I just watched I'm Thinking of Ending Things - and it felt like another utterly strange dream sequence like in Maniac. I really liked it, though I can't say it didn't leave me confused and the need to rethink the whole film. I think it was supposed to be left ambiguous. I can only say what I liked about the film, right now. it felt like a giant time warp. it made me question the missing context of everything, from the little details to the bigger picture, even simply the genre of the film. there was an animation sequence, there was a musical sequence.. it felt like a very bold movie in every directing choice. It was directed by Charlie Kaufman, who directed Synecdoche, New York, which I have yet seen but is next on my list, definitely. I'm Thinking of Ending Things is a 2016 novel, I read through the synopsis and it seemed slightly different but equally as disorientating, especially the part about the female narrator and Jake being the same person - seems like dream logic. I'm going to drop down the /summary/ from wiki here..
the novel:
The story is narrated by Jake's girlfriend of only a few months. They met in a pub during a college trivia night, and Jake gave her his phone number by writing it on a piece of paper and slipping it into her bag. Several weeks later he takes her to meet his parents on their remote farm. She has been considering "ending things," but has not told him yet. It is a long drive and they engage in lengthy philosophical discussions.
The evening with Jake's parents turns out to be unpleasant and scary. They ask her awkward questions and she sees unsettling things, like a picture of Jake as a child that looks as if it could be her. During the long drive home, Jake decides to stop for "something sweet" at a Dairy Queen. The narrator is exhausted and wants to get home, but reluctantly agrees. She recognizes one of the girls that works at the Dairy Queen, but can't pinpoint why. Jake then wants to dispose of the cups from their iced drinks at a nearby high school. It is snowing in the middle of the night, and the school is deserted. After disposing of the cups, he starts making out with her in the car in front of the school, but stops when he sees the janitor watching them from one of the windows. Furious, Jake leaves her alone in the car and enters the school building to confront him.
After a long wait in the cold car, Jake's girlfriend, scared and worried, goes looking for him. She searches the long corridors in the main building, then realizes she is being followed. Believing it to be the janitor, she tries to hide and quickly gets lost. Jake's girlfriend relives traumatic childhood experiences of a neighbor visiting her mother and threatening to take her away. She is terrified and wishes she had ended things with Jake. Then she remembers where the gym is, even though she has never been to this school before. She makes her way there, hoping to find a way out, but becomes confused as to who she is. She starts to physically deteriorate and is unable to see herself separate from Jake. After a while, she discovers that she and Jake are the same person. They make their way to the janitor's room and climb in the closet. Jake becomes the narrator and recalls how he wished he had given her his phone number that trivia night in the pub, but was too shy. He hoped to meet her again, but that never happened. So he wrote about her – he had to make it real. The janitor finds them in his room. He gives her a metal clothes hanger from the closet and says, "I'm thinking of ending things". She agrees, straightens the hanger out, and stabs herself in the neck with the sharp end. As she bleeds out, he says "A single unit, back to one. Me. Only me. Jake. Alone again."
Many of the chapters of the book are separated by a conversation between two strangers who discuss a horrific incident that occurred at the school. Near the end of the book, it is revealed they are talking about Jake. Jake was a student who dropped out of college 30 years ago and was employed at the school as a janitor. They talk about how he came from a farm, and that his parents had died long ago. They note how withdrawn and disturbed he became and that he used to spend much of his time on his own writing in notebooks. They discuss the discovery of his body and the notebooks, but it is only when they read them that they understand what happened.
the film:
In the main story, a young woman referred to by a changing series of names, contemplates ending her six-week relationship with her boyfriend, Jake. She does so while taking a day trip to meet Jake's parents on their farm, commenting on how rural landscapes are something very new to her. During the awkward drive, Jake attempts to recite a poem he read when he was younger, Ode: Intimations of Immortality, but the woman claims she doesn't like poetry much. He mentions that the poem was about a woman named Lucy, also referring to the young woman as Lucy, only for her to interrupt him by receiving a call from a friend also named Lucy, which she does not answer. She also notices a brand new swing set strangely out-of-place in front of a house that had clearly been abandoned for a long period. The woman, seemingly a student, refers to the paper that she needs to get home that night to finish. As with all of her areas of expertise that arise, Jake is unusually knowledgeable about the topic of her biological research paper.
Throughout the drive, as well as later scenes in the movie, the main narrative is intercut with footage of a janitor working at the local high school (Jake's former high school). Jake and the janitor have a clear psychological connection, with Jake at times seeming to speak the thoughts of the janitor. This includes Jake referencing his affinity for the high school's musical productions, which he sees each year. He speaks of them as if the woman is already familiar with the school and their theater performances. He says that he occasionally runs into former students he recognizes from past productions as adults, now working in places like the town grocery store. He speaks as if he still lives in his home town. This conversation happens as the janitor is seen viewing rehearsal for the high school's latest musical production and sees student actors rehearsing a dance in the school's hallway.
The young woman, now seemingly a poet, is pressured by Jake into performing one of her works in the car to pass time. After she recites a morbid poem about coming home, they arrive at Jake's parents' farmhouse. After some debate, Jake takes the young woman to the barn. They see dead lambs, whose bodies have been frozen solid in the snow. Jake hesitantly tells the woman that the farm's pigs recently had to be put down because they were being eaten alive by maggots.
