by Vincent Abbatecola
With movie theaters being closed for the last five months, I’ve become even more of an obsessive reader than I already was. With all of this extra time on my hands, I was able to tear through book after book. One that stuck with me the most was Ian Reid’s debut novel, I’m Thinking of Ending Things: a psychological horror-thriller with a philosophical twist. I don’t get scared often with horror novels, but this book actually made me nervous to read it alone in my house, such is the power of Reid’s haunting, ominous storytelling.
Now, writer-director Charlie Kaufman takels Reid’s challenging source material for his film adaptation. Although it doesn’t quite capture the nerve-racking chills of the novel, Kaufman nevertheless handles Reid’s themes with his trademark filmmaking approach that’s both surreal and cerebral.
Lucy (Jessie Buckley) is considering breaking up with her boyfriend, Jake (Jesse Plemons). Before she can do so, he invites Lucy to his family’s secluded farm to meet his parents (Toni Collette and David Thewlis), and she agrees to it. However, as their trip unfolds, Lucy will realize that their’s much more going on in their relationship than she thought.
It’s somewhat difficult to talk about the performances in depth for fear of spoilers, but I can say that both Buckley and Plemons dig deep into the psychological crevasses of their complex characters. Buckley has a couple of occasions where she delivers long stretches of dialogue that grant us access into her mind, but also contribute more layers to the mystery of what we’re watching. Other times, Buckley has to rely a lot on facial expressions when much of her dialogue on these occasions is told through voiceover narration. Such dialogue is just as probing as what’s spoken because as we’re listening to her, we’re also watching her when she reacts to her thoughts as she’s constantly trying to figure out how she wants to proceed with her relationship. You’re reading her character as countless thoughts percolate in her head, leaving you in engaged the whole time as she grapples with her situation.
Plemons portrays someone who also seems to be grappling with a troubled mind, giving the viewer the impression of a person who’s enigmatic to the point where you feel unsettled whenever he’s on screen. Even if you’ve read the book and know what’s going on with his character, you still feel alarmed because how much he seems to be in a state of unease, always looking like there’s something disturbing him that he’s not letting on. Plemons exhibits his character’s understated instability that always leave you on guard, and you’ll tense up whenever he’s around.
Collette and Thewlis are very unsettling as Jake’s parents, displaying puzzling personas that help add to the inscrutable nature of the story. There’s a quirkiness about them that makes their characters both darkly humorous and disturbing, making you feel just as uncomfortable as Lucy does as she spends more and more time with them.
Having written thought-provoking screenplays, like Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Synecdoche, New York, and Anomalisa, Kaufman does superb work in absorbing you in his complicated narratives and keeping you wondering what it all means and to what it will amount. His screenplay for I’m Thinking of Ending Things follows the same core journey that the two characters take in the book, but changes and adds several things that will even throw off viewers who have read the book. He turns the psychological-horror of Reid’s novel into psychological drama, but it works, for the most part, because it fits with Kaufman’s expertise as a screenwriter who provides thought-provoking stories. While the novel is mysterious throughout, it’s still fairly straightforward until the mind-twisting conclusion, which had me rereading the last 15 or so pages in order to grasp what I just read. However, that sentiment I had for the end of the novel is pretty much what I felt throughout the whole movie. Although it might not always exhibit the same power as what’s in the book, Kaufman’s bold approach to the source material should still be commended.
The boxy cinematography by Łukasz Żal helps to emphasize the claustrophobia that Lucy experiences when being in a car with Jake and stuck in the farmhouse with the oppressive strangeness of his parents. You feel as though you’re Lucy, wanting to inch your way out of the dining room to get as far away from the awkward dinner as possible. This type of camerawork also has you feel the sense of entrapment that Lucy endures in her mind as she tries to figure things out, having it seem as if time is running out and the walls of her mind are closing in.
Whether Kaufman is writing or directing, he always shows a unique vision when it comes to exhibiting the obstacles of life, doing so in ways that are memorable, beautiful, disquieting, and psychological. Between his filmmaking prowess, characters, and narratives, he achieves this once again with I’m Thinking of Ending Things, making a confident dive into Reid’s masterful novel. Kaufman’s films are rewarding in their challenging stories, and if you wish to further understand his latest movie after your first viewing, you’ll have to take Ending Things back to the beginning, and it’ll be worth it.
Grade: A-