I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

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Persona
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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#26 Post by Persona » Wed May 13, 2020 6:23 pm

Quite excited for this. I liked the book but also it is the perfect sort of material for Kaufman to play around with. I think my only concern with him adapting it would be whether the horror aspects get neutered because I think the story needs those to stay fully engaging.

Peter-H
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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#27 Post by Peter-H » Sat Jul 11, 2020 12:34 am

This movie will be released September 4th.

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Mr Sheldrake
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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#28 Post by Mr Sheldrake » Sun Jul 19, 2020 10:11 am

Kaufman’s odd and very funny responses to the NYTimes By the Book questionaire
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/boo ... rview.html


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Red Screamer
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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#30 Post by Red Screamer » Thu Aug 06, 2020 4:02 pm

Kaufman seems to be working towards a visual style here, far from Synecdoche, NY's sloppy handheld approach. A good sign.

Peter-H
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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#31 Post by Peter-H » Sun Aug 23, 2020 4:29 pm

The critic Jordan Ruimy has apparently seen it and gave a mini-review on Twitter:
Charlie Kaufman's new movie is the weirdest, most obsessively personal Netflix original movie I have ever seen. It can be seen as a sort of companion piece to SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK (Whether that's a good or bad thing will depend on the viewer).
I love Synecdoche, so I'm excited. Though it also sounds like it might be polarizing.

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domino harvey
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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#32 Post by domino harvey » Sun Aug 23, 2020 4:32 pm

Oh no

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TheKieslowskiHaze
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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#33 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Sun Aug 23, 2020 5:21 pm

Peter-H wrote:
Sun Aug 23, 2020 4:29 pm
The critic Jordan Ruimy has apparently seen it and gave a mini-review on Twitter
Having just read the book, I'll say that a faithful adaptation of I'm Thinking of Ending Things would be quite different from Synechdoche, New York. But there is one aspect of the story that would make for an interesting companion piece.

That said, I'm not sure the adaptation is going to be all that faithful (which is fine).
domino harvey wrote:
Sun Aug 23, 2020 4:32 pm
Oh no
Why "Oh no"? Am I missing something?

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therewillbeblus
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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#34 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Aug 23, 2020 5:24 pm

I assume domino simply does not like Synechdoche, New York

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hearthesilence
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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#35 Post by hearthesilence » Sun Aug 23, 2020 7:51 pm

"I want to f--- you until we merge into a Chimera" is one of the all-time most hilarious and bizarre lines I've ever heard.

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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#36 Post by Peter-H » Thu Aug 27, 2020 2:05 pm

The reviews are out. It's currently at 85% with an average rating of 8.4.

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TheKieslowskiHaze
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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#37 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Thu Aug 27, 2020 2:17 pm

Peter-H wrote:
Thu Aug 27, 2020 2:05 pm
The reviews are out. It's currently at 85% with an average rating of 8.4.
I'm encouraged by Adam Nayman's remark that it is "faithfully unfaithful" to the book.

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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#38 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Aug 27, 2020 2:45 pm

I'll be interested to hear your and others' comparisons of differentiated content between the source material and adaptation once it drops. All I needed to read was "existential horror" to be sold, though I expected just that anyways when Kaufman first announced the project.

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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#39 Post by beamish14 » Thu Aug 27, 2020 3:27 pm

The novel this is based on mystified me more than any book I've read in years. Part of it might be that I heard it as an audiobook, which kind of
flips itself on its head.

Peter-H
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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#40 Post by Peter-H » Thu Aug 27, 2020 3:28 pm

TheKieslowskiHaze wrote:
Thu Aug 27, 2020 2:17 pm
Peter-H wrote:
Thu Aug 27, 2020 2:05 pm
The reviews are out. It's currently at 85% with an average rating of 8.4.
I'm encouraged by Adam Nayman's remark that it is "faithfully unfaithful" to the book.
Other critics have said the same thing.

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domino harvey
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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#41 Post by domino harvey » Thu Sep 03, 2020 4:34 pm

Image

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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#42 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Fri Sep 04, 2020 10:36 pm

I liked it a lot.

Kaufman took the basic structure and concept of the book, but he filled in all the spaces with his own stuff. This makes for a very personal kind of adaptation (kind of like, heh, Adaptation). I'd place it also alongside Chimes at Midnight and Impolex as movies that seem less literal adaptations of texts than expressions of personal relationships with texts. This is a pretentious way of saying the movie is very different from the book.

The most precise way I can put it is this: The book is much more straight horror, and it's a little more willing to explain the function of surreal elements. The movie is an off-beat comedy that is more comfortable with ambiguity.

