There are a wide variety of intended audiences for different films ranging from mainstream films made for the entire general public to more niche arthouse films directed for an esteemed few. The lines for dividing these audiences are not always clear and precise and the viewers may not interpret a film as being designed forb a certain group, regardless of the director’s intentions. Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020) is a film that is chaotically mesmerising in its story of a woman who visits her boyfriends family at their rural farmhouse that in its beautiful confusion went too far and in its plot lost many viewers understanding and the possibility for their appreciation in the confusion.
Going into as little detail as possible, in order to avoid any spoilers, the journey of the new couple to the home and back on a snowy winter night is eerie and plays with time and symbols as a metaphor for the reality of the situation. It is a rated R Netflix release that, to my surprise at least, has received only a 48% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. As a film student, I was shocked. I am willing to admit it is fairly difficult to understand and digest as a whole upfront due to it constantly keeping the viewer on their toes with uneasiness. However, the well-known cast and mix of the performances, story, and cinematic techniques was engaging and a fun watch.
Writer and Director Charlie Kaufman has a reputation for using symbols and metaphors in his work and this film brilliantly uses both with full imagination. He uses the camera work to tell a story and frames the images in a way that flows and constantly keeps up a feeling of spine tingling creepiness. My personal favorite shot in the film is a long take of in the living room of the family home where the camera follows and tracks the movement of the characters as things change around the camera. It makes sense within the scene and the atmosphere around gives a feeling of the characters and their dynamics as a family, as a couple, and the place of the main character being a stranger in this situation.
The film has a fairly well-known cast with the decorated Toni Collete, Jesse Plemons, and Jessie Buckley. These performances truly made the film and gave depth to the characters despite the majority of them being unnamed through the lens of the protagonist. Toni Collete absolutely crushes every scene with ease and she is elegantly, fiery, and passionate and extremely believable which sells exactly the intent. Jesse Buckley’s character is also very relatable and believable in what she does. It allows the viewer to easily understand her perspective and digest the story as it follows around her. We, the viewer, empathetically feel her stress and anxiety in real time as she does, like a true outsider.
This film has arguably next to no gore despite still being categorized under the horror and thriller genre. It seems to follow in the themes of Midsommer (2019) or Hereditary (2018). Those two aforementioned films were packed with explicit images of gore and carnage which is the only thing that I would say separates it from them. It uses lots of suspense and uneasiness that leave the audience striving to understand the full picture. This film stays open-ended as they do not clearly define the levity of the piece within itself and more so hope the audience can find that meaning on their own. This is probably the outstanding because of why viewers did not like the film. They wanted more and they wanted to be told and given a prescribed meaning. There is something beautiful in deciding that on your own. The director can use what it means to them but that can differ to yourself as an audience member and use your own life references to fulfill that and make it more special to you. Overall, I would absolutely recommend this as a watch to anyone and decide for yourself.
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