#imthinkingofendingthings

I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020)  

Directed by Charlie Kaufman 

Cinematography Łukasz Żal 

I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS (2020)

Director of Photography: Lukasz Zal

Well spooky season is over which means it’s time for my favorite season: AWARDS! I’m catching up on new releases and starting with a fairly spooky one: Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things. If you absolutely adore movies that completely gaslight you, the musical Oklahoma!, off-brand DQ blizzards IN a blizzard, actors from every season of Fargo in once place and of course: Toni Collette’s bewigged bangs, this movie is for you! I guess this review includes spoilers but even if you have already seen this movie, this may not spoil things for you?? Regardless: let’s discuss the wigs (and much more!)

Straight up: I love a good roadtrip movie and this one stars a couple played by Jesse Plemons and Jessie Buckley! Buckley-ed up: this is 2x the Jess(i)es! Also buckle up: this movie is absolutely not a roadtrip movie and defies all genres, reason, and narrative logic. We are first meant to believe that Jessie is meeting Jesse’s parents, but actually none of that is true and also I hope you like listening to poems recited in a car because that is basically the first hour of this movie. 

Finally, we make it to Jesse’s parents’ secluded farmhouse where we are first given a tour of barn atrocities and then have to watch a wet dog shake itself for a about three hours and wonder what is happening in the creepy basement before finally meeting: DAVID THEWLIS AND TONI COLLETTE! Whew! Does anyone remember simpler times only 3 years ago when we were living in a total David Thewlinnaisance due to his involvement in both Wonder Woman and Fargo season 3? Well hold on to your old man wigs because we are in a Second Wave Thewlinnaisance!!!! Also between Thewlis, Buckley, and Plemons, Fargos season 2-4 are completely represented here like some sort of Fargo: End Game which honestly makes a lot of sense in the context of this movie (I THINK). Toni Collette: you need to be in Fargo season 5 now.

So let’s talk about Toni Collette’s wigs, as they are the main wigs in this movie. As Jesse’s off-kilter mom, these wigs are very perfect farmhouse non-chic. We first see her in this banged shag and it is pretty good! It is also very good at helping me understand just what the hell is going on in this movie because moments later...

Toni has no bangs!! This bang shift was the first substantial clue for me in realizing that the full time-space continuum was off in this movie (also this movie makes its own Robert Zemekis joke because it knows it is fully Back to the Futuring some real timetravel nonsense as well!)  Anyway, this wig is also good! Straggly and terrible, but good for the purpose it serves: to tell us that nothing is as it seems. Jessie’s non-wigged hair also shifts, as does her clothing, career, and name, as does Thewlis’s wig until we realize that this movie is totally gaslighting the hell out of us. 

Time becomes a flat circle and past and present all become one. Toni is young again, and so is this ‘50s ‘do! Ok? It is ok! Before you can say Leave It To Beaver, Toni is old again, about to die....and maybe so are we? How long is this movie? Also this is not even the scariest Toni has been at a parental dinner if you have seen Hereditary. 

It should be noted that throughout this gaslit nightmare of a parental dinner, we get flashes of a random high school janitor who ends up being the key to all of this. As does the musical Oklahoma! which he sees being rehearsed time and time again.

Later, when the Jess(i)es finally leave the terrible, time-shifting parental dinner full of scary laundry basements and shifting wigs, they drive some more and recite Pauline Kael’s dissertations on A Woman Under the Influence, and find themselves at an off-brand Dairy Queen to get some off-brand blizzards in the middle of a blizzard that the girls who work there...were also in that high school production of Oklahoma! and are treating Jesse like he’s a weird janitor....I think we’re getting to the point of all this.

But first: how well do you know the musical Oklahoma??? I played Gertie in a community theater production in 1999 so allow me to school you. It is the first true American musical and is essentially all about a girl named Laurie trying to decide who to take to a dance. Yes, really. Her choices are cowboy Curly and farmhand weirdo Jud. Curly tries to help Laurie decide by going to Jud’s weird shack and trying to convince him through song to “end things” because only through suicide will anyone like him (yes this is an actual song called “Poor Jud is Dead”). And though Laurie’s choice seems obvious (?) she first has to take some smelling salts and think on it, which leads to the psychedelic narrative convention of the dream ballet - in which other actors play Curly, Jud, and Laurie and dance it OUT. Also the dream ballet (and the musical) end in murder and this musical is dark as hell. OK? OK. 

Back to this movie, Jessie and Jesse make their way back to the high school where the janitor works, make out in a car, and then Jesse gets weirded out that the janitor is watching them and decides to give him “a piece of his mind”....he gives him much more in that we soon discover that the Jess(i)es have all been part of the janitors mind this entire time and this whole goddamned movie is an elaborate dream ballet...that is ending with some dancers playing the Jess(i)es in an actual dream ballet. That ends in murder. Also Jessie’s character is a messed up version of Laurie (from Oklahoma!) but never actually Laurie. Her name shifts from Lucy, Louise, Louisa, Lucia....never quite the Laurie this janitor Jud wanted her to be. 

But we’re not actually done yet!! The old janitor leaves