I've had a whole bottle of Riesling tonight. There's a lot more to talk about (it's also, on some level, explicitly about mansplaining), but I'll end this post with a simple summation of emotional reactions. I laughed quite a bit (super hard at a jab at R. Zemeckis), and, at one point, I legitimately got choked up. It's very good.

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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#43 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Sep 05, 2020 12:47 am

Well, the comparisons to Synecdoche, New York are incredibly apt yet inverted to the extreme, sweltering in cold static empty space of disconnection and hopelessness instead of futility building worlds to try to obtain meaning. The question is whether or not there is some kind of abreaction to be found in such dark corners of one's spirit.

I'm sure people will read this film several different ways, so all I can do is offer my interpretation in spoilers. I respectfully disagree with the point that this film is "explicitly about mainsplaining" on any level beyond a detail, for while that is touched on at times it's emblematic of the way Kaufman engages in relentless self-punishment and also affords some empathy for his stand-in male character, just as he always has. But that comment alone may risk transparently explaining what I believe is the focus on this film..
SpoilerShow
Almost right away I felt that it was pretty clear that Buckley was a projection of Plemons' own neuroses (though I believe this allegorical fantasy we find ourselves in is more than just his mind, given how emotional and ethereal it is, and likely more abstractly his soul). Strategically, the metaphorical content reminded me of IFS therapy, which I've talked about before. The modality essentially formulates that we are composed of internal 'parts' that blend with us or remain aloof, and they are often scared and segregated, fending with self-preservation until they meet and learn to validate one another to harmoniously service us collaboratively. In Kaufman's world, we are exposed to his most vulnerable blended internal ‘part’ in Buckley, isolated and alone without a friend or blueprint to navigate their surroundings. There are definitely infinite other readings that can be inclusive to this idea, where Buckley is a conscious entity (as are all of our 'parts') and even one where our (or her) agency could be a ruse by being an apparition of another’s consciousness, comparable to an atheist’s fear about God. That kind of anti-spiritualist spiritual film is pure Kaufman.

But regardless of all the complex specificities we can grant this film, I believe Jake is the center of the story by which all the action stems from, not Buckley. That is not to discount her value here, because the film is actually about our parts, which are version of ourselves believing themselves to be our entire identity, so she can be the main character even as an extension of him. The clues to this start immediately when Kaufman has her voiceover narrative interrupted by the janitor (his older self? another 'wiser' part?) who calls her incessantly throughout the film to insert his agenda onto her, just as she does back in other ways. Buckley aggressively attempts to get in the basement as soon as Jake expresses insecurity around that area being noticed, and changes the story of where she grew up (was it a farm or an apartment?), followed by the name shifting… how powerful our minds are! That dinner table scene is a feast of psychological nausea... to feel lesser, to be uncomfortable, to be challenged by another perspective. This Satrean complex causes our partners to literally glitch before our eyes, colors on their clothes to fade and change based on our moods (exactly like she mentions with her painting) until the design stops shifting and the entire outfit does (the costume changes on Buckley, even just the slight fades in color on the sweater are creative signals, and notice how Jake's outfit never alters). It became clear on the car ride home that Jake’s parts were all meeting in his “parents’” home. A congruent meeting this was not, and in the Cassavetes regurgitation Buckley's thoughts aren’t even authentic. If they’re not, what is?

The themes are barely able to be jotted down, since their fleeting nature only adds to the desperation in chaos that the film exhibits so well. There is a relativism in perception on whether thoughts are real, a strong sense of disconnection from others, physical space, and even ourselves. We are prisoners of our thoughts which constrict as much, perhaps more, than they liberate - because pain and confusion and doubt and depression tend to trump their positive counter-emotions in vigor. Jake talks about the beauty of perspective and the possibilities, but as soon as this candy-coated half-truth leaves his lips it dissipates into the void between the couple (or Jake and his parts), and his further responses make her own meaning apply to himself.

Not that this is nihilistic, but it recognizes the inherent egocentricity in people that bars connective tissue to all while also serving as the primary tool to try. Kaufman also seems to be professing that sometimes we need to leave room for the power of malaise without forcing a positive spin to minimize its indigent truth; that sometimes we simply cannot escape ourselves and perhaps only in that acceptance and acknowledgement can we find glimpses of actual freedom. Thewlis’ statement about wishing to be ignorant again close to death highlights Kaufman’s broad thesis that living outside of blind ignorance, as actively thinking and feeling people, we are stuck in cyclical awareness of our loneliness and impotence.

