Philadelphia Globe Review: The Wasted Time In “I’m Thinking Of Ending Things”

Philadelphia Globe Review: The Wasted Time In “I’m Thinking Of Ending Things”

By John Saeger

**This review contains spoilers of I’m Thinking Of Ending Things**

The Netflix movie I’m Thinking Of Ending Things is a lot of things. Elements of existentialism, horror, and psychological thrills are all incorporated at some level. The most omnipresent element of the movie is confusion. Despite good performances from a talented cast, Charlie Kaufman’s latest movie is one of the most stilted and befuddling films in recent memory. 

The movie follows a young couple (Jesse Plemons, Jessie Buckley) driving to the boyfriend’s childhood home. A long trip surrounded by a harsh winter storm features intense dialogue as the girlfriend contemplates breaking up their relationship. The pair later encounter his parents (Toni Colette, David Thewlis) and experience the first of several bizarre time warps. 

It is during these scenes that Kaufman’s adaptation of Iain Reid’s book finally begins to gain momentum. These infrequent moments, mostly involving genus performances from Toni Collette, tease the payoff as being an engrossing multi-layered story on the passage of time. 

Time ironically turns out to be the downside of the film. I’m Thinking Of Ending Things misses its mark because Kaufman spends the first two-thirds of the movie teasing the young woman as the focal point. It is not until late in the movie that Jake is revealed to be the subject matter of the story. By masking this with a string of dialogue that makes Aaron Sorkin seem concise, Kaufman fatigues his audience instead of crafting a skillful dupe. 

Had the overall concept of the film been kept to 90 minutes instead of two-plus hours, the director might have had something valuable on his hands. 45 minutes could have been cut from the film with the same result. Instead of being poignant, Kaufman’s excess throughout I’m Thinking Of Ending Things is self-indulgent and fails to click as engrossing cinema. 

This inability to land the story even includes the quasi-revelation that Jake is an aging janitor. His girlfriend(s) were only in his imagination. The reasons why are never made clear in the film, something that viewers deserve after their patience was taxed for so long. I’m Thinking Of Ending Things only raises more questions than answers. While never ending discussion may be at the heart of existentialism, it is maddening to figure out just what the heck is going on without companion analysis from the filmmakers. 

With this addendum, readers learn that Jake invented his girlfriend to compensate for missed social opportunities in his youth. Without explicitly (or even implicitly) stating this in I’m Thinking Of Ending Things, Kaufman fritters and wastes time in an offhand way, but never shows his audience the story’s way. A movie can blend genres and ask deep questions. The plot eventually has to lead to something at some point. In this instance, the mix of genres and narratives never adds up. Kaufman had to subtract from his vision and create a puzzle with pieces that fit together as an interlocking motion picture.

The complexity of Kaufman’s task in adapting the novel is immense, but the movie is not filled with layers worthy of dissection. Bloated plot points comprise the first half of the movie… and the middle… and the end. Had I’m Thinking Of Ending Things been a little more grounded, the film might have held up to Kaufman’s own best work. Instead, his latest is a dud artistic venture masked as a critical darling.

About the Author: John Saeger is a music and film writer from Philadelphia. Since 2017 he has been writing his pop-culture blog Long After Dark, a site dedicated to the arts in the City of Brotherly Love and beyond. Email / Twitter