Jake, the custodian, appears to suffer from some mental health issues exacerbated by a lifetime of extreme loneliness. “Jake” is an idealized version of his younger self, and the woman is a fantastical version of a person he met once long ago.
Everything we see with Jake, his parents, and this unnamed woman is taking place inside the head of an older man, a high school janitor ( Guy Boyd), who is contemplating taking his own life. But this is a phrase that can also mean “I’m thinking of committing suicide,” and by the end of the book it becomes clear that’s the truer meaning of the title of the book.
We take it to mean that she’s thinking of breaking up with her newish boyfriend, Jake ( Jesse Plemons), while they’re on their way to meet his parents. “I’m thinking of ending things” is a phrase repeated both by the female narrator of the book and the film’s central character, played by Jessie Buckley. The biggest hint about what, exactly, is going on in both the book and the film comes in the title. What follows is an attempt to unpack Kaufman’s film with the help of both Reid’s book and one very famous Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Iain Reid’s novel of the same name-though plenty complicated in its own right-clarifies the central premise of Kaufman’s adaptation and illuminates its abstract ending. Thankfully, there’s help in the form of the novel that the film is based on. But even though one would never call any one of Kaufman’s films simple or direct, I’m Thinking of Ending Things might be his most purposefully inscrutable work. I’m Thinking of Ending Things, which landed on Netflix on Friday, plays around with many familiar Kaufman concepts like dual identities, dream-like realities, and frustrated, lonely men and the women they hope will save them. Certainly fans of his earlier work like Synecdoche, New York Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Adaptation and Being John Malkovich have been eagerly anticipating his return. I’m Thinking of Ending Things is acclaimed writer-director Charlie Kaufman’s first film since 2015’s Oscar-nominated stop-motion romance Anomalisa.
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