Even our memories or apparitions can suffocate us as we cannot control them when we feel like we should be able to. Though we try, we are not safe from our demons -from our own cognitions going into the basements of our subconscious to attempt to make tangible the emotional pain we bury. Or maybe part of us wants to go there, and even needs to. Jake wants to be sympathized with, and thinks he may get that holy filled through the act of sympathizing, yet he’s drowning in hopelessness; trying to allow his psychological quicksand to be complex one minute, and plugging the hole with displaced narrow-focus onto single palpable culprits for his traumatic turmoil, like blaming his mother because it's easier and releases his self-imposed burden for a brief passing. The atmosphere is coldness, and in a wonderful scene where he chooses to get ice cream during a blizzard (what a great metaphor for self-destruction, especially given the later reveal that this is an emotionally-rooted repetitive pattern of it!) Jake's core beliefs are enacted with shame. “They won’t come if they know it’s me,” he says as he hides from his other parts, perhaps memories of women he's known or other assertive and anxious parts of him that he's left out in the cold, abandoned trying to get a hold on his reality with some semblance of confidence and closure, with no such luck.

Jake's beliefs on there being no objective reality, his acknowledgement of suffering, and of abstract concepts of time and perspective as subjective, validates the misanthrope’s worldview- but Kaufman never lets himself off easy, and he is so hard on himself and his male protagonists that one sometimes needs to squint to find the compassion. But it's there. The fear of our insignificance to impact those around us, to not be seen or wanted when we see and want so much, to feel so unsafe when we need to feel safe, is all there naked for us to see. In the end even the most ‘stable’ wisest part, the janitor, isn’t safe, but he can still escape deeper into embracing that subjective reality. The final scene of being granted an award (talk about tangible!) while declaring that his life is meaningful because of his love for Buckley, well, is it true? Can it be true if he believes it somewhere? Aren't all thoughts true, or at least that's what Jake says, but if he believes it isn't it at least a little bit honest?

Maybe it's a brief breath of fresh air as he is finally seen and validated by his parts, all eyes on him, applauded, and granted momentary serenity. But then we cut to a final image that is a sobering reminder that life is a Sisyphean exercise. After the credits we hear the car start, triggering it back up again. This might be depressing but the resilience is real, and Kaufman's bittersweet conceptualization of our internal cosmos is as nebulous as the physical heavens. There were a lot of ice cream cups in that trash can, and something tells me there will be many more.
Kaufman's language is the kind of surrealistic, panoptic, and exhaustive existentialism that only cinema can prod at from this many angles. If all thoughts are true, then all the various paradoxical ones spilling out into this stark look at the inside of a soul are too, and I can identify with many of them.

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Never Cursed
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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#44 Post by Never Cursed » Sat Sep 05, 2020 1:31 am

Credit where it is due - the lengthy "painfully dull conversation in a car" parts of this film (an eye-watering 47 minutes of a 135 minute runtime) are an excellent simulation of those moments in the winding entropic river of time where one is stuck with someone out of their depth or pretentious; someone who does not understand how to communicate basic intellectual/emotional/philosophical ideas, but nevertheless craves conversation with a facade of depth and complexity. It doesn't matter (in the sense that it won't change the situation, and also in the sense that nothing matters because we all die and everything between cradle and grave is a distraction from the destination) what you say, or whether a response is well thought-out or half-assed - the person will just continue talking, and you can't reach someone who you can't reach. It's just a shame that one can CC the above to this film as a whole. I 'get' what is going on in it (at least I think), and I thank TWBB for his exhaustively spirited defense/reclamation of this as something, anything, other than glossy misanthropic time-wasting, but I hated a lot of the basic surreal elements of this film's construction while also feeling that precious little in the film justified their presence.

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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#45 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Sep 05, 2020 2:02 am

It's less of a passionate defense and more of a reading, for even though I found a lot to appreciate and respect here, I felt a lot like I did both times watching Synecdoche, New York, which can be described as.. complicated. This is a very challenging film to like because it's beating itself and you over the head with abstract energy that cannot really be comprehended through clear, substantial means (while, I'd argue, his screenplays under other directors do provide despite their complex themes). I can't honestly say I 'enjoyed' the film, but I love that Kaufman has the audacity, motivation and psychological strength to make movies like this, and he completely speaks my own therapeutic language of multifaceted parts, and philosophical language of subjective realities and non-binary assessments of character, in ways that validate my worldview beyond any effable translation could adequately express. But I've long realized that this is not only an acquired taste but one where I'm as alone as these characters out in a snowy wasteland against the rest of the world, so I'd put the vegas odds on most people hating this as unbearable frustration rather than embracing it in some compromised form of surrender and endorsement of our densest truths. The irony is that this process of audience engagement/disengagement is self-reflexively also the point of the film in many respects.. the question is whether or not one cares

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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#46 Post by Luke M » Sat Sep 05, 2020 4:08 am

After I finished this tonight, I read the book's summary on Wikipedia. My impression is the book is fairly straightforward and the movie was on the same path until the protagonists get to the high school. From there the movie seems to completely change the book's meaning of everything that came before it.

