''I'm Thinking of Ending Things'' (stylized as i'm thinking ''of'' ending things) is a 2020 American
surrealist
Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...
psychological thriller
Psychological thriller is a Film genre, genre combining the thriller (genre), thriller and psychological fiction genres. It is commonly used to describe literature or films that deal with psychological narratives in a thriller or thrilling setting ...
film written and directed by
Charlie Kaufman
Charles Stuart Kaufman (; born November 19, 1958) is an American screenwriter, film director, and novelist. Having first come to prominence for writing ''Being John Malkovich'' (1999), ''Adaptation (film), Adaptation'' (2002), and ''Eternal Sun ...
. It is an adaptation of the
2016 novel of the same name by
Iain Reid. The plot follows a young woman (
Jessie Buckley) who goes on a trip with her boyfriend (
Jesse Plemons
Jesse Plemons (; born April 2, 1988) is an American actor. He began his career as a child actor and achieved a breakthrough with his role as Landry Clarke in the NBC drama series '' Friday Night Lights'' (2006–2011). He subsequently portra ...
) to meet his parents (
Toni Collette
Toni Collette (born Collett; 1 November 1972) is an Australian actress, singer, and songwriter. Known for her work in television, blockbusters and independent films, her accolades include a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award, wit ...
and
David Thewlis). Throughout the film, the main narrative is intercut with footage of a school janitor (
Guy Boyd) going to work, with both stories intersecting by the
third act
The three-act structure is a model used in narrative fiction that divides a story into three parts ( acts), often called the Setup, the Confrontation, and the Resolution. Syd Field described it in his 1979 book ''Screenplay: The Foundations of ...
.
''I'm Thinking of Ending Things'' was released in select theaters on August 28, 2020, and on
Netflix
Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...
on September 4, 2020. It received positive reviews from critics, who praised the two lead performances and the cinematography.
Plot
Throughout the film, the main narrative is intercut with footage of an elderly janitor working at a high school, including scenes in which he sees students rehearsing ''
Oklahoma!
''Oklahoma!'' is the first musical theater, musical written by the duo of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs's 1931 play, ''Green Grow the Lilacs (play), Green Grow the Lilacs''. Set in farm country outside the town of ...
'' and watches a romantic comedy film.
A young woman (whose occupation and name change throughout) contemplates ending her relationship with her boyfriend Jake while on a trip to meet his parents at their farm. During the drive, Jake attempts to recite a poem he read when he was younger, "
Ode: Intimations of Immortality", and asks her to recite an original poem of hers to pass time. After she recites a morbid poem about coming home, they arrive at the farmhouse. Jake takes her to the barn, where he recounts a story about the farm's pigs being eaten alive by maggots.
Upon entering the farmhouse, the woman notices scratches on the basement door. At dinner, she shows Jake's parents photographs of her landscape paintings and says she met Jake at a trivia night in a bar, with narrative inconsistencies. Later, she notices a childhood picture of Jake, but becomes confused after initially recognizing the child as herself. She receives a call from a friend with a female name, and a mysterious male voice explains that there is "one question to answer". Over the course of the night, Jake's parents transform into their younger and older selves, though nobody comments on this. When the woman takes a nightgown down to the basement to wash, she discovers several janitor uniforms in the washing machine and finds posters for
Ralph Albert Blakelock exhibitions that have images of paintings seemingly identical to her own. She receives another call from the same mysterious voice.
On the drive home, Jake refers to several events that evening which the woman does not remember and then claims she drank a lot of wine. Word association leads to an extended critical discussion of
John Cassavetes
John Nicholas Cassavetes (December 9, 1929 – February 3, 1989) was an American filmmaker and actor. He began as an actor in film and television before helping to pioneer modern American independent cinema as a writer and director, often self- ...
' ''
A Woman Under the Influence''. The couple stops at Tulsey Town, a drive-through ice cream stand, whose employees are students at the janitor's school. When the woman is leaving, an employee with a rash says they are scared for her.
Jake stops at his high school to throw the ice-cream cups away. After a heated argument in the parking lot about the lyrics of "
Baby, It's Cold Outside
"Baby, It's Cold Outside" is a popular song written by Frank Loesser in 1944 and popularized in the 1949 film '' Neptune's Daughter''. While the lyrics make no mention of a holiday, it is commonly regarded as a Christmas song owing to its winter ...
", they share a kiss. Jake has a flashback of the janitor watching them from inside the school and decides to confront him, leaving the woman alone in the car. Eventually, she decides to look for Jake inside the school. She meets the janitor and asks him where Jake is, but she cannot remember what Jake looks like. She tells the janitor that nothing happened between Jake and her on the night they met, instead claiming Jake made her uncomfortable by staring at her.
The woman discovers Jake at the end of a hall. They watch as people dressed like themselves and the janitor engage in
ballet
Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...
, which ends when the janitor's dancer kills Jake's dancer with a knife.
Having finished his shift, the janitor enters his car, but does not start the motor. He experiences hallucinations of Jake's parents arguing and animated Tulsey Town commercials. The janitor then undresses and reenters the school, led by the hallucination of a maggot-infested pig who tells him that "someone has to be the pig infested with maggots", that "everything is the same, when you look close enough", and that he should get dressed.
