I'm Thinking of Ending Things

 

Charlie Kaufman on the set with Jessie Buckley

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS                 B                                                                    USA  (134 mi)  2020  d:  Charlie Kaufman 

But when there’s a moon in my winder                                                                                          And it slants down a beam ‘cross my bed                                                                                                                                            Then the shadder of a tree starts a-dancin’ on the wall                                                                  And a dream starts a-dancin’ in my head                                                                                                                                                                                                                              And all the things that I wish fer                                                                                                      Turn out like I want them to be                                                                                                     And I’m better than that smart-aleck cowhand                                                                             Who thinks he is better’n me!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               And the girl I want                                                                                                                           Ain’t afraid of my arms                                                                                                                 And her own soft arms keep me warm                                                                                             And her long, yeller hair                                                                                                            Falls across my face                                                                                                                                                  Jist like the rain in a storm!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        The floor creaks                                                                                                                                             The door squeaks                                                                                                                                           And the mouse starts a-nibblin’ on the broom                                                                            And the sun flicks my eyes—                                                                                                          It was all a pack o’ lies!                                                                                                                 I’m awake in a lonely room

—Lonely Room, by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, sung by Jud Fry from Oklahoma!, (song omitted from the movie version), I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020) - Lonely Room - HQ YouTube (2:50)

Let’s see, there’s dreary, drearier, and dreariest, and this miserablist film deals with all of that, to which you can add dark and chillingly morbid, with a touch of the surreal.  Made by the same writer/director of SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK (2008), which was like a towering architectural experiment that continually explored new regions, feeling-ever expanding, where the performances themselves were mind-blowing, this is a different animal altogether, spare and minimal, by comparison, a psychological drama with beautiful, relatable monologues, largely taking place in the minds of two people with their thoughts often interchanged, creating a uniquely bizarre labyrinthian landscape that explores hidden regions of an untapped subconscious, yet plays out in a dry and undramatic fashion, often in-your-face and over the top, bordering on farce, as point-of-view is continually changing, altering reality as we know it, plunging into a netherworld that may or may not stand up to scrutiny.  It’s a baffling exercise exploring a strange malaise that exists between two persons, a young couple, Jake (Jesse Plemons, assuming the Philip Seymour Hoffman role), as understated as a character can be, just an ordinary guy harboring dark secrets, often seeming ghoulishly cold in temperament, and his more kind and affable girlfriend, grad student Lucy (Jessie Buckley), who may also be a waitress, artist, or quantum physicist, with most of the interior thoughts initially coming from her perspective, as they head out into farm country during a raging blizzard of snow for a family dinner to meet his parents, David Thewlis and Toni Collette, who are completely off-the-wall, changing age with each appearance, where the subconscious eventually takes hold, leaving reality a thing of the past, leaving viewers scratching their heads, wondering just what the Hell is happening.  To that extent, it’s largely a puzzle picture that feels overly intellectualized, internally analyzing what’s taking place, which has a way of taking all the life out of it, often leaving viewers perplexed, dumbfounded by an extreme detachment with what’s taking place onscreen, featuring plenty of self-loathing, offering questions of mortality, common themes in Kaufman’s works, which always seem like an exercise in self-analysis. While there is plenty of really cool stuff on display here, a few fabulous sequences that feel genuinely inspired, it’s overloaded with a bleak and depressing vantage point, including suicidal idealizations, with suggestions that these two have no business being together, where eventually it feels lifeless and too flat, as if all the air has dissipated from the room.  Whatever expectations one may have coming into the film, this director is sure to obliterate them all, creating an abstract, heavily symbolic work that will challenge each and every viewer, becoming a moody, self-absorbed road trip where the side adventures eventually take over and dominate the landscape.        