Inside, the woman notices strange scratches on the basement door, said to have been made by a dog named Jimmy, who seems to appear and disappear out of thin air. The woman refers to the farmhouse as looking like the rural house she grew up on, only to soon after claim that she grew up in an apartment and that this type of house is unfamiliar to her. During dinner with Jake's parents, they are served a roast ham from the farm, seemingly one of the maggot-infested pigs. Jake's parents ask the woman, now apparently a professional painter, to show them photos of her work. She later refers to herself as a student of quantum physics. She tells the story of how she and Jake met, told with narrative inconsistencies, about the pair meeting at a bar during a trivia night and Jake awkwardly asking for her number. During the chat, she continues to receive calls the very names she is referred to as (Lucy, Lucia, Louisa), all from the same number, all evidently at the same time.
After dinner, the young woman notices a picture of Jake as a child, but becomes confused because she recognizes that child as herself. While eating dessert, Jake's mother reveals that she has been suffering from tinnitus, causing her ears to constantly hear a hissing noise. Jake mentions that the young woman studies gerontology. The young woman receives a call from another "friend", this time from a woman named Yvonne, and a mysterious male voice saying as if speaking to himself, that there is "one question to answer." The woman claims her friend was just saying hello. Soon after, things begin to get increasingly surreal as Jake's parents begin to transition back and forth from their younger selves to elderly dementia patients.
When the young woman takes laundry down to the basement, she discovers several identical janitor uniforms in the laundry. She also sees art gallery posters featuring her own landscape paintings, realizing that they were actually painted by Ralph Albert Blakelock. She receives the same call from the mysterious voice yet again.
She goes upstairs to look for Jake, entering his childhood bedroom. Inside she finds a book of poetry, open to the very poem she had previously recited as her own. She also sees a book on quantum physics, a book of film criticism by Pauline Kael, and a copy of the film A Beautiful Mind. The ashes of Jimmy, the dog, can be seen on the bookshelf.
Eventually, Jake and the young woman finally begin the drive home. Jake mentions several events of a night that the young woman does not remember, including her drinking too much wine; word association soon leads to an extended discussion of John Cassavetes's A Woman Under the Influence. Finding themselves in the middle of a snowstorm, the pair decide to stop at an ice cream store named Tulsey Town. Once there, they meet multiple employees who are also students at the school the janitor works in. While the young woman buys the dessert, a bruised employee attempts to warn her of something she can't describe.
The couple soon decide they do not want their food, and Jake stops at the high school to throw away their mostly full cups. In the parking lot, the pair have an argument but soon begin to make out. Jake notices (seemingly psychically) the janitor watching them from inside the school and decides to confront him, leaving the young woman alone in the car. After a long wait, she decides to look for Jake inside the school. She meets the janitor and, among other things, suddenly begins to tell him that nothing happened between her and Jake on the night they met.
After the young woman discovers Jake at the end of a hall, they look on as people dressed like themselves engage in a lengthy dream ballet, reminiscent of the one in Oklahoma!, with her taking the role of Laurey, Jake taking the role of Curly, and the janitor taking the role of Jud; the male characters fight over her. The ballet ends with the ballet janitor killing ballet Jake with a knife.
Later, the janitor leaves the building after cleaning up the school. After sweeping the snow off of his truck, he suffers a mental breakdown and begins to hallucinate visions of Jake's parents as well as an animated Tulsey Town jingle. He undresses and walks back inside the school completely naked, being led by another hallucination of a maggot-infested pig who tells him that he and his ideas are one and the same, and that he should "get dressed".
On an auditorium stage, Jake (made up to look elderly) receives a Nobel Prize and sings the song Lonely Room from Oklahoma! to a full audience. The audience includes his parents, the Tulsey Town employees, and the young woman, all of whom are wearing stage makeup to appear older, and they give Jake a standing ovation.
The image of Jake, receiving praise, fades into the final shot: the parking lot of the school the next morning. The janitor's truck is covered in snow. There is no evidence Jake's car had been there. The shot remains during the credits. Towards the end of the credits, the sound of an engine turning over can be faintly heard.
The film didn't seem 'normal' as soon as she got into the car in the beginning. The very long phases of shots in the car, both to and back from the farmhouse, made it feel like I was in the car with them.. and the deep philosophical conversations, every interaction with him and his family, it was like anything you could make uncomfortable or strange, they did. it was kind of impressive. nothing was normal or logical (though sometimes there was, and those stood out more than the abnormal.. like it was swapped) and thus the whole thing felt like a long, long dream or hallucination. I liked the labelling of things 'Jake's childhood bedroom' 'nightgown' for his elderly father. The brief sight of the elderly mother supposedly dead or on the brink of it was very, very sad. the time jumps with age in his parents, the discussions about time, being human, being attractive and pretty, the ice cream stop in the middle of nowhere in the snowstorm, the changing of her name throughout, everything made you yearn for some sense, which we did not get in the end. overall it was a very magnetic film and I felt disorientated and attracted to the illogical and story and meanings of life it seemed to want to offer me, but I need to re-think about it again. Visually though, it was very intriguing and I enjoyed the directing very much (like the supposedly stationary car in the snowstorm). definitely worth a watch, and a second.