I'm Thinking Of Ending Things

UK Release Date. 4 September 2020
Certification. 15
Running Time. 2 hours 14 mins
Director. Charlie Kaufman
Cast. Jessie Buckley, Toni Collette, Jesse Plemons, David Thewlis.
Rating. 57%

Review.

From Charlie Kaufman - the writer of Being John Malkovich, Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, and the director of Synecdoche, New York and Anomalisa - I'm Thinking Of Ending Things is a film that simply defies classification. An adaptation of Iain Reid's acclaimed novel, I'm Thinking Of Ending Things is a surreal examination of loneliness. 

The writer-director presents a chilling, existential psychodrama about a young woman, who is already full of misgivings about the relationship as she sets off on a car journey to meet her boyfriend's parents. Upon meeting the parents, she comes to question everything she thought she knew about him... and herself. 

The car journey is merely the narrative skeleton on which Kaufman hangs - arguably his most challenging film to date - a piece of work that challenges anything Luis Buñuel, David Lynch or Yorgos Lanthimos has produced.

The young woman (played by the sensational Jessie Buckley) is introduced as Lucy, but she slips into other names as the film meanders forward. She may be Lucy. She may be Louisa. She may be Yvonne. She may not even be there. Or even real. Over time, more and more aspects of her biography seem to shift. These changes are brazen, yet delivered in such a matter-of-fact manner that I didn't really notice at the time.

Whoever she is, however reliable she is, she narrates the story and she begins the narration by repeating the film's title multiple times, "I'm thinking of ending things." What she means isn't clear. The most obvious is the termination of the relationship with her boyfriend Jake (Jesse Plemons), but the alternative on offer is suicide. Kaufman peppers the film with references that fuel this alternate hypothesis, including a conversation about the novelist David Foster Wallace, who committed suicide, and an argument over the quality of John Cassavetes' A Woman Under The Influence, in which the title character attempts to commit suicide. The decision to reference one of the most famous films about a woman mentally unravelling within a film ostensibly about a woman mentally unravelling did not go unnoticed.

I'm Thinking Of Ending Things is a daring film that disregards or defies almost every convention. Kaufman is playing with space and time before it's even apparent to the audience. But the end result is an incoherent, impenetrable and unsettling psychological drama that is saved only by the performances of the two lead actors - Jesse Plemons and Jessie Buckley. Plemons and Buckley are both absolutely phenomenal here, finding relatable characters within a script that would have challenged lesser talents. Buckley, in particular, gives a remarkable performance. There's a mercurial quality to the character that seems to repeatedly crumble and re-form, like a sand sculpture, but the authenticity of Buckley's performance, which seems all the more remarkable when you think back over it than it does when you are watching her, gives the character a degree of solidity. Jessie Buckley is slowly but surely establishing herself as an actress with few peers.