REVIEW: 'i'm thinking of ending things' - Charlie Kaufman's surrealist breakup

"It's why I like road trips. It’s good to remind yourself that the world’s larger than the inside of your own head."

"I’m thinking of ending things," says the Young Woman in voice over. Her name is either Lucy or Luisa or perhaps neither. She's gone with her boyfriend, Jake, to visit Jake's parents on their farm in the country. However, she thinks she's going to end things with him soon. "I'm thinking of ending things," she says once again. It's a breakup movie. A breakup of a relationship, a breakup of spirit, and a breakup of reality.

Charlie Kaufman is perhaps one of the most innovative filmmakers to follow. After starting his career twenty-one years ago with his critically-acclaimed screenplay for Being John Malkovich (1999), Kaufman has made a name for himself - first as a writer and now as a director - in the world of edgy, avant-garde, and surrealist filmmaking. With his tales of heartbreak, loneliness, and depression Kaufman finds a way to bring out certain darkness to the absurd and create beautiful feelings of darkness in bizarre moments. i’m thinking of ending things is perhaps the most Kaufman Kaufman has ever been.

There are certain filmmakers with clear and obvious creative trajectories. Each film is more obviously their own. It becomes more stylised or more extreme. Nolan’s scores get louder, Wes Anderson breaks his own record for most-symmetrical shots per minute in a film, and Kaufman breaks further and further away from reality.

The film is led by an incredible performances from Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons, and with incredible supporting performances by Toni Collette and David Thewlis who play Jack's mother and father respectively. Each cast member brings a fantastic energy to Kaufman's script. They perfectly blend the fine line of humor, drama, and horror that the film finds itself in. Buckley's perfect melancholy keeps the film's primary feelings alive and well. Plemons' uncertain emotional state is truly astounding. Bordering on the edge of chaos at all times, it's never easy being in the same place as Jake. Collette and Thewlis manage to be offputting, awkward, and funny all at the same time. They take the energy of so many "meet the parents for the first time" encounters, yet provide the air of unreality that Kaufman's worlds are in.

Of course, i'm thinking of ending things would be nothing without Kaufman himself guiding the entire project. No one else would have made a film nearly as effective and off-putting as he did. He blends words with characters with events with visual presentation to make a film unmistakably his. Kaufman makes movies that are his and no one else's. This takes those same patterns and takes them to a new extreme.

Perhaps it was for the best that Netflix was the studio that produced this film. It would allow for Kaufman to not only make the most out-of-the-box film possible as most theatre-bound studios would not dare touch something this insane and unique with a ten-foot pole. However, the streaming and algorithmic nature of Netflix would allow the film to be pushed to the forefront of the homepage and would have an audience more willing and receptive to new types of filmmaking that they would not normally invest the price of a ticket into.

i’m thinking of ending things proves to be Kaufman’s least accessible film. It's more daring and seemingly senseless than anything else he's made before. The narrative effortlessly blends various realities in a complex puzzle of metaphysicality. Moving between time, and space, and names without much thought. The film plays like the filmic version of a Dali or an Escher. The stairs move every which direction with unique sources of gravity holding each one to their own ground. Only the outsider notices the brokenness.

However, there is meaning to the madness.

The film is about the themes that Kaufman so often returns to throughout his career. It's about loneliness, isolation, and dreams and delusions. This is no different. Observing the whole of reality, the film is about the way we remember things. The emotion sticks with us, not the details. Perhaps these are snapshots of one life, perhaps many. Yet the emotion persists. The loneliness creeps forward.

i'm thinking of ending things is a curious film. It is unlike any of its peers in form and style. It will surprise and dazzle and confuse. It will anger and upset. You might hate it, you might love it, you will be confused, but Kaufman isn't afraid of this nor of your reaction to it. Jake says "It’s good to remind yourself that the world’s larger than the inside of your own head." I feel as if this a motivation behind the entire film. One experience is never enough. We must find the many in the specific stories.

Regardless of who we are - our names, or our ages, or where we come from, or where we go - we can find the humanity in the tragic story of Jake and the Young Woman. We can feel the melancholy of the lonely road. We understand parents and the pain of losing them. We can understand the feelings of love lost and love won.

We can understand the feeling of snow falling on a cold winter's day.

i’m thinking of ending things is now streaming on Netflix.

Score: 4.5

i’m thinking of ending things Quick Facts

Written and directed by Charlie Kaufman

Starring Jessie Buckley, Jesse Plemons, Toni Collette, and David Thewlis

Released September 4, 2020