Unhappy Ending

Quirky screen writer Charlie Kaufman is one of the few writers in Hollywood whose involvement with a movie gets trumpeted just as loudly as the stars. Decades ago, I would have said there was good reason; the run of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was quite impressive. (I liked all three, though probably the first one more than most people and the last one less than most people.)

But then Kaufman amassed enough clout to direct his own scripts. The result was the off-putting Synecdoche, New York -- and, I now realize, the moment I should have jumped off the Kaufman train. Well, better late than never, as I've totally received that message now that I've watched I'm Thinking of Ending Things.

Based on a novel by Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things is a movie somewhere between surreal and absurdist. I will tell you what it purports to be about: a woman has been invited to meet her boyfriend's parents in a snowy, rural house... but little does he know that she's been "thinking of ending" their relationship. But that plot description is a bald-faced lie, as nothing in the movie is as it seems.

Over two-plus hours and four plodding story "acts" (the drive there, meet the parents, the drive away, the finale), the movie keeps pouring on the bizarre. Character names change, along with their physical features. There are jarring jump cuts, strange symbolism, and deliberate errors in continuity. The entire movie is a puzzle box suggesting some hidden, underlying truth, but it unspools so slowly that it makes you doubt whether any explanation will in fact ever come, and whether it will satisfy if it does.

This movie is like the creeping tension of Get Out without any justification for the weird behavior. It's the first three episodes of WandaVision without any more (and without the humor). And it ignores as many modern film conventions as possible: it's shot in a claustrophobic (throwback) 4:3 aspect ratio, it has virtually no musical score, and it defers any revelations as long as as possible. There's no plot development, there is only two hours of set up, followed by 10 minutes of... payoff?

At the risk of spoiling things a little, I'll simply say that just minutes into the movie, a thought popped into my mind: "oh, is this what's happening?" Ultimately, I forgot about it as endless strangeness piled up. And then, in the end? It was exactly what I guessed at the beginning. The movie was all airline travel, no vacation. All journey, no destination.

The cast sure does give it their all. Jessie Buckley stars as "Young Woman," her sorrow and terror and nerves expressed all throughout the movie in convincing tears. But the movie seems not to want you to invest in her feelings. As Jake, Jesse Plemons delivers his signature menacing/creepy schtick with precision. Toni Collette and David Thewlis give wild and intentionally over-the-top performances as Jake's parents. But good as all four are, they only made the movie "regrettable" to me rather than "unbearable."

I would say I'm Thinking of Ending Things is a D at best. It's two hours I truly wish I had back to watch something else. And as for my "relationship" with Charlie Kaufman? I'm thinking of ending things.