Adapted from Iain Reid’s 2016 novel of the same name, this is the only film from this director that includes another writer as the source material, which is in itself a curious relationship, much like the one depicted onscreen, as Kaufman has written some superlative screenplays, like Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich (1999) and ADAPTATION (2002), as well as Michel Gondry’s extraordinary ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004).  That said, he is considered one of the most strikingly original filmwriters of our generation, with few peers that can compare, but this adaptation may actually be his least successful effort largely because it doesn’t originate with him, but is instead interpreted by him, remaining remarkably faithful to the source material’s structure and basic plot.  While he may have felt a personal connection with this book, and puts his owns stamp on it, in many ways the book is a good deal clearer and more transparent than the movie, shot by Polish cinematographer Łukasz Żal, with Kaufman adding his own touch of ambiguity, veering into fantasy, which can be something of a mindfuck of a film.  There’s something distressing and even annoying about the ending, becoming overly uncomfortable, forcing viewers away from Lucy’s vantage point, where she has been a pleasant host as narrator that one easily identifies with, and turns instead to a less likeable Jake, a character we don’t entirely trust, knowing Lucy is uneasy about continuing a relationship with him, yet he becomes the focus, where the entire film may actually be seen through his eyes, which may leave viewers flabbergasted.  In more ways than one, it’s all about Jake, yet he’s the most unreliable character in the room, subject to violent mood swings, not altogether likeable, harboring a secret life throughout the entire picture, possibly inventing Lucy as an extension of himself, creating a more likeable side, where the truth of the matter is he leads a sad and depressing life, talented in many ways, but unrecognized, leading an uneventful and anonymous life, where his crushing loneliness may be a key to understanding the entire picture.  While it’s a bizarre depiction, Jake is not nearly as socially engaging as the much more charismatic Lucy, who tends to dominate the movie, guided by her charm and easy appeal, where one of the most powerful moments is when she reads a wrenchingly dramatic poem while they are traveling in a car, Bonedog YouTube (4:43), not the kind typically used in films, showing greater range and extreme depth of character, taking the audience by surprise, as it simply comes out of nowhere, Bonedog. a poem by Eva H.D. | by Marianne | Medium.  Later in the film we are surprised to learn that it comes from a book of poems attributed to another author, yet was supposedly originated by Lucy, who sees herself as something of a poet.  This is but one of the recurring fault lines offering clues that things are not what they seem.      

Certainly one possibility is that this entire film may exist inside one man’s head, developing illusions of grandeur to avoid seeing what a pathetic wretch he’s become.  Accordingly, most of the film takes place in a moving car in the middle of a raging snowstorm, yet for all their efforts, it seemingly goes nowhere.  Lucy is introduced as an early narrator, where all of the focus is on her, yet her name and occupation change multiple times in the film, while her storyline nearly disappears by the end.  Nonetheless, early on, she quotes Oscar Wilde, offering a curious viewpoint about how we continuously live through others, “Most people are other people:  Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”  About this same time, Jake flips on the radio, playing a song from a musical that Jake immediately recognizes is a passage from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!  While he downplays his interest in musicals, he rattles off more than a dozen or so (the list keeps growing) that are among his favorites, intercut by a mysterious scene with footage of an elderly janitor (Guy Boyd) working at a high school, where he sees students rehearsing the same musical.  By the time they arrive at his parent’s farmhouse, they are nowhere to be seen, while Jake is uneasy and uncomfortable, nervously awaiting their arrival, with Lucy struck by a picture of Jake that resembles how she looked as a child, becoming confused.  By the time his parents do finally arrive, they are all pleasantries, also a little bit strange and eccentric, even manic, feeling more like an out-of-body experience, with Lucy telling them the story of how they met, while also showing them some photographs of some landscape paintings she has made that are stored on her phone.  As Lucy wanders through the house, including Jake’s childhood room, much of what happens in this film seems to have originated there, as she finds books that strangely play out in strange variations throughout the film, and posters for exhibitions of Ralph Albert Blakelock paintings that resemble those she showed earlier as her own, while also discovering the same paintings with the name Jake affixed, all of which leads her to question the nature of her relationship with Jake, his family, and everything she sees in the world around her.  Each time his parents appear after dinner, they represent a different period in their lives, shifting from young to old and back to young again, with Jake undergoing intense personal encounters with them that seem vastly different than just this one evening, as if time has been consolidated into just a few moments.  At home, Jake never looks more depressed, exuding the sense of a loner caught between the continually changing fabric of fact and fiction.

