![]() ![]() Choice lines from Pauline Kael’s review of “A Woman Under the Influence” are turned - without acknowledgment - into a monologue. The irregular storytelling is paired with screenwriting anarchy. ![]() David Thewlis and Toni Collette in “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” AP Then small details call everything into question: Did that picture just change? Didn’t she say she was an artist? Was he that old in the last scene? Kaufman also cuts to an old-school janitor for brief, unremarkable glimpses at his day. His parents are played with dark eccentricity by Toni Collette and David Thewlis, and they have the stench of Norman Bates. When they arrive at the house, the tone switches to horror. But it’s easier, she insists, to stay together. From their uncomfortable monotone, you can tell neither is elated. She’s not that into this guy, who’s an argumentative creep (Plemons, of “Breaking Bad” and “Black Mirror: USS Callister” fame, has cornered that market). “I’m thinking of ending things,” the woman says in narration, which continues throughout the movie. Jesse Plemons and Jessie Buckley in “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” AP A nameless young woman (Jessie Buckley) is picked up by her boyfriend of seven weeks, Jake (Jesse Plemons), to go have dinner at his parents’ rural farmhouse. We’re let inside a new relationship that, like millions before it, looks like it’s going to flame out early. When “Ending Things” is at its best, you wonder if the characters are figments of an unseen person’s imagination.Īt first, nothing is abnormal. ![]() This new film is even stranger than that. Only in his warped worlds can a puppeteer take an office gig on a half-floor where a doorway leads him into John Malkovich’s brain (“Being John Malkovich”), or can a company offer a new therapy that erases specific painful experiences from your memory (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”). Kaufman, one of just a few star screenwriters in the biz, has long been Hollywood’s lovable whack job. It’s Charlie Kaufman’s latest, “I’m Thinking of Ending Things.” The film that will either have you dissecting the plot for hours with friends or make you storm off to your bedroom to tweet insults at Netflix’s social-media intern. On Netflix.Īnd now, your love-it-or-loathe-it movie of 2020. Rated R (language including some sexual references). ![]()
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