Confuses the spectator

"I'm thinking of ending things" is between gloom and mystery

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Two weeks ago, we watched what we described as the craziest and daring movie by writer and director Christopher Nolan and for movie audiences, which is "Tenet".

It was a film that went in opposite directions at the same time, and its hero without a name is called "a main character". Whenever you think that you have understood a part, even a small part of the story, things get complicated for you until your mind surrenders.

Today we have I'm Thinking of Ending Things, "I'm thinking of ending things," from the original Netflix productions by American writer and director, Charlie Kaufman, and adapted from the novel of the same title by Ian Reed, which is his craziest movie so far, and it is almost impossible to understand Anything in it.

If "Tenet" began with a terrorist attack on a Kiev opera house, followed by a terrible scene of a plane crashing after hitting a warehouse at Oslo airport, followed by a breathtaking chase in the streets of the Estonian capital Tallinn, then the film was reversed and we saw all the footage reversed, then "I'm thinking of ending things." It begins with a nameless woman accompanying her boyfriend on a car trip to his parents' farm to get to know them and ends with the return trip, meaning the opposite.

The Nameless Woman (Jesse Buckley), a physics student, hopes to end her relationship with her boyfriend, Jake (Jesse Plemons), after just seven weeks.

Before she tells him, Jake suggests that he take her to his parents' farm. During the strange trip, Jake tries to recite a poem he read, when he was young, about a girl named Lucy.

The woman's phone rings without a name, and on her phone screen is the name of Lucy!

Jake discovers that his unnamed girlfriend is a poet, and asks her to hear something from her poetry for fun during the trip, the girl recites a scary poem until they reach their destination.

On the parents' farm we see the mother (Tony Colette) and the father (David Thulis), and here the film turns into Hereditary, but without the horror.

The film consists of several very long scenes, the first of which is the scene of the journey, interspersed with a long dialogue that not everyone will like, because it is somewhat philosophical and interspersed with a poem.

Then the most beautiful scenes of the film in the middle part, which takes place on the farm, and in it there is an oddity that suggests that what we are watching is a psychological horror movie, then the scene of returning from the farm and interspersed with a very long dialogue is not interesting except for those who are interested in philosophy and art, then a group of surreal scenes will not understand One of them is something, then the end.

In the beginning scene, the nameless woman says: “I think about ending things ... When this idea reaches my mind, it gets stuck in my head and does not leave.” The girl repeats the title of the movie as soon as she gets into her boyfriend's car, and here Jake responds and says: Hey!

That is, as if he had heard the phrase, and we say how would the dialogue be if he heard the phrase?

It would surely be more interesting than a long poem that only adds grim gloom to the scene.

The nameless girl continues to silently address herself while on the way to his parents' farm: “Maybe it is not fair for me to go with Jake on this trip. Meeting the parents of someone is usually the stage after which the relationship becomes serious.” But she did not tell her parents that she was dating the young man. The intellectual who loves films and the play "Oklahoma! 1943", who suddenly changes the subject from art to Mussolini!

The scene of the very long dialogue in the car, which comes immediately after the introduction, is a candidate for the most gloomy and uninteresting talk scene. The dialogue material could have been interesting, but Kaufman apparently asked his protagonists to give the dialogue like bored students reading story dialogues to their teacher so as not to Deprived of them grades.

There is a monotone in Buckley's voice and the manner of its delivery, and there is stubborn resistance from Kaufman against photographing landscapes outside the car.

Footage needed by the long talk scene to lighten up a bit of its gloomy tone, especially since the general atmosphere of this shot suggests that the woman and Jake are emerging directly from Hell.

If the author of this topic was sitting on the back seat, he would have chosen to get off immediately even with the vehicle moving, and walk up the road to return to town.

The weirdness begins as soon as you enter the farm scene, which is the best part in the movie, and the movie begins to shift from mystery to extreme weirdness, as if we are watching an episode of the famous sixties series The Twilight Zone.

Weirdness can arouse a viewer's curiosity, and weirdness is bewildering in itself.

In the end, this is a Charlie Kaufman movie, and this guy takes us back to his antics, from Being John Malkovich in 1999, to Adaptation in 2002, to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in 2004, and every film mentioned was written by Kaufman and directed by Spike Jones, except for the last one directed by Michael. Gundry.

Then Kaufman decided to direct his films, and the result was Synecdoche New York in 2008, and critics were divided at that time on the film, some of whom saw it as the best film in the first decade of the millennium, and some of them said it was boring and unbearable.

Then came Anomalisa in 2015 also directed by Kaufman, which is an animated film, and the result was better than the previous film, and finally "I'm thinking of ending things", which is not totally as great as Kaufman's previous films, and it leaves viewers in a state of confusion.

Kaufman's most beautiful films were when he committed to writing far from directing, and this film only proves that the man is not good at directing.

After the farm, the return journey begins in the car, and another long dialogue punctuated with singing, and this time the scene is completely dark, we never see the two heroes' faces unless the camera angle changes, and it is rare for Kaufman to change it, and a severe depression crouches on the chest of the writer of these lines who wished he had Choose another movie!

The last shots of the film are a set of surreal scenes, and Kaufman said in an interview that he does not want to explain anything, because the viewer has the right to interpret the film in the way he likes.

The problem is that there is no way to understand the film unless we take into account that all we see are the thoughts of the dark girl, a theory that applies to all of Kaufman's previous films.

Some will bias the film just because Kaufman made it, and we understand this point, but we say that the film deserves to be cut 30 minutes from it, from the two depressing shots, because when we reach the end of the incomprehensible film, we wonder: Was the trip worth watching ?!

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Weirdness can spark a viewer's curiosity, weirdness is bewildering in itself, and in the end this is a Charlie Kaufman movie.

Kaufman's most beautiful films were when he committed to writing far from directing, and this film only proves that the man is not good at directing.

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