It is only after Lucy extends a great effort that they finally leave, but Jake doesn’t share that sense of urgency, instead commenting that she drank too much wine at dinner, comparing her to the Cassavetes movie character Mabel Longhetti, played by Gena Rowlands, perhaps because they both want so much to be liked and loved, which leads to a bizarre critique of the Cassavetes film A Woman Under the Influence (1974), which she over-analyzes from an intellectual perspective, repeating word-for-word parts of a Pauline Kael review, Letterboxd on Twitter: "Pauline Kael's December 9, 1974 New ..., which largely misses the point and is counterintuitive, as the beauty of Cassavetes films lies in the truth of his emotional connections.  Nonetheless, this is only the first of a few diversions, stopping at Tulsey Town, an all-night ice-cream drive-through, before getting into a heated argument over what she describes as rape lyrics to “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” Ella Fitzgerald with Louis Jordan - Baby, It's Cold Outside ... YouTube (2:45), a popular 40’s song that won the Oscar for Best Song in 1949.  Lucy basically personifies affirmation, however, unlike Jake, always striving to be better, briefly impersonating a virologist, “Everything wants to live, Jake.  Viruses are just one more example of everything.  Even fake, crappy movie ideas want to live.  Like, they grow in your brain, replacing real ideas.  That’s what makes them dangerous.”  But the biggest surprise is making a strange detour in the night to visit his old high school, perhaps awkwardly realizing his life is not on the trajectory he wanted, where he seems to be going backwards and forward in time, perhaps inventing memories to protect him from the dull and insipid life he’s really leading, filled with nothing but regrets, mysteriously wandering out of the car, where his absence creates a mood of suspicion and dread, perhaps even anticipation of horror elements, with Lucy begrudgingly following sometime later, completely blindsided by his absence.  Inside the hallways of the school the pace of the film slows to a crawl, and in a striking transition an alternative fantasy life evolves, including a surreal ballet dance sequence, with Jake and Lucy morphing into Broadway dancer Ryan Steele and New York City Ballet soloist Unity Phelan, observed by the lone janitor on duty, I'm Thinking of Ending Things - Ballet scene YouTube (2:25).  Evolving even further, a larger fantasy life takes over, altering one’s sense of consciousness, changing the film trajectory into a fictional universe where Jake imagines himself an old man receiving recognition and acclaim for living a fulfilled life, mimicking a scene from A BEAUTIFUL MIND (2001), I'm Thinking of Ending Things vs. A Beautiful Mind - Side by Side Comparison YouTube (2:39) before stepping onto a musical set and singing a number from Oklahoma! about envisioning a better, happier life, only to realize it’s all been a dream, I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020) - Lonely Room - HQ YouTube (2:50).  Released on Netflix in the year of Covid, which presents its own challenges, the underlying motivation of this film feels designed to overcome powerful feelings of depression, but the downbeat subject and doppelgänger universe may leave many viewers even further alienated and confused, where something we heard earlier from Lucy reverberates with greater meaning only at the end of the picture, “Other animals live in the present.  Humans cannot, so they invented hope.”

Life Is Sweet

LIFE IS SWEET                    B                    

Great Britain  (103 mi)  1990  d:  Mike Leigh

Cinema of discomfort by way of comedic farce, striking a wonderful balance between despair and comedy, this is Mike Leigh’s third film, mostly working in theater and television at the time, introducing his own Third Man production company which is the vehicle for all his future film releases.  Relying upon a stalwart cast, anchored by his own wife at the time, Alison Steadman as Wendy, the irrepressible matriarch of a middle-class suburban family, seen in an amusing prologue introduction, featuring that rare thing never shown in Mike Leigh films – young children.  It’s a bubbly, upbeat intro filled with a kind of colorful joie de vivre from the always sunny Wendy, encouraging young primary school kids to shake their bums and raise their arms in joyous motion, letting off a little steam, where they need a little persuasion, not easily letting themselves go.  Made at the end of the Margaret Thatcher era of British conservatism, with Leigh at the time branded as “The Scourge of the Middle Classes,” the film is anything but sunny, with people stuck in dead-end lives, not exactly miserable, just hating the way their lives turned out.  A young Jim Broadbent is Wendy’s husband Andy, a professional cook in an industrial kitchen, who takes a lot of flak at home for not carrying out a few home improvement projects, never really motivated to take the time, preferring to hang out in pubs with his exasperatingly manipulative friend Patsy (Stephen Rea), who plies him with alcohol before surprising him with supposedly cheap deals on retail items for sale, which includes a broken down mobile snack bar that he might convert to a food truck, but it needs a lot of work.  Nonetheless, his dreams of getting out from under the horrible weight of his present job inspires him to dream of something better, hoping a food truck is the way to go, but it simply sits outside his front door like a broken down boat with a hole in it forever anchored on land, never once making it out to sea.  Basically a good-natured guy, he’s too polite to admit he’s been snookered, yet every scene together with Patsy produces the same irrepressible gullibility, as he always falls for the latest swindle.  Their children are twins in their early 20’s, two girls at opposite ends of the spectrum, Natalie (Claire Skinner), bookish and clear-headed, easily mistaken for a boy, yet quite comfortable working as a plumber, saving up for a vacation trip to America, and Nicola (Jane Horrocks), an ill-tempered layabout with an acerbic tongue, contemptuously dismissive of others, quick to call people “Capitalists” or “Fascists,” fancying herself as an ardent feminist, yet her everpresent dour mood is unshakeable, completely isolating herself in self-destructive behavior, smoking excessively to suppress the appetite, but showing signs of bulimia, refusing to eat all day, then stuffing herself with sweets in the late night hours, retching into the night, while her sister in the room next door overhears all. 

