Review of I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020) by Silverluso — 06 Sep 2020

Charlie Kaufman seems to hate new viewers, opting instead to cater towards his already well established fans. I marked this as a spoiler not for those who have never seen his movies, but for those who have.

This is perhaps is most obtuse movie, meant to be watched multiple times, and discussed. Famously, at least among his fans, Kaufman has been about what you take out of the movie, as much as he has any what the actual meaning is. Here is the real spoiler, the nameless girlfriend is a fantasy of jake, she wants to be real, and how real she is, is up to you. What's not up to you is the movie is a memory of a man who is at the end of his life. He feels as though all his talent was wasted, and maybe he accepts that at the end. I don't think so, there's a line about an award jake wins, which amounts to nothing more than participation, in the last scene he is seen getting an award. Either this is an his last excuse before he dies ("if I had a wife I'd have been successful" or it is one last rebellion, that his life was void like most of ours. At any rate, this is a great movie made for a very specific audience. It is hard to recommend this movie to everyone, because it is not for everyone.