‘I’m Thinking of Ending Things' Ends Poorly, but Thinks Big

This review contains major spoilers

A sage cartoon pig, an “Oklahoma!” pas de deux, and an oppressively warm farmhouse in the dead of winter. Jessie Buckley plays a doubtful woman concerned about her relationship with her new boyfriend, Jake (Jesse Plemons), as they shuttle through this surreal and unnerving wintery landscape. “I’m Thinking Of Ending Things”(2020) takes the simple story of meeting-the-parents and makes everything go odd.

The film, an adaptation of the novel by Ian Reid, is the latest in writer and director Charlie Kaufman’s growing existentialist filmography. Beginning with his screenplay for “Being John Malkovich” (1999), Kaufman’s conversation-heavy, idea-driven way of writing has made him a darling in the American art house community. That same meddling with philosophy, on the other hand, has earned his films the label of pretentious by some audiences. In any case, “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” distributed by Netflix on Sept. 4, left many viewers scratching their heads as to what they just witnessed.

While the darker, more confounding elements of Kaufman’s adaptation bring the work nowhere close to incompetency, the film is also not a masterpiece. Kaufman loves his words, and some conversations draw on for what seems like ages. Additionally, a poorly structured third act strings together scenes in a haphazard manner that prevents the plot and its characters from flourishing the same way that the film’s central themes hit so poignantly. Nevertheless, among these missteps, “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” is a valiant effort by Kaufman to present existentialism in its broadest, most expansive definition: to feel the weight of a lifetime pass through oneself.

The trouble with film adaptations of novels, especially when the novel is somewhat surreal or complex, is that the film sometimes forgets that it's a film. That is, aesthetic qualities of the film — how visually interesting it appears, its editing, and so on — and its structural elements are not as consistent as the narrative and the characters. In “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” viewers are treated to a metaphysical conversation between Lucy and her boyfriend as they drive through the snowstorm. These scenes, especially the 13-minute night drive towards home, fail to be as visually interesting as the conversation is thematically interesting. The camera routinely switches from angles within and outside the car, but generally shoots back and forth between Buckley and Plemens’ characters. There’s a lack of dynamic movement — both character movement and character movement — that is both interesting and in line with the tense tone of the script. The view of the brand new swingset in the first car ride, for example, accomplishes this variance. Furthermore, in its exploration of time and its foreshadowing of Jake’s real life, the scenes in the farmhouse are poorly paced. While Jake’s mother (Toni Collette) and father (David Thewlis) deliver respectable performances (Collette’s kookiness becomes somewhat routine after some time), it’s difficult to appreciate the lengthy time spent at the home beyond some pungent moments of dialogue or surrealism.

After the farmhouse, Jake and Lucy go from strange place to strange place, the plot becoming elusive until the audience slowly realizes that Lucy isn’t quite real at all (more on this point later). The film has such a great focus on delivering thematic sucker punches that its overall structure and pacing unfortunately fade into the background. Thankfully, for all the time spent with her character, Buckley, in a weary, sardonic voice, contributes a powerhouse performance. Kaufman has an unfortunate tendency to write female characters as points of character development and exposition for men, but for the time the audience is led to believe her existence, Lucy is the tool through which the film delivers some of its more poignant points. In particular, Buckley’s rendition of Eva H.D.’s poem “Bonedog,” as she stares into the camera, is chilling. It’s also through her that the thematic core of the film is given:

“People like to think of themselves as points moving through time, but I think it’s probably the opposite. We’re stationary and time passes through us. Blowing like cold wind, stealing our heat.”

However, in the third act, Buckley’s character fades away and Kaufman’s idiosyncratic visions begin to flood the narrative without much cohesion in pacing or editing, from the well-lit dance in the school hallways to the very (very) unexpected rendition of Oklahoma’s “Many A New Day,” by Plemens in old-person stage makeup. These moments are grand gestures of artistic expression and Kaufman’s surrealist wit, but were not as meticulously put together as they could’ve been.

While it requires some patience to pull these gems out of the mesh they were placed in and put them together, “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” forms a beautiful kaleidoscope through which one can see a profound summary of existentialism. The wistful janitor, aging parents, and metronome-like windshield wipers come together as pieces of an existentialist puzzle. To think about the past, present, and future, all at once is as surreal as it is touching, and on an emotional level, Kaufman delivers. Though the psychological thriller ultimately wanders too much for its own good, its risk and commitment to its ideas make it a film worth watching.