i’m thinking of ending things
Jessie Buckley is a young woman with both a fluctuating first name and a changing career on the way to visit her boyfriend’s parents for the first time after seven weeks (or is it longer?) of dating — and she’s thinking of ending things between them.
As far as Charlie Kaufman premises go (Adaptation, Being John Malkovich), it is one of the simpler ones: a road trip through a blizzard to a remote farmhouse while morosely pondering the fact the relationship is terminal.
Based upon Iain Reid’s 2016 novel of the same name, the Netflix drama presents itself as a break-up movie.
And the film starts off normally enough but as we’re sucked into the oppressively bleak world we are soon confronted with disappearing dogs, spooky ice cream parlours and spontaneously ageing (and de-ageing) relatives.
Kaufman’s film, which he both wrote and directs, may start off grounded in reality — albeit an austere one —but the film becomes increasingly bizarre and surreal as it goes on. Few will make any sense of the final 15 minutes.
Buckley is a revelation as the singular strand of sanity in a movie filled with throw-away motifs and bursting with ideas about both humanity and art and time. But the goings on are so bizarre she starts to fear she’s going insane as well — or is it just the world around her.
The chemistry, or lack thereof, between Buckley and co-star Jesse Plemons’ Jake (I’m taking the actors’ shared first name as pure coincidence) is one of the strongest parts of a film where 50% is in a car driving through a snowstorm. They have tender moments, he isn’t a bad guy, there’s even a shred of genuine passion at one point.
But he also explodes in childlike fury and is increasingly stubborn.
The couple debate Baby, It’s Cold Outside, David Foster Wallace and John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under The Influence and the refrain is repeated in her head: I’m thinking of ending things.
Jake’s parents farmhouse turns out to be a house of horrors with frozen dead lambs in a doorway and a vile story about maggot-infested pigs being eaten alive. It’s all very Twin Peaks.
Even before arriving Buckley’s character — listed as ‘the young woman’ in the credits — is concerned about getting home (for a myriad of changing reasons) and the frequent reference to chains in the boot of the car is probably the least subtle metaphor in a film packed with them.
It is a cliche to say a film will ‘reward rewatching’ but the truth is Kaufman tries to pack so much into Ending Things (it’s overlong at 134 minutes) you can easily find yourself missing something or not giving much thought to a detail that later turns out to be crucial.
NB: Pay attention to the subplot follows an aged high school janitor going about a normal day in school; watching a fictitious Robert Zemeckis film and rehearsals for a production of Oklahoma.
Released on Netflix Ending Things is Kaufman’s first solo directorial work since 2008’s Synecdoche, New York, itself perhaps one of the bleakest films of the 21st century.
And Kaufman painted himself into corner with the endlessly ambitious (literally) Synecdoche — chunks of Ending Things exploring the same themes of relationships, death and ageing.
The bizarreness of Synecdoche worked in parallel with the themes; an endlessly burning house, the day-in-a-year beginning, the play-within-a-play-within-a-play, the real-life narration.
Here he is treading over the same ground but with different footwear — only this time it’s covered in snow, there’s some rotting pigs and you need to find a bin for this sickly-sweet Oreo Brrr.
Maybe it’s not so simple after all.
i’m thinking of ending things is now streaming on Netflix
