![]() Kaufman has a brilliant mind and has skills as a Director. I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS isn't an easy sit. The literary and cultural references are reminiscent of Godard at his most obtuse (at one point, one of the characters quotes an entire Pauline Kael film review there is a Kael book in Jake's bedroom). ![]() Kaufman has never evoked David Lynch as much he does here - in particular, the driving sequences and dark visions of LOST HIGHWAY. Is it his way of saying that he is pulling the strings of the audience? As noted at the outset, ENDING THINGS is a bit of a fun-house mirror - what reflects off of it is a distortion and open to interpretation. Kaufman's obsession with puppets and marionettes (including an entire film, ANAMOLISA, made entirely of claymation models), is again on display here with an extended Mime sequence. Kaufman's script takes liberties from Ian Reid's novel - again, one expects nothing less from him. This brings the story some sense of structure, but, the movie still raises more concerns than solace. The two stories interconnect at the High School when the young couple meet the Janitor. Instead, it's back in Jake's car and the pair travel back in the snowstorm in a sequence even longer than the initial drive. The mood is unbearably tense, abetted by Lukasz Zal's (IDA) cinematography, Jay Wadley's score and Molly Hughes' production design The movie is framed in the classic 1:37 aspect ratio to heighten the constrained feel. The sustained build-up has no release valve. A visit to Jake's boyhood bedroom reveals it's own house of horrors along with clues as to what may be going on inside his fractured mind. Meanwhile, a middle-aged Janitor (Guy Boyd) toils away alone in the local high school. The couple (Toni Collette, David Thewlis) seem to age and de-age at will as if showing the span of Jake's relationship with them. Meeting the parents doesn't ease the tension. By the time they arrive there is already a sense of dread from the title, the creepy narration and an overall mood of upcoming doom. The extended drive in a raging snowstorm to his family home takes over 20 minutes. The young man is Jake (Jesse Plemmons quite good) and the unnamed girlfriend (who also narrates) is played by an excellent Jesse Buckley. Anyone familiar with the work of Charlie Kaufman (BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, SYNECDOCHE NEW YORK) won't either be surprised or expect anything else. But, in this fun-house mirror of a movie, all is not as it appears. ![]() ![]() A simple enough set-up for film, even if the title hints that all may not go well. We're able to pick up on the sadness of the scene, knowing that the janitor is dead in the car, even though you can't see any people in it.Ī young man invites his new girlfriend to drive out and meet his parents. The 2nd, and actually is the last scene is where the car was completely covered in snow it references back to the idea of landscape shots without any people in it. When he was being awarded Nobel prize, I believe the meaning in his head that he believes that actually people deserves a happy endings, just like in movies or books who his whole memories are mixed with! And the audience are all the people that he actually met in his life that left an impact in him, good or not. As the movie ends, there are 2 of the last scenes i wanna share my thoughts about. The deepest fear was being a school janitor for the rest of his life and squandering all of his talent and intelligence. ( side note: I thought when she was thinking of ending things that it meant the relationship, but as the movie played I understood that its Jake thinking of ending life ) He also didn't want her to go into the basement but she disobeyed him. He thought he was in control of the memory / fantasy, but the characters started acting independently from him. And every now and then there's a new name for her and a new backstory of how they met or what she even do! Jake is also very confused to find she has gained awareness, as seen when she starts thinking, "I'm thinking of ending things." and he looks over in shock. The whole movie is a mix up of imagined and real memories in the janitors head, whom is Jake btw but the whole idea of the movie making us consecrate on the girl who's in fact only in his imagination mad eus believe she's the star! As we saw in a lot of scenes, she is incredibly confused to find herself aware in this environment and cannot remember her own name or anything about herself.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |