Charlie Kaufman’s latest film for Netflix, I’m Thinking Of Ending Things, is deeply confusing, even for a Kaufman film. “It was interesting to figure out what these pieces were all leading up to.”, There are many more such Easter eggs and metaphysical rabbit holes throughout the film, but we don’t want to spoil all the fun of finding them. It’s a dreamy stop into his psyche, into his past.”. “It really helped to define what to lean into, the very rhythm of it and how it swung around between the four of us.”, For Buckley, playing a character whose very identity is conjured out of Jake’s idealized fantasies was a difficult but thrilling challenge. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons star in the audaciously mercurial comedy "I'm Thinking of Ending Things," which begins streaming this week on Netflix. Netflix Put down that pudding cup and stop hoarding your bobby pins because there's some important news out of Litchfield. Kaufman’s films aren’t supposed to be explained, really - they exist to be experienced. In the film’s opening moments, we see the janitor looking out the window at the young woman. [Watch] The End of All Things Movie on Netflix 2019. Riz Ahmed says best part of his pandemic wedding was not having ‘500 aunties’ there. Did the janitor really “end things,” alone, inside his frost-covered car? All Rights Reserved, This is a BETA experience. Did the credits roll and you had no idea what the hell was going on? In the washing machine in the basement, she finds what is later revealed to be the janitor’s uniform, reinforcing the idea that the basement itself is a kind of metaphor for the part of Jake’s mind where he hides his deepest shame. Escher painting. Directed by Andrew Gale. Give me ‘Crime and Punishment’ and ‘The Godfather’. Indeed, there’s a lot to unpack in the film — too much, frankly, for one article. What he has really created is something far richer than your typical Hollywood fright fest, and it is ultimately up to you to supply the existential scares from your own mind and experience. In writing the book, Reid says he saw it more as a literary character study than some nail-biter with a twist ending. Adapted from a 2016 novel by Canadian author Iain Reid, “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” begins from an utterly simple, even mundane premise: A young couple (Jesse Plemons and Jessie Buckley) takes a road trip through a snowstorm to visit the boyfriend’s parents (Toni Collette and David Thewlis) at their family farm. "The End of All Things" was written by co-executive producer David Fury, while being directed by CSI: Crime Scene Investigation veteran, Jeff Hunt. Netflix is a streaming service that offers a wide variety of award-winning TV shows, movies, anime, documentaries, and more on thousands of internet-connected devices. “There was a lot of reading because there were an infinite number of references,” he says. It’s been done, so therefore you’re looking for it as an audience.”. Kaufman’s film concludes with a revelation: Everything we have seen, from start to finish, has essentially been the mental projection of a lonely old high school janitor who has failed to live up to the dreams of romantic and academic glory he had as a young man. Many that you suggest are probably better than these that I’ve listed, so by all means, let us know which “end of the world” movies you enjoy and why so that we might look at other options, particularly when you want to have a family movie night. As Kaufman says, “This is what the character is going through. You may opt-out by. A ‘tragic, upsetting and frankly overwhelming’ situation unfolds as COVID-19 deaths soar in L.A. County. “I don’t think I was particularly interested in maintaining suspense. But here is some of what you may have missed. Despite being a complete fantasy, a fictional character inside a work of fiction, Jake’s girlfriend still has a semblance of agency; she’s often bored, disappointed, and generally weirded out by him. Surrealistic storytelling that bends back in on itself like an M.C. “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” bears all of the thematic obsessions and formal daring of Kaufman’s previous work as a screenwriter and director in mind-bending films such as “Being John Malkovich,” “Adaptation” and “Synecdoche, New York.” Characters trapped in the labyrinths of their own psyches. Review: Nate Parker takes on police brutality in ‘American Skin,’ but the drama plays like parody, Five years after ‘The Birth of a Nation,’ Nate Parker returns with the misguided contemporary drama ‘American Skin.’, Review: Nine children with six women? And Charlie likes it that way. From the outset, Kaufman carefully crafted the film to repay close attention. Jake’s girlfriend was never actually his girlfriend, just an idealized version of someone he briefly encountered one night at a bar but didn’t have the guts to pursue — or maybe an amalgam of all the “ones that got away.” The whole road trip has been a journey through Jake’s memories, unfulfilled wishes, obsessions and regrets. I'm