Review: I'm Thinking Of Ending Things

I'm always intrigued for a new Charlie Kaufman feature, as I know it's not going to be straightforward. But I am always cautious as I find some of his works a bit too convoluted and sometimes coming across as pretentious.

The latter only seems to be the case for me when he is directing as well as writing. But when he's just being the writer, his ideas seem to be held together better with someone else at the helm. That has given us some masterpieces such as Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. His previous directed features such as 'Synecdoche, New York' and 'Anomalisa' has a style that doesn't quite work for me as well as characters I struggle to get engaged with.

His latest project has got me somewhere between the two, which was somewhat of a relief for me. It starts off seemingly and surprisingly conventional. But as you move on, I certainly got that feeling that something did not feel right. However, that feeling of unease still had me intrigued as to where the story was going. I was getting feelings of psychological horror, with a bit of fantasy maybe.

Then after witnessing a few surreal sequences, I think calling this a psychological drama fitted the description best. I was seeing themes of control, relationships, identity, memory and fear of aging. But long after seeing it, I also feel that themes of loneliness is also there.

So while there is a lot of points of discussion that would be ideal for a film class, I did not feel much from the characters to find it entertaining.

I'm not saying that the performances were bad. I just couldn't engage with them. They seemed more as a platform for the story's message rather than actual people I could invest in. That being said, Jessie Buckley is a great talent and continues to show in this that she can carry a film, has great range and has so much more to give to the industry. Same goes for Jesse Plemons, who I am pleased to see him broadening his range of genres. David Thewlis and especially Toni Colette contributed well and made their experience prove vital to the first and second acts.

From a production standpoint, it's really well made. The vibe I got from the sets and the accompanying camerawork was if I was in some sort of nightmare, which reminded me of Darren Aronofsky's 'Mother!' which is always a good thing in my book.

I may have got a lot from it. But its lack of emotion made me not care enough for it to see this film as more than just good. There is definitely an audience for this and they will eat this up. Like I said before, this would be an ideal addition for the curriculum of a film studies class. For general audiences, many heads will be scratched. But I feel if you're patient with it and give it a chance, you can find something from it to make it worth your time. This is probably my favourite of Kaufman's directed projects. However, I still feel he should stick to writing and let the director just pin his ideas down to make the film accessible and be financially profitable.

Rating: 7/10