‘Aging, Loneliness, Losing Your Mind, and Falling Apart’
Charlie Kaufman’s first new movie in five years is a horror film. In some ways, the same could be said of every feature he’s made. Synecdoche, New York and Anomalisa were eerie tales of existential dread and loneliness. The earlier scripts that made his name as a writer—Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind—all had touches of the macabre despite being ostensible comedies. But I’m Thinking of Ending Things is straightforwardly frightening, and follows an unnamed young woman (played by Jessie Buckley) as she drives through the frozen countryside with her new boyfriend, Jake (Jesse Plemons), to meet his parents.
From early on, the central couple seem trapped; they appear to be enjoying their new relationship, but their conversations feel recursive and loaded with menace. When they arrive at Jake’s family farm, things get creepier. The plot spins off in wild directions, touching on subjects such as the film criticism of Pauline Kael, the cheerfulness of 1930s cartoons, and the. The confounding film, based on a 2016 novel by Iain Reid and recently released on Netflix, deserves to baffle as wide an audience as it can.
