Last Friday, September 4th, was the premiere on Netflix of Charlie Kaufman’s latest film I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Having been puzzled, but also fascinated by Kaufman’s previous enigmatic work and also by his integrity to make films that he really wants to make, I took the earliest opportunity to see the film.

I can’t remember a film that I wanted so badly to write about afterwards, but then had so much difficulty to know what to write. As I watched the film, it threw up so many questions, feelings and bewilderments that I longed to talk about it with others. It is a film that needs to be unpacked with imaginitive thinking and vulnerable discussion. That being so close to the ethos of Nexus, this film deserves a place on this site with a strong invitation to discussion and comment.

Those who are aware of Charlie Kaufman’s earlier work know his occupation with what goes on in the male psyche. As the scriptwriter of the Spike Jonze films Being John Malkovich (1999) and Adaptation (2002) we see him work with notions of what is real and what is imaginary, of what goes on inside the head of people. He continued these kinds of explorations in his first two films Synecdoche, New York (2008) and Anomalisa (2015), both works of creative and ambitious art. I’m Thinking of Ending Things, his third film, seems to take the theme of the troubled mind one step further with its labyrinth of clues, metaphors and references.

On the surface the story seems to be a simple one, particularly in the first three acts of four. It starts with Lucy and Jake, a young couple in a relatively new relationship, taking a long car trip in a snow storm to meet his parents at their farmhouse. The title of the film is an early thought from Lucy about their relationship probably going nowhere. Their conversations in the car are the first act. The second is the visit and the dinner at the house, where things become quite awkward and weird. The third act is the drive back to the city in an intensifying snow storm with a detour to Jake’s high school, where they run into the old janitor. That meeting is the beginning of the fourth act, moving towards a surreal climax. I don’t want to say more as it would spoil your own feelings and interpretations of those events.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a dense narrative asking important questions: “how do we construct our view of reality?”, “how does our worldview get isolated and lived only in our heads?”, “how can we move to more than thoughts and ground things in reality?” In that sense, it is very much a film about ageing, how can we do that well; how we struggle with love, connection, identity, how we are haunted by missed chances. 

Images and memories are still rolling around in my mind. Like an artwork can do for you.

Rinus, Sept 2020

*image posted for non commercial purposes under ‘fair use’ of copyright material in recommendation of the film