Thinking of Ending Things, Netflix's haunting and unclassifiable art film from writer-director Charlie Kaufman , is not a movie that tells you exactly what it's about. As Jake and his girlfriend drive to his parents’ house, their strange, meandering conversation contains numerous clues that things are not at all what they seem, with virtually every line a piece of a larger puzzle. He previously worked as a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly, and his work has also appeared in the New York Times, Fast Company and other publications. If you haven’t seen “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” we suggest reading this review or this story about the making of the film, then come back. Rest assured, you’re not alone. Met Adam Howes, Alina Chan en Harry Davies. Wait times for vaccines still could last weeks as counties struggle to keep up with demand. Spike Lee had never heard of Golden Globe Ambassadors — until his kids became them. And we're seriously glad it did. Then came the Capitol riot. Ahead of Spike Lee accepting the American Cinematheque Award, the filmmaker tells The Times about his kids’ historic Golden Globes gig and Chadwick Boseman. In The Midnight Sky's First Trailer, the End of All Things Is Beautiful. Olympian Klete Keller rebuilt his life following struggles. For Plemons, a big part of the job of playing Jake was connecting all the various dots on the map of the character’s psyche that Kaufman constructed. Towards the end, the fantasy fully takes over, morphing into a dance routine (in which the janitor murders his own potential), a rousing speech from Jake (lifted from A Beautiful Mind) then a song from Oklahoma!, sung to an audience full of high schoolers wearing unconvincing old-age makeup. The fact is, if you go back and watch the movie a second time, you’ll realize that the clues were there in plain sight from the start. Even in his own imagination, the janitor isn’t the hero of his story. Daredevil ranks as the 7th best TV series on Netflix, however, it has recently been canceled by Marvel. ‘Film About a Father Who’ untangles director’s family tree, Experimental filmmaker Lynne Sachs fixes her attention on her father, Ira Sachs Sr., in “Film About a Father Who.”, What’s playing at the drive-in: A Martin Luther King Jr. doc and more. Armie Hammer will “step away” from a romantic comedy he was set to star in opposite Jennifer Lopez in the wake of a brewing scandal surrounding his sex life. Now that’s pretty kick-ass if you ask me! The two major human governments, of … Charlie Kaufman ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Being John Malkovich") returns with Netflix's trippy new "I'm Thinking of Ending Things." Fantasies, projections, memories and delusions. Pass holders who paid for days beyond the parks’ closure last March are to get refunds. You’re supposed to feel that way. It’s up to the viewer, really. At one point, Jake references Wordsworth’s poem “Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Childhood,” an exploration of aging and the faded glories of youth. O ne thing you wouldn’t expect from the violent breakdown of society would be for it to be an utter bore. “I like reading different interpretations of the things that I do,” he says. Their mockery bleeds into his fantasies, and judging by the garbage container packed with uneaten ice cream, the janitor has likely revisited this same scenario several times, in his head. In Jake’s childhood bedroom, the camera pans at one point across a number of books, DVDs and artworks that are later revealed to be totems of his memory, references to which are sprinkled throughout the film. © 2021 Forbes Media LLC. By Esther Zuckerman. The End of All Things is a science fiction novel by American writer John Scalzi, the sixth book set in the Old Man's War universe. With Adam Howes, Alina Chan, Harry Davies, Dhugal Fulton. Now is the time for the answer.”). But where the story goes from there — and where it ends up — involves a whole other kind of journey. “It’s about the horror of different elements of the human psyche, of human life.”. You either get it or you don’t.”. So I tried to reframe it in my mind as a character exploration of a relationship, with the ideas of memory and projection and loneliness and isolation as the things that move you through the story.”, Indeed, as Kaufman points out, the it-was-all-a-dream gimmick is pretty old hat anyway: “That particular twist in movies is not much of a twist at this point. As strangely shapeshifting as the scenes at the parents’ house were as scripted, Collette says Kaufman helped the cast stay locked into the deeper meaning. So, what’s going on? “Acasa, My Home” documents the lives of a large Romanian family. The girlfriend’s name changes several times, as does her supposed academic field of study, suggesting that she may be less a flesh-and-blood woman than a hazily reconstructed memory of one. Find a flick with our guide to new and classic movies playing outdoors at L.A.