I don't quite understand it all. It's also not really something I care to spend more time in trying to comprehend.

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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#47 Post by The Curious Sofa » Sat Sep 05, 2020 5:05 am

Persona wrote:
Wed May 13, 2020 6:23 pm
Quite excited for this. I liked the book but also it is the perfect sort of material for Kaufman to play around with. I think my only concern with him adapting it would be whether the horror aspects get neutered because I think the story needs those to stay fully engaging.
Good call. The horror aspects got neutered and I didn't find the film engaging at all. It may be too obvious a comparison, but Lynch has done a few of these type of head trip films and they chilled me to the bone without being conventional horror. This just irritated me.

It's clear early on what is happening and then the film has nowhere to go, apart from repeating the same trick over and over. I didn't find the dilemma of the lead character compelling, basically the self-pitying wallow of someone who didn't live up to his hopes and expectations. I suppose that's Kaufman's main theme but he's managed to make this more compelling in the past.

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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#48 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Sat Sep 05, 2020 7:06 am

Luke M wrote:
Sat Sep 05, 2020 4:08 am
After I finished this tonight, I read the book's summary on Wikipedia. My impression is the book is fairly straightforward and the movie was on the same path until the protagonists get to the high school. From there the movie seems to completely change the book's meaning of everything that came before it.
The book's plot is pretty straightforward, but the way people talk and the way the narrator describes things make it clear that something is off. But then, yes, things go off the deep end once they get to the school.
I don't quite understand it all. It's also not really something I care to spend more time in trying to comprehend.
SpoilerShow
The book makes it more clear that the whole story is the fiction of the janitor, Jake, who commits suicide (i.e. He was thinking of ending things). He was a smart person who never lived up to his potential. The girl is a complete fiction, and his parents have been long dead.

The movie, I think, has that same gist. But whereas the high school scenes in the book end with an explanation, in the movie, everything just unravels.
therewillbeblus wrote:
Sat Sep 05, 2020 12:47 am
I'm sure people will read this film several different ways, so all I can do is offer my interpretation in spoilers. I respectfully disagree with the point that this film is "explicitly about mainsplaining" on any level beyond a detail, for while that is touched on at times it's emblematic of the way Kaufman engages in relentless self-punishment and also affords some empathy for his stand-in male character, just as he always has. But that comment alone may risk transparently explaining what I believe is the focus on this film..
My interpretation is definitely colored by the fact that I've read the book, where that theme may be more upfront. (And, I know, I know; I'm becoming that guy who is like, "Well if you READ THE BOOK...").
SpoilerShow
Buckley's character is Jake's projection; she exists only for him to imagine that he has pleased his parents and for him to have someone to brag about his intellect to. In the book, he says things like, "What if I told you I was the smartest person in the world?" In the movie, he's constantly correcting her and his mom on pedantic points. He's aways asking if she's read things. When he brought up David Foster Wallace, the ultimate mansplainer's, lit-bro idol, I laughed out loud. Jake's pretentious, but he's had no one in his life to be pretentious to, so he made one up. Her breakdown, her thinking of ending things, is that fantasy's unsustainability.

It's more than just mansplaining, obviously; he created someone so he could feel like he mattered. But a big part of that creation is that he wanted a woman who saw him as smart, a woman to whom he could explain stuff.
All this said, I don't know what the deal was with that Women Under the Influence bit. Also, for the record, I love David Foster Wallace.

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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#49 Post by The Curious Sofa » Sat Sep 05, 2020 11:55 am

TheKieslowskiHaze wrote:
Sat Sep 05, 2020 7:06 am

All this said, I don't know what the deal was with that Women Under the Influence bit. Also, for the record, I love David Foster Wallace.
There was a volume of Pauline Kael's For Keeps in Jake's room and Buckley's character quotes much of Kael's review of A Woman Under the Influence verbatim,
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essentially becoming Kael at that point. I think it confirms, as you said, that the film isn't necessarily about "mansplaining". Jake argues with the review, he fantasises about discussing art with a partner on that level. It's another instance where this clearly means something personal to Kaufman but it won't for many viewers. Then it becomes tiresome when the characters keep imitating Rowland's mannerisms in the film.

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Luke M
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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

#50 Post by Luke M » Sat Sep 05, 2020 1:04 pm


TheKieslowskiHaze wrote:
SpoilerShow
The book makes it more clear that the whole story is the fiction of the janitor, Jake, who commits suicide (i.e. He was thinking of ending things). He was a smart person who never lived up to his potential. The girl is a complete fiction, and his parents have been long dead.

The movie, I think, has that same gist. But whereas the high school scenes in the book end with an explanation, in the movie, everything just unravels.
Appreciate this explanation. From what I gather, the movie seems to work better as a companion piece to the book. It doesn't seem to make much sense otherwise.

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