to crack than the last one given to you. It zags right after you assume it’s gonna zig. In Charlie Kaufman‘s psychodrama, I’m thinking of ending things, the grounds are constantly moving it keeps shifting until you no longer realize where you are or what world you are in at the moment.
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |