![]() ![]() Jake is frustrated by his mom repeatedly confusing the words "genius" and "genus" when referring to Trivial Pursuit. Viewers will share Louisa's discomfort as she explains her artwork, quantum physics, and how she and Jake met. Kaufman employs all his patented tricks during the hour or so spent inside the house. The dinner that follows is practically theater of the absurd. Upon entering the house, Jake's parents ( Toni Collette and David Thewlis) take their time coming downstairs, which is awkward. He tells her a story about a pig eaten by maggots. Jake is reluctant to enter the house and takes Louisa to the barn instead. Once at the farm, "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" gets a bit strange. ![]() He also crosscuts their conversation with scenes of a high school janitor (Guy Boyd), a character who takes on greater importance as the film unfolds, going about his daily routine. Twenty minutes have passed in this car ride, and Kaufman has signified the remoteness of their relatively new (and possibly ending) relationship by framing Louisa and Jake separately. ![]() He reads her mood and can almost read her mind as she contemplates "ending things." He encourages her to recite a poem, "Bone Dog," which is brilliant and full of vivid, depressing images, such as "The sun goes up and down like a tired whore." Their talk turns philosophical, but it ends abruptly with their arrival at Jake's family home. As they talk in hesitant ways, almost afraid of offending the other, the windshield wipers mark time like a metronome. The film begins in earnest with Louisa and Jake driving off in his car as snow gently falls. Again, both interpretations are plausible. And while some viewers will be spellbound as Louisa experiences thoughts of anxiety and despair, others are sure to rate this film as an endurance test. With bleak, heartbreaking images of isolation and desolation, either reading is possible. The tone here is deep melancholy throughout. Kaufman shrewdly lets viewers decide for themselves, and his film is full of clues and conundrums. She could also very well be contemplating suicide, as the title further suggests. Louisa is trapped in liminal space, an emotional state where she is considering breaking up with Jake as the title indicates. But what transpires is far more complicated. These themes are in evidence once again in his ambitious and curious but not entirely successful new Netflix film, "I'm Thinking of Ending Things." Adapted from Iain Reid's novel, this long (135 minutes), stagy drama has the deceptively simple plot of an unnamed young woman (Jessie Buckley) - call her Louisa, as one character does - going on a road trip with her boyfriend Jake ( Jesse Plemons) to visit his parents at their farm. They feature doppelgangers and time loops that allow the characters (and by extension audiences) to re-evaluate things from different perspectives. Charlie Kaufman's films - " Being John Malkovich," " Adaptation.," and " Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," which he wrote, and " Synecdoche, New York," and "Anomalisa," which he directed - are cheeky and depressing headscratchers. ![]()
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