Hey guys, Pete here. Today i'm going to
talk about the ending
of the movie "i'm thinking of ending
things" which just premiered on Netflix.
at first glance this story is about a
young woman
going to meet her boyfriend Jake's
parents for the very first time.
the relationship is still new. they've
only been together for six or maybe
seven weeks,
and the title seems to come from her
thinking about ending it.
on the way to his family farm we get
hints that this
is anything but a simple story. when they
arrive
it's clear that things aren't what they
seem or at least
they're distorted in some way. by the
time his parents start appearing at
different
ages it seems pretty obvious that what
the couple is experiencing
isn't real. but if it's not that then
what is it? and why does her name
and job and what she's studying keep
changing?
and what's up with the shots of a
janitor doing his job at a high school?
is his scraping gum off of a chair
somehow relevant to their relationship?
before i get into answering those
questions i'll say that i think the
ending is somewhat ambiguous.
i know how the book of the same name
it's based on ends,
and while there are a lot of
similarities with the source material
the ending doesn't play out in the same
way on screen. as a warning
from this point on there will be
spoilers about the ending of Charlie
Kaufman's "i'm thinking of
ending things". if you haven't seen the
film this video won't be for you
and this is your chance to leave. the
title of the movie says it all.
the story is about thinking of ending
things. it's introduced to us in a way
that makes us think it's about the
relationship, there is another way to
interpret this saying though which is
i'm thinking of committing
suicide, and that's actually how the book
ends.
most of what we see in this movie
doesn't actually take place.
not in the real world anyway. it happens
inside the head of the janitor at the
high school.
he's the real Jake, and the younger
version who takes his new girlfriend to
meet his parents
is how he thinks of or remembers himself.
this might not seem clear the first time
you watch the movie but if you go back
to look
there will be several clues you can't
miss. for example we see the janitor in
the farmhouse before we know what it
looks like, and we see his thermos and
slippers both
there and at the school. of course the
big one that jumps out
is his work uniforms in the washing
machine after he
was so concerned about her not going
down there.
i'm thinking of ending things as the
story about existence,
the subjective nature of how we form our
identity,
and the way we interpret the memories
inside our own head.
the presentation is confusing and
disorienting and the movie is less
concerned
delivering a coherent definitive ending
than the book was.
if you came into it cold there's no
shame in feeling unsure of what you just
saw
happen. probably the biggest hurdle to
piecing things together is that the
narration is in the young woman's voice.
that is how Jessie Buckley's character
is credited,
and the fact that her name is constantly
changing along with everything
else about her leads us to understand
that what we're seeing
is a product of Jake the janitor's
imagination.
most of the conversations are of the
imagined variety,
but there still are some truths buried
in the thoughts that bounce around
in between the characters. one of those
is delivered in the school when the
young woman,
who i'll refer to as Lucy from here on
out,
talks to the janitor. she tells him, "we
never even talked is the truth. i'm not
even
sure i registered him. there were a lot
of people." as she continues to describe
the encounter we realize that this is
really what happened at the trivia night
from the story Lucy told over dinner.
Jake didn't slip her his number like she
told his parents.
instead he creeped her out by staring at
her and they never spoke to each other.
this explains the inconsistencies with
her name, with what she's wearing,
with what she does for a living, and the
shifts in the way they relate to each
other.
Lucy's voice is what we hear in the
narration but it comes from Jake's mind
where he's trying out different things.
he tries to imagine a version of the
girl he saw that night in the bar
and what might have happened if they
became a couple. how they would talk
about their interests, how they might
have made a relationship
work, how she might have won over his
family before they
died, and his underlying insecurity that
she might have just wanted to leave him
if she got
to know him anyway. when they look at the
picture on the wall
Lucy thinks it looks like her even
though Jake says it's him as a child.
they're both right because they are the
same person. we get a glimpse of where
his ideas for her
come from when she enters his childhood
bedroom.
the bookshelf is filled with books
related to the topics they discussed
and the different professions that she
had. this is
underlined when she picks up Eva H.D.'s
book of poetry
Rotten Perfect Mouth which is open to
the poem she recited as her own
in the car earlier. if you need more
evidence that this version of Lucy only
exists in Jake's mind, there's plenty.
in the car she says, "i feel like i was
that wind tonight.
blowing through jake's parents. seeing
them as they were,
seeing them as they will be, seeing them
after they're gone when only i'm left."
as they age, de-age, and age again we
begin to understand that Jake never left
home.
instead he watched them decline into
their old age,
and remembers it as he's now growing old
himself.
at this point in the story they're gone
and he lives on in the house alone.
so if jake and lucy never met then why
is he thinking about what things might
have been like if they were a couple?
there are several examples during their
conversations where jake slips in
anecdotes from his real life.
these mostly relate to the students and
how he sees
them, but there's an exchange just before
they arrive at Tulsi Town where we get
an
insight into his headspace and the
hopelessness that resides there.