-area drive-ins, pop-ups and rooftops. Jake’s girlfriend receives a number of foreboding phone messages that echo the words we heard the first time we saw the janitor in the window (“I can feel my fear growing. A triumph? Jesse Plemons, from left, Jessie Buckley, Toni Collette and David Thewlis in the movie “I’m Thinking of Ending Things.”, Buckley’s girlfriend visits the fictional Tulsey Town in a scene from “I’m Thinking of Ending Things.”, Kaufman directing Buckley on the set of “I’m Thinking of Ending Things.”, though not the same collection that contains that review, How do I get my coronavirus vaccine if I’m 65 and older? There’s a reason Jake’s girlfriend keeps shifting between occupations, interests, and even names; both her and Jake exist entirely in the imagination of the janitor, who the film occasionally cuts back to. At the Tulsey Town ice cream stand where Jake and his girlfriend later make an impromptu stop — which has the dreamlike, old-timey feel of a place lodged deep in one’s memory — attentive viewers may notice that the teenage employees were fleetingly seen earlier as students at the school where the janitor works. I felt like it was kind of for me a fool’s errand to make that the point of the movie. Is it a tragedy? Jake’s fantasy Nobel Prize acceptance speech at the end quotes verbatim from the one given by mathematician and economist John Nash, whose struggle with schizophrenia was chronicled in the film “A Beautiful Mind” — one of the DVDs on Jake’s shelf. Hei! Laughing on The Outside - Bernadette Carroll Where Is the Love - The Monzas Never - Larry Chance and The Earls Have You Ever Loved Someone - The Vocaleers via Netflix/ The End of the F***ing World Funnel of Love - Wanda Jackson At Seventeen - Janis Ian Superboy & Supergirl - Tullycraft Directed by Charlie Kaufman. The story ends, tragically, with the janitor’s suicide, revealing the double meaning in the film’s very title. At the family farm, things get even more surreal. 1 in 3 L.A. County residents have been infected by coronavirus since pandemic began, new estimate shows. The End Of All Things wraps up the Old Man's War series in a fine fashion. All three series received strong reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, always above 80%! Josh Rottenberg covers the film business for the Los Angeles Times. That’s how you know it’s a Charlie Kaufman movie. Charlie Kaufman's new movie I'm Thinking of Ending Things is now on Netflix, so we've taken a delve into its weirdness to explain what it's all about. Here, we try to interpret the ending for you. In the end, while “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” may contain some of the trappings of a conventional horror film — ominous music, scratches on the door to a basement no one ever enters, creepy voicemail messages from the beyond — those are just tropes that Kaufman is toying with. Disneyland and Disney California Adventure are axing their annual pass program as they look to better manage pandemic-era crowds. This novel was originally released as four connected novellas, and once all were released - were combined into this final book. Jake’s parents shift ages several times, suggesting again that we are in some strange and slippery world of memory and fantasy rather than observing actual events. It’s a compelling story, from beginning to end, but perhaps more ambiguous than it needed to be. The janitor appears to have created Jake as a younger, slightly altered version of himself, while his mysterious lady-friend is a complete fantasy, perhaps a composite of women he has previously encountered, and possibly dated. Is Crucial to the End of Netflix's 'I'm Thinking of Ending Things' It's not as confusing as you might think. You can watch as much as you want, whenever you want without a single commercial – all for one low monthly price. Netflix's new Charlie Kaufman movie, 'I'm Thinking of Ending Things,' is a very confusing movie. It appears to be a traumatizing incident from the janitor’s childhood, but might also represent his decaying mental state. Warning: Major spoilers ahead. “It doesn’t manipulate the audience. I should mention that he does all this blind, and uses only his remaining heightened senses to get the job done. The man has spent his life being slowly eaten away by depression, anxiety, and overwhelming despair; he is that pig, seemingly happy and healthy, with the rotting underbelly that no one wants to see. Did you end up with more questions than answers after watching Netflix Original How It Ends? You may be perplexed, disturbed, exhilarated or all of the above. Netflix is the home of amazing original programming that you can’t find anywhere else. “The thing that helped me click into it the most was when Charlie said, ‘It’s like the characters are all part of the same mind,’ ” she says. Compared to a confusing Christopher Nolan film, in which solid, concrete answers can be found, right there in the multiple lines of exposition, the disorientating surrealism of a Kaufman film can come across as intimidating. Commentary: Times are bad, so keep your uplift. 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