A typical working family (Wendy works as a clerk in a maternity clothing store), three of them are off to work in the morning while the disgruntled Nicola shows no signs of ambition, refusing to be an exploited worker, so she does no work at all, remaining aimless and bored for the most part, yet perfectly miserable, anxiously filled with nervous twitches, hair drawn down over her face, hiding behind her glasses, sneaking in a boyfriend during the day to have sex when everyone else is out, who turns out to be David Thewlis in a thankless role, always asked to leave immediately afterwards, never sticking around for anything more.  Making a rather eccentric entrance is Timothy Spall as Aubrey, seemingly an old friend of the family, viewing himself as a Bohemian cool cat from the 50’s, yet he’s always restless and overanxious, flirting inappropriately with Nicola before making his way to the back yard.  Andy and Aubrey share something in common, both food chefs aspiring to work for themselves, but going about it very differently.  Both are hampered by the realities of life, stuck with who they are, limited and constrained, with a narrowing window of opportunity to realize their dreams.  Andy dreams of a life away from the boring routine, stupidly investing in a broken-down food truck, while Aubrey’s plan is to open a nouveau cuisine restaurant, thinking he’s a “genius” chef, that if he builds it they will come in droves.  So he opens the Regret Rien restaurant in the heart of town, asking Wendy to come waitress for him, as his regular waitress skipped off to Prague with her boyfriend, working with the ever dour sous-chef Paula (Moya Brady), who would be out of place in any environment, whose glum hangdog expression suggests a life of woe, the picture of the downtrodden, with no apparent concerns for health violations.  Opening night has a customary anticipation to it, yet the unappetizing menu that Aubrey reads sounds utterly unthinkable, as it’s completely inedible, yet Aubrey is so confident of his culinary expertise.  As Aubrey and Wendy share a glass of wine to help calm the nerves, Aubrey never stops drinking, first making the moves on the sous-chef in the kitchen, whose face never changes expression, before drinking himself into a stupor, making a complete ass of himself, screaming at the top of his lungs on the street in utter contempt for all the customers who never showed up before stripping off his clothes and expressing his lustful desires for Wendy.  While she fends him off, he goes into grotesque mode, thoroughly exaggerated, destroying all the tables, turning them upside down, creating a chaotic mess as the night turns into an unmitigated disaster, with Aubrey left passed out on the restaurant floor (mumbling the name of Nicola) while Wendy makes a hasty exit, attempting to save Paula as well, but she’s clearly fixated on earlier fictitious promises made by Aubrey, both apparent soulmates of delusion and dysfunction.

Working for the first time with cinematographer Dick Pope, who would go on to shoot all of Leigh’s subsequent films, this is the first film to reach an international audience, establishing Leigh’s realist, working class style, where the rhythms of this family’s existence are informed by a dull routine, by a repetition of trained habits, which leads to a certain stagnation, feeling stifled by the banality of it all.  Leigh resorts to comic exaggerations in how characters are depicted, yet this is a theatrical device that hides and often overshadows the humanity contained within.  While the musical score is written by Rachel Portman, it repeats with a monotonous omnipresence, growing deliriously repetitive, which may have your brain seeking an alternative refuge, but it drives in the discomfort associated with this film, which Leigh has described as his least favorite.  In contrast, Wendy always looks at the bright side, possessing an ability to turn any disaster into a positive experience.   Unashamedly cheerful, she and the perpetually disillusioned Andy make a happy couple, proud of both of their girls, even as they are routinely the targets of Nicola’s ire.  She receives her own comeuppance in the form of her boyfriend’s refusal to engage in the same sex routine, standing his ground, insisting on having a decent conversation instead, challenging Nicola to articulate her feelings and utter coherent thoughts in sentences instead of bitter critiques that sound more like slogans.  This catches her offguard, even humiliated, which he takes full advantage of, finding herself at the end of a mercilessly critical tirade, which leaves her flummoxed.  Even after the disastrous restaurant opening, Wendy comforts her daughter that she finds in tears, talking some sense into her, confronting how joyless and unhappy she has become (in stark contrast to that opening dance sequence with the kids), becoming the dramatic center of the film, as it’s done with such tender and loving care, urging her to rejoin the human race and become part of the living, none of whom have it easy, but at least they’re trying.  Somehow countering all her deeply troubled, self-loathing critiques, Wendy’s affectionate concern for others is the star of the show, becoming an emotional revelation that reverberates with heartfelt intimacy.  Embracing flaws and inadequacies as part of the human character, Wendy offers the thoughts of a mature being, someone who has lived through and survived her own share of personal crises, yet maintains a sweet optimism that includes an affirmation for life.  As it turns out, more disasters are lurking, as if part of the life cycle, yet the manner in which you address these inevitable setbacks determines one’s quality of life, where you can become paralyzed and easily give up, griping over every issue and calling it all unfair, or you can roll with the punches and give yourself another shot at experiencing joy and happiness, embracing it when it comes, knowing how fleeting it can be, where what ultimately matters is a willingness to accept the bitter with the sweet.