On an
auditorium
An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens. Auditoriums can be found in entertainment venues, community halls, and t ...
stage, an old Jake receives a
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...
and sings "
Lonely Room" from ''Oklahoma!'' to an audience of people from his life, all of them in theatrical old-age makeup, who give him a standing ovation. The emotional Jake stands there to gaze upon the audience for an uncomfortably long time as the scene fades into solid blue.
In the final scene, the solid blue fades into a shot of the school parking lot the next morning, where the couple's car is absent, while the janitor's truck is still parked and now covered in snow. Towards the end of the credits, scraping sounds emanate from the engine of an approaching snowplow.
Cast
Production
It was announced in January 2018 that
Charlie Kaufman
Charles Stuart Kaufman (; born November 19, 1958) is an American screenwriter, film director, and novelist. Having first come to prominence for writing ''Being John Malkovich'' (1999), ''Adaptation (film), Adaptation'' (2002), and ''Eternal Sun ...
was adapting
Iain Reid's novel ''
I'm Thinking of Ending Things'' for
Netflix
Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...
, as well as directing. In December,
Brie Larson and
Jesse Plemons
Jesse Plemons (; born April 2, 1988) is an American actor. He began his career as a child actor and achieved a breakthrough with his role as Landry Clarke in the NBC drama series '' Friday Night Lights'' (2006–2011). He subsequently portra ...
were cast in the film. In March 2019,
Jessie Buckley,
Toni Collette
Toni Collette (born Collett; 1 November 1972) is an Australian actress, singer, and songwriter. Known for her work in television, blockbusters and independent films, her accolades include a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award, wit ...
and
David Thewlis joined the cast, with Buckley replacing Larson.
Principal photography
Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production.
Personnel
Besides the main film personnel, such as the ...
began on March 13, 2019, in
Fishkill, New York
Fishkill is a village within the town of Fishkill in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The village is in the eastern part of the town of Fishkill on U.S. Route 9. It is north of Interstate 84. NY 52 is the main street. It is part of ...
, and was completed on April 29. As of November 7, the film was in
post-production
Post-production, also known simply as post, is part of the process of filmmaking, video production, audio production, and photography. Post-production includes all stages of production occurring after principal photography or recording indivi ...
.
Release
''I'm Thinking of Ending Things'' was released in select theaters on August 28, 2020, and on
Netflix
Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...
on September 4.
Critical reception
Review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
reports that of critic reviews are positive, with an average rating of ; the critics' consensus for the film reads: "Aided by stellar performances from Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons, ''I'm Thinking of Ending Things'' finds writer-director Charlie Kaufman grappling with the human condition as only he can." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, the film has a
weighted average
The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...
score of 78 out of 100 based on reviews from 46 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
Karen Han of ''
Polygon
In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure made up of line segments connected to form a closed polygonal chain.
The segments of a closed polygonal chain are called its '' edges'' or ''sides''. The points where two edges meet are the polygon ...
'' wrote: "The lack of clear answers and structure can be frustrating, but the strange way the story is told enhances just how real the exchanges between characters feel. The frustration that Lucy feels with Jake, that Jake feels with his mother, that his parents feel for each other, are all uncomfortably tangible, especially as tensions rise. The film's 134-minute runtime is a long time to sit with that feeling, but Kaufman's big divergence from the novel he's adapting is in lending its ending a more buoyant note." In his review, Brian Tallerico of ''
RogerEbert.com'' gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, calling it "a movie that is undeniably complex in terms of symbolism and a more surreal final act than most people will be expecting". He also praised the cinematography, saying that the film's atmosphere is "amplified by a tight 4:3 aspect ratio courtesy of
Łukasz Żal (''
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
'') that forces the viewer to pay more attention to what's in frame." ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.
In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...
''s Wendy Ide wrote: "This is not cinema that leaves you feeling good about things. Nor does it tread a familiar path. But ''I'm Thinking of Ending Things'' is one of the most daringly unexpected films of the year, a sinewy, unsettling psychological horror, saturated with a squirming dream logic that tips over into the domain of nightmares."
In a more mixed review, Adam Graham of ''
The Detroit News
''The Detroit News'' is one of the two major newspapers in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan
Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United S ...
'' gave the film a C, calling Plemons's and Buckley's performances excellent, but lamenting the plot, writing: "''I'm Thinking of Ending Things'' is an unsolvable riddle where the only answer is mankind's hopelessness, and we've been down this road before." For ''
TIME
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'',
Stephanie Zacharek wrote: "For every moment of raw, affecting insight there are zillions of milliseconds of Kaufman's proving what a tortured smartie he is. ''I'm Thinking of Ending Things'' must have been arduous to make, and it's excruciatingly tedious to watch."
Accolades
See also
*
List of films featuring fictional films
Notes
References
External links
*
*
{{Portal bar, Film, United States, Internet, Speculative fiction, Oklahoma
2020 films
2020 independent films
2020 psychological thriller films
2020s American films
2020s English-language films
American films with live action and animation
American independent films
American psychological thriller films
English-language independent films
English-language thriller films
Films about nightmares
Films based on Canadian novels
Films directed by Charlie Kaufman
Films scored by Jay Wadley
Films set in Oklahoma
Films shot in New York (state)
Films with screenplays by Charlie Kaufman
Magic realism films
Metaphysical fiction films
Netflix original films
Surrealist films
Works about janitors