I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020) Movie • Page 9

that was the discussion i had in the group text earlier. why the “””””””twist”””””””” happens is much more important than the fake twist. it’s not a nolan or shamalyan movie. the twist, as far as it exists, isn’t the point.

 

how accurate is this

 

Accurate

 

watched this Friday morning and, in a heroic display of restraint, refrained from commenting until I had some time to sit with it

I’ve decided it’s extremely good

 

I’m a big fan of most Kaufman shit but thought this was pretty boring. Reading through the posts in here was more entertaining to me lol

 

this movie is brutally boring

 

lol

 

Hard disagree

 

I mean, to be fair, the car scenes tend to drag on for a long, long time. I get what he was going for and it does mimic the book in that respect, but I zoned out once or twice during them.

 

I mean I found this pretty enthralling but its only like, 4 distinct sections....two which are just 2 people talking in a car about......"nonsense"

 

I like the first car sequence a lot but all the movie critic stuff in the second car ride is brutal.

 

In a list of things I never needed to hear film characters explain to each other in an overly long car ride, David Foster Wallace might be near the top

I know the point wasn't David Foster Wallace, but it was an eyeroll moment for me

 

Oops just went to audible to buy the audiobook after enjoying the movie and turns out I probably bought the book when the movie was announced and forgot all about it cuz it’s already downloaded on my phone and everything

So basically I’m a big dumb dumb

 

i guess i get it. i found jessie buckley’s performance in the a woman under the influence rant pretty fascinating.

 

Both her being great and that part in particular being boring can happen simultaneously.

 

The fact that it is a direct extended quote from Kael is both a hint at the twist (her book is found in Jake's room) and a commentary on the fact that many of Jake's viewpoints are just regurgitations of other people's thoughts. I really liked the scene particularly because the power dynamics shift a bit. Jake makes a comment about the movie and YW is comes back with a vengeance, similarly to how Jake would correct her or always want to be right earlier in the car ride. The length of the monologue goes on for such a long time and has no other bearing on the rest of the film outside of showing this shift in power (and hinting at the ending) that it is almost comical.

 

I loved that part but I can get why people don't, especially if they haven't even seen the film.

 

Wow the Ringer article sure is bad, huh:

 

Throughout the movie, I was stuck on Buckley reminding me of someone else and I think I concluded it was Carrie Coon.

 

Great points but as @SpyKi said, I’ve never seen the movie so it was impossible keep up with past the idea that he/she is just regurgitating someone else’s thoughts.

 

“Sure to wreck your date night.”

dude, if a title like “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” didn’t tip you off that it would be depressing then maybe you deserve to have a bad date.

 

Neither have I, haha. I'm sure there's absolutely a deeper meaning to why that movie was specifically chosen or why Kael was the critic that YW recites, but you can still "get" what Kaufman was doing in terms of moving the story along/playing with power dynamics without seeing the film.

 

Is it actually confirmed anywhere that he was very smart growing up? And that he didn’t succeed academically and in a career because he had to take care of his parents?

If not, it makes more sense to me that he ended up a janitor and has delusions or grandeur and is blaming his parents for his life not turning out how he wished.

 

I haven't read the book so I don't know how this applies to that at all, but I kind of thought this movie, intentionally or not, presented a kind of trans allegory. I myself am not trans so let me know if you think this doesn't have any merit but:

Jake is an adult male, completely familiar with his parents and the farmhouse that he grew up in. There’s his childhood bedroom, helpfully labeled “Jake’s childhood bedroom.” Meanwhile, Lucy’s life and history is less clear. There’s a moment where she sees a photo of a child and is confused about the identity. Jake says it’s him — and it does look like it’d be a young Jesse Plemons. But her inner monologue is confused, because it also looks like it could be a young Jessie Buckley. Sometimes she’s a student, sometimes a painter, a poet, a waitress; she at one point says the farmhouse reminds her of the one she grew up in, but at other times mentions a childhood apartment and a house. Eventually, even her first name comes into question. It feels like Jake sorting through the person that he really wants to be, and really wants to bring home to introduce to his parents. But we run the gamut of the timeline of his parents life, and there doesn’t really seem to be a good time to introduce this woman to his parents for the first time. His mother is overbearing in her attempts to accept her as his father pushes back against her. He has a difficult experience and is ultimately distracted taking care of his parents as they age, and things end. Instead of fulfilling his potential — or becoming Buckley’s character in his outer life — Jake grows more and more internally frustrated and warped as he grows older until he becomes the elderly janitor at the high school he attended. He spends his days jealous of the teenage girls around him and wonders about what happens to the students after they leave the school. Until that memory of his failed coming out attempt walks right into the school (or pops up as a memory inside his dying brain) and he is transformed again, even if just for a moment. There are a few more vivid memories that play before he dies alone in his car.