Carrying much of the film’s heavy lifting, the core duo of Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons are both on form, as they handle an incredibly tricky, shapeshifting script with ease.Īs the dialogue twists, turns, and constantly doubles-back on itself, Jessie and Jesse must be on the ball from the off. Supplementing this, the small but perfectly formed cast are nigh on faultless.

With big call backs to the various abstract mind-wiping dream sequences of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the film uses every inch of the screen to keep you guessing, resulting in a truly mesmeric viewing experience. The film’s locations are certainly minimal, restricting itself to an almost stage play-like setup, yet this locational claustrophobia feeds into I’m Thinking of Ending Things’ suffocating and disorientating energy perfectly. With layer upon layer of subtext, Kaufman willingly bamboozles his audience in an approach that dispenses with the relatively simple narrative structures of his early hits, opting instead for something far more experimental and enigmatic. It’s a near relentless tidal wave of surreal, stream-of-consciousness ideas that, depending on how in-tune you are with the filmmaker’s storytelling approach, will either leave you in awe or utterly nonplussed.ĭiving deep to explore notions of regret, loss, desire, and the delicacy of the human spirit, I’m Thinking of Ending Things pulls no punches as it goes out of its way to make things as obscure as possible, leaving us to painstakingly piece together its various fragments. And whether that notion tickles your pickle or not will dictate just how you feel about the film.Īs such, the film simultaneously showcases both Kaufman’s best and most frustrating habits. Essentially a feature-length version of the many strange mind-trip sequences from its director’s earlier efforts, I’m Thinking of Ending Things feels like as pure, uncut Kaufman as you’re ever likely to get. But after a wobbly career trajectory since becoming a director, is the move to bring such bizarre and intricate source material to the screen the right one?įrom a literal doorway into John Malkovich’s head, to the extravagant process of wiping Jim Carrey’s memory, Kaufman has never had a problem with throwing us down the rabbit hole of our own minds, no matter how dark and downright weird it turns out.

It also makes his choice to adapt Iain Reid’s mind-bending novel for Netflix - a streaming giant that still appears to be searching for their own personality as a film studio - an infinitely intriguing one. Notoriously introverted and often visibly uncomfortable with the fame that came his way after the successes of Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Adaptation, Kaufman has consistently been one of the most fascinating and frustrating figures in Hollywood, a dichotomy that would make a trip into his head such an undeniably fascinating experience.

Having spent the best part of two decades rummaging around inside characters’ minds in increasingly strange and abstract ways, the writer-turned-writer-director has nonetheless been something of a closed book. Charlie Kaufman achieves peak-Charlie Kaufman.

Im thinking of ending things script