I'm Thinking of Ending Things

Good movie!

source: I'm Thinking of Ending Things

I can't even describe it. And I don't care if you need to read the book to understand you shouldn't because you're watching a movie not reading a book. It doesn't explain anything at all from start to end. It just gets more and more confuse and when you think it's something it really isn't. Just a complete waste of time.

I totally didn't get what it was I was watching and It all went straight over my head! So many things were happening and it didn't make any sense to me at all. I kept wondering what it was I was watching? So much of the movie is just them driving in the car in a snowstorm talking about random stuff.

The movie is about a "jake" and his girlfriend which is referred to as "young woman" and have many names throughout the movie. They are going to visit jake's parents for a one day trip and coming back again. First act is the journey to the "farmy" area to jake's parents and how awkward it's between them and we hear the inner thought of the girlfriend wanting to ending things while being interrupted for a random yet confusing topics. I think Jessie Buckley carried that whole first act. Second act is the arrival of them to his parents house and how they are welcoming her yet annoying Jake. And let me say that this act was bizarre and confusing and i think was the most bizarre act i have seen in a while. Third act and after that rollercoaster of thriller and confusion is the journey back home or as we think it is and it does continue the rhythm of you thinking " there is something wrong in this movie i can feel it ". Finally i think the movie is about aging and loneliness and i think that this is all a dying "lonely" man memory trying to collect memories from here and there. Trying to think that he was a quantum physics scientist, poet, "genus", painter and had a loving girlfriend, family that supported him and was there at his biggest moment in life that he would love to have rather than being a janitor and returning to an empty home with no one but himself and his thoughts about what could've been if he wasnt a janitor and worked hard and reached what he hoped he'd be in life. I really liked the cinematography, the acting, the bizarre screenwriting and the thoughts it puts in your head, but i guess it was too bizarre that you'd get lost in the middle, and maybe even lose interest? not in my case but i think it'd be common.

I have been waiting all year for this movie to come out! I am a huge fan of the novel. It was short, it was quick, but it was highly nuanced and it packed a great psychological punch to the gut. I was extreme.y excited to see the novel come to life on the screen, and to have it directed by Charlie Kaufman just makes complete sense. "Kaufman" is an adjective just as much as it is a name. You hear that a movie is "Kaufman-esque" and you know exactly what it means. Something that will require multiple viewings, something that requires your attention to be on the movie at all times, something that demands you to take in every piece of dialogue and symbol and image and interpret it on the fly as the movie comes along. This movie is no different from Kaufman's other films such as "Anomalisa", "Synecdoche, New York", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and so on. Nothing is wasted, nothing is there for no reason. It is all tightly packed and all comes together. The book may require a few re-reads, just like how this movie will require a few rewatches. I don't want to say a whole lot out of fear that I spoil the movie. But it is everything that I have hoped and more: atmospheric, dream-like, unsettling, glitchy and mind-bending. I am extremely pleased with how this movie turned out.

This is a completely biased review after reading Iain Reid's novel. So the movie adaptation was pretty good. However, I think the ending could have taken a few pointers from the book. The way it ended made the movie seem incomplete. I also think Kaufman made the mistake of completely omitting the plot-twist. It wasn't apparent enough to the audience that Lucy/the Janitor was Jake the entire time; or even that fact that they were a figment of his imagination. I don't know... and the fact that Jake didn't kill himself with the coat hanger completely ruined the double meaning behind "I'm thinking of ending things"; given that throughout the story, the audience was under the impression that the girlfriend was only going to break up with Jake. Last but not least, the mysterious message from The Caller. "There's only one question we need to resolve" was used in the story as a precursor to what should have been Jake's suicide. It was later revealed that the question was: "What are you waiting for?" but that part got left out of the movie. why?? Everything about the movie was FINE, except I was hoping for the much darker ending.

The hardest part about watching this movie was trying to figure out why I was watching it. At the end, I had to look up interpretations, which I think took a lot of the magic and reflection out of what a movie should be. I wish it would've been a little less abstract, for those of us who watched it independently from the book, and aren't abstract minded enough to pull meaning out of thin air. Other than not knowing what the hell was happening, the acting was phenomenal, and so was the dialogue. Now off to the library to try to get something useful out of this story.

Don't get me wrong: I'm a moderate fan of Charlie Kauffman. And I can roll with meta, existential/nihilistic themes, surrealism and general weirdness with the best of them. But this film, good god, is pure dreck. Where do I start? Overwrought dialogue, for starters. So prolix, so studied, so BORING. Bad acting on every actor's part. I've always thought Jesse Plemons was overrated, so I can't say I was surprised to find him punching above his weight here. The actress who played the part of the girlfriend was too "actorly," and I found her difficult to watch. Even Toni Colette turned in what may be her worst performance to date. Poor Toni Colette: part of the problem was the terrible source material, but she still played it way too over-the-top. What's more, I found her recycling some of her previous film/TV personas here. Not a good look for Ms. Colette. Overall this film lacked cohesion, focus and purpose. And somehow Kaufman's (I'm projecting/opining here) sense of arrogance and self-importance coupled with absolutely contrived dialogues/monologues (kind of reminds me of David Mamet in that way), coalesce to form an ego-heavy, pretentious, pointless exercise in futile film making. TRUST ME. You can definitely give this a hard pass. I know most you will watch this anyway, given it's on Netflix during the pandemic, with few new offerings springing up. But remember, you've been warned.

The most slow and boring movie with conversations that last up to 30 minutes, MANY questions unanswered and confusing random parts for no reason at all i was so excited for this one and have never felt so let down, a complete waste of 2 and a half hours without even any reasoning or learning point as all movies have and even theorists can't understand it