"like feeling old. like your body is going.
you're hearing, your sight,
you can't see and you're invisible and
you've made so many wrong turns," he says.
"the lie of it all. that it's going to get
better. that it's never too late.
that god has a plan for you. that age is
just a number.
that it's always darkest before the dawn.
that every cloud has a fucking silver
lining.
that there's someone for everyone." we get
the idea that Jake has been trying to
construct a way that his life
could have turned out better inside his
head for some time.
he can't find a way to make it work as
even his made-up
idealized version of his girlfriend is
planning to end their relationship.
there's also the repeated phone calls
she receives throughout the evening.
the name of the caller changes to
whatever name she's being referred to at
that point in the story.
when she listens to the voicemail we
hear a man's voice say that there's
"only one question to resolve/" on the
screen it's never made clear what that
question is
but in the book we find out it's "what
are you waiting for?"
these are Jake the janitor's intrusive
thoughts of ending things
creeping into his imaginary road trip
with his girlfriend.
and yes, when you think about it that way
it is rather dark.
an aging man unsatisfied with the way
things turned out contemplating suicide.
but to his credit Charlie Kaufman does
present this in a less dark way than the
book does.
the janitor is confronted with the
reality of what the young woman he saw
at the trivia night remembered about him.
"he was a creeper you know?
i can't remember what he looks like. why
would i?
nothing happened. just one of thousands
of such non-interactions in my life. it's
like
asking me to describe a mosquito that
bit me 40 years ago."
after that she's reunited with the
younger version of jake
and we watch as two dancers dressed in
their same clothes step
in to take their place. in dance we watch
as the delusion of what might have been
plays out. they meet,
fall in love, and even get married before
a dancing janitor
enters the picture to try to take the
girlfriend away. there's a fight that
ends when the janitor stabs and kills
the dancer who represents the younger
jake
taking the girlfriend for himself. this
symbolizes the end of the idea that Jake
can dream up a way where his life turns
out to be something better.
he finishes up his shift and walks
outside to his car in the middle of a
blizzard.
it's not clear how it happens. suicide or
freezing to death, or suicide by freezing
to death, but we have to imagine he dies
after he gets there.
his walk down the hall naked with the
cartoon pig
feels like a confirmation that he's no
longer with us.
after that we see not the janitor, but an
aged up version of jesse plemons playing
an older jake.
in his theater makeup he receives an
award with aged up versions of lucy and
his parents in the crowd watching.
from the podium he tells Lucy, "you are
the reason i
am. you are all my reasons." which is a
line you might recognize
from the movie "A Beautiful Mind" the dvd
of which we saw
in his childhood bedroom sitting on top
of the books on the bookshelf.
so this seems like another example of
his fantasy crafting.
from there we depart from the ending of
the book and lean way harder
into the play Oklahoma! we see a version
of his room converted into a shack in
the style of the play.
he sings a song called "lonely room" which
is about the bad guy in the story
getting the girl he
wants. to be honest i'm not very familiar
with the play as i've never seen it, but
it appears that at one point the hero
visits the same villain and suggests
that he kill himself.
that seems pretty interesting to me as
someone who has no idea about the play
other than you know it's a famous play
that's been around for quite some time.
i wouldn't have expected that to be
there. in the book's ending none of the
oklahoma stuff is included. the janitor
just kills himself
and the book turns out to be based on
journals he wrote about his imaginary
life with Lucy that were found next to
his body.
i guess dream ballet and a musical
number are slightly more palatable but
in the end it's still pretty tragic.
as a person who admittedly spends too
much time in my own head i view it as
a cautionary tale and not completely a
downer.
i also like the angle of how we create
this image of ourselves based on how we
interact with the things that we like
and how we then project that onto others.
this is a particularly bleak
circumstance, Jake the janitor's life and
its ending,
but the existential questions it asks
are still
quite relatable. it strikes me as the
kind of movie people
either love or hate -  i don't see a lot of
people being indifferent about it.
i think in the end it's not as much a
puzzle to be
solved but rather a story that reveals
itself to have more layers to unearth
once you understand what happened.
i thought the performances were great
across the board but Jessie Buckley does
stand
out as she changes so much between each
scene.
the subtle costume changes really stand
out when you watch it again,
and the aspect ratio works to add to the
tension once you get used to it.
i really enjoyed it and with that i'll
bring this video to an
end. let me know in the comments what you
thought about the movie and any other
questions you might have about the
ending. please like this video if you
enjoyed it and subscribe
to my channel if you haven't already.
thanks for watching,
i'll talk to you soon.
