Review of: I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020)

 Review of I’m Thinking of Ending Things

The Over-Examined Life is Not Worth Pondering

“I wonder whether your madness isn't the worst kind. You act healthy, act it so well that everyone believes you--everyone except me, because I know how rotten you are.”

― Alma, from Bergman’s Persona

“I don’t care what you think unless it is about me.”

― Kurt Cobain

 

“All boyhood friends told me I’d fail. Spend my lifetime friendless or in jail. And all the girls at the school dance… would give me a second chance….” 

― I Won’t Look Back (song), The Dead Boys 

Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things is predictably enigmatic. It was fun to follow the non-linear, M.C. Escher-esque, time sequences underpinning the love story in his Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It was equally entertaining to see his tragic-comic artist fight the army of metaphorical windmills in Being John Malkovich. This track record of being funny, off-beat and artistically daring is the perfect sensibilty for a filmmaker wanting to translate Iain Reid’s quirky novel. Reid’s protagonist, a latter-day Walter Mitty obsessed with Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, is cut from the same cloth as many of Kaufman’s anti-heroes. Unfortunately Kaufman became seduced by the foibles of Reid’s creation. The protagonist creates a world that is only accessible through his own mind. Kaufman film is for Kaufman, not a general audience.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things is composed of a horror film preceded by a twenty minutes comedic short. The opening features a new girlfriend (Jessie Buckley) meeting the boyfriend’s parents in a remote location. This opening segment possesses a masterful use of the young woman’s internal monologue. It is witty and unsparingly honest. She says what dare not be said: I am going along with the travesty of this relationship because, because…. I don’t know. The boyfriend (Jesse Piemons) interrupts her caustic internal banter at just the right moments to certify that there is no hope of a future. If only Kaufman had held firm to this wry back and forth featuring Jessie. This film could have been an interesting social touch-stone in the vein of Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. A charismatic contemporary figure manages the odd paths of American romance. Sadly it turns to the funny/horror genre in the vein of Get Out, without Jordan Peele’s command of comedy. The creepiness rises exponentially as the focus shifts from Jessie to Jesse, whose character goes by “Jake”.

This Jake is not the Jason of slasher lore. Ironically his childhood home and parents would seem the perfect ingredients to produce a psychopathic misfit. The older couple have a histrionic quality that takes them out of the real world. Toni Collette and David Thewlis play their parts beautifully but fail to match the wit and lightheartedness of initial road trip sequence. They, purposefully, overstep their oddness. Their reactions and facial expressions exhibit people primed to be inappropriate. Whereas the Jesse and Jessie have a quirky believability, the mom and dad are pure gothic caricature. The house is as over-the-top as the other-worldly couple. There are scratches on the door to the basement, which Jessie is warned never to enter. Even the family dog is off-kilter. All dogs shake, but no dogs shakes uncontrollably for, what seems like, a full minute. The stylization feeds the narrative in that this is a film about Jake. The Jessie-centric drive sequence becomes a disjointed preface. Unfortunately Jesse Piemons dissolves into the same psychosis as his parents — he tackles the role beautifully but Kaufman undercuts him by making his pathology as unpalatable as his mother and father. Behind the shape-shifting, time-bending pyrotechnics are a very uninspired creepy mavericks. The denouement arrives when Jake returns to his high school after the young couple leaves the farmhouse in a blizzard. Throughout the first two segments there are a strange series of non-sequiturs involving an elderly janitor at a high school. He turns out to be the key to this cinematic roman-a-clef.

Spoiler alert, he is everyone; or more specifically: all the people we have seen are embodiments of his projections from an un-lived life. That charming love-interest is a mirage of what might have been. That visit to the ice cream stand is peopled with former crushes. One wonders about their fate. Did Jake’s infatuation go beyond ephemeral day-dreaming? Did bad things occur in the real world? All those empty milk shake containers in the garbage at the entrance to the high school hint at something more sinister. Another disturbing clue: the forbidden basement’s secret turns out to be a washing machine filled with the janitor’s clothes. Is he washing blood stains after a night of ravishing the innocents? Is Jake a misogynistic incel lunatic bent on retribution? What is it, in Jake, that we are celebrating? The eeriness undercuts all the triumphalism of the final scene. Are we supposed to join with the audience of made-up creations in the high school gym and cheer on this ambiguous anti-hero? Is it enough to have a vivid imagination?

We can be very thankful for one of Jake’s dreams: the recreation of the eerie dance sequence from the 1955 film version of Oklahoma. This is the spiritual highlight of I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Kaufman steps away from the word-driven, proscenium-arch motif that weighs down much of the film. Even the initial journey to the parents has an endless claustrophobic feel. The close-ups are occasionally positioned outside of the vehicle as if to break up the monotony. It doesn’t. The dialogue is strong, but film is a visual medium. The dance sequence’s blast of color and movement rescues the audience from the claustrophobic car, the barn filled with dead animals and the gothic farm-house. Kaufman’s visual idealization of romance is breathtaking but no amount of choreography can mask this solipsistic loner. Jake’s actions speak louder than his imaginings. He abandons his love in a parking lot during a blizzard. He chases the bad-guy janitor, who is an incarnation of himself. The romance is secondary to his wanting to play the part of the hero. But it is important to note: he is rescuing HIMSELF. Dogs chasing their tales would seem a shallow foundation for a feature film… but Kaufman thinks otherwise. Perhaps he thought the hollow center could be masked by a veneer of cultural references.

Literary and pop-culture allusions dominant even the most mundane snippits of dialogue. The girlfriend, credited as “the young woman”, goes by Lucy. This revelation coincides with an in-depth discussion of the poet Wordsworth, who happens to have a series of poems about unrequited love called, Lucy. Jake’s character might be named for Hemingway’s protagonist in The Sun Also Rises. That Jake is literally castrated which metaphorically reflects Jake’s inability with the ladies. This is just the names of the central characters. It is as if Kaufman believes movie audiences are akin to people who obsess about the NY Times Sunday crossword puzzle. Unfortunately being clever is distinct from being captivating. One might spend years pondering the meaning of the red raincoat in Nicolas Roeg’s literary horror classic Don’t Look Now. Kaufman’s adaptation of Ian Reid’s novel fails to spark the interest in unraveling the mystery. It is the difference between homework and heartfelt discovery.

What is Kaufman yammering-on about? The real stuff might be found in re-watching the classic Oklahoma! . Behind the triumphant celebration song, with the refrain “WE’RE DOING FINE!!!”, lies a tale of coercion, attempted murder, spite, jealously, suicide, class-warfare… all saddled in a Native American territory at the cusp of statehood. Did I mention the evil foreigner from the Middle East? Rodgers and Hammerstein know how to make the unsettling story literally… sing. Kaufman performed a yeoman’s effort in unpacking the brimstone & treacle of America’s heartland. Sadly he carries the same fatal flaw as Jake. He lives in his head. He might want to fastidiously unpack the minutia of a deranged weirdo. A general audience, however, prefers the elan of exciting, unambiguous villains. Stephen King’s blood spattered prom night in Carrie is more entertaining than the intellectual pomposity of Jake’s graduation. No one wants to spend time with the real-life Ed Gein, the depraved human taxidermist who was the basis for the character Hannibal Lector. But people wouldn’t mind having dinner with the character played by Anthony Hopkins… as long as the spoon is long enough. No one, including the figments of his imagination, wants to be near Jake. (maybe with the exception of his mother — but that only proves my point regarding his abhorrence) Let’s hope Kaufman’s next project has less matter, more art… fewer ideas and more people. Sometimes thinking too much can get in the way of living, or making art, or making love…. Just ask Jake.