I'm Thinking of Ending Things
Sep. 6th, 2020 01:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
singedsunI've just finished watching the new Charlie Kaufman movie that just came out on Netflix "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" and boy, it is a mind-bender. I read a follow-up interview with Kaufman too just to see if there was any clarity about things that I was missing by the end but I feel like I understood exactly what I understood.
This isn't a horror movie per-se but boy it sure feels a little bit like one.
The movie itself feels like a stage play which isn't really inaccurate. The story (which is an adaptation of a novel by Ian Reid) is about a girl, Lucy, who is going to visit her boyfriend's parents for the first time. But that's just the surface of what's happening in this movie.
I'm going to try and do this without spoilers now, but I'd LOVE to talk to people about this movie in the comments. So if you've watched it PLEASE comment and let me know what you thought.
On the surface of this story of Lucy and Jake going to his parent's farmhouse for dinner, we hear this internal monologue from Lucy as she thinks (and repeats) "I'm thinking of ending things". She carries on in this way while her boyfriend Jake tries to engage her in some small talk during their snowy drive out to the farmhouse where his parents grew up, his former childhood home. Dinner at the farmhouse seems... strained. His parents take forever to come down the stairs, his mother seems very nervous and high-strung and through their discussions during and after dinner it's obvious that things aren't normal. It's dream-like as Lucy's name and her profession drift from Variations of Lucy and from physics to poetry to art. As the way Lucy's person shifts so do her clothes and her hair.
But she's not the only personality shifting, while Jake stays somewhat static, his parents do not. And as Lucy focuses more on trying to figure out what's going on around her, her internal monologue slows and lessons until she's just as dreamlike as parents and the farmhouse itself.
Intercut with these scenes are one of an old janitor working at the old highschool Jake went to. We see him tending to the school mostly ignored by the students during the day and then alone at night, mopping the floors. At one point he watches some of the students rehearsing part of Oklahoma! and another we cut into the television show he's watching while he eats lunch or dinner.
And then... there's the drive home from Jake's house. Things become slower and less clear and we're often watching Jake and Lucy from outside the car, outside during a snowstorm, driving which enhances the very shifting and odd conversation they have about their visit and Lucy seems briefly to come back to herself. She seems to remember that she's 'thinking of ending things'.
Oh, it's weird and frightening and reminds me vaguely of a Pahalnuik or Danielewski novel where things are not what they seem on the surface. Jake's parents are played by David Thewlis and Toni Collette who are phenomenal, and the two lead characters are just... when I say it's like a stage play, I mean their scenes together. They meander, but to a point. They get these long sections of dialogue that had to have been difficult to both recite and also embody.
I told Matt when it was over that I know he would've hated it but I do wish that he'd watched it with me just so I'd have someone else to talk about it with because it's so interesting to dissect. I can't classify it as a horror movie really, when it's more like an anxiety dream put on film. I get that's kind of Kaufman's style, but it's been more clear than in this. I hope other people watch it and come back to tell me what they thought.
This isn't a horror movie per-se but boy it sure feels a little bit like one.
The movie itself feels like a stage play which isn't really inaccurate. The story (which is an adaptation of a novel by Ian Reid) is about a girl, Lucy, who is going to visit her boyfriend's parents for the first time. But that's just the surface of what's happening in this movie.
I'm going to try and do this without spoilers now, but I'd LOVE to talk to people about this movie in the comments. So if you've watched it PLEASE comment and let me know what you thought.
On the surface of this story of Lucy and Jake going to his parent's farmhouse for dinner, we hear this internal monologue from Lucy as she thinks (and repeats) "I'm thinking of ending things". She carries on in this way while her boyfriend Jake tries to engage her in some small talk during their snowy drive out to the farmhouse where his parents grew up, his former childhood home. Dinner at the farmhouse seems... strained. His parents take forever to come down the stairs, his mother seems very nervous and high-strung and through their discussions during and after dinner it's obvious that things aren't normal. It's dream-like as Lucy's name and her profession drift from Variations of Lucy and from physics to poetry to art. As the way Lucy's person shifts so do her clothes and her hair.
But she's not the only personality shifting, while Jake stays somewhat static, his parents do not. And as Lucy focuses more on trying to figure out what's going on around her, her internal monologue slows and lessons until she's just as dreamlike as parents and the farmhouse itself.
Intercut with these scenes are one of an old janitor working at the old highschool Jake went to. We see him tending to the school mostly ignored by the students during the day and then alone at night, mopping the floors. At one point he watches some of the students rehearsing part of Oklahoma! and another we cut into the television show he's watching while he eats lunch or dinner.
And then... there's the drive home from Jake's house. Things become slower and less clear and we're often watching Jake and Lucy from outside the car, outside during a snowstorm, driving which enhances the very shifting and odd conversation they have about their visit and Lucy seems briefly to come back to herself. She seems to remember that she's 'thinking of ending things'.
Oh, it's weird and frightening and reminds me vaguely of a Pahalnuik or Danielewski novel where things are not what they seem on the surface. Jake's parents are played by David Thewlis and Toni Collette who are phenomenal, and the two lead characters are just... when I say it's like a stage play, I mean their scenes together. They meander, but to a point. They get these long sections of dialogue that had to have been difficult to both recite and also embody.
I told Matt when it was over that I know he would've hated it but I do wish that he'd watched it with me just so I'd have someone else to talk about it with because it's so interesting to dissect. I can't classify it as a horror movie really, when it's more like an anxiety dream put on film. I get that's kind of Kaufman's style, but it's been more clear than in this. I hope other people watch it and come back to tell me what they thought.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-08 04:50 am (UTC)I like movies like this because it's not so abstract that there is absolutely no sense to make of it. But there is a correct theory to conclude. But it would take forever to guess all of the aspects right.
I just read an explanation and whoa. It was just good. Thanks for posting about it!
I also noticed a schizophrenic line and all the similarities to the disorder but it's not really mentioned in this article. Just alluded to by the whole movie. So I just picture him dancing around in the hall alone.
https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/im-thinking-of-ending-things-ending-explained/
I'm assuming this is an official explanation and not just one person's interpretation. But I don't know.
I did watch Adaptation too recently and I definitely wasn't into it like these two.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-08 05:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-08 07:48 am (UTC)I like that too about the movie, that there are a bunch of different options for what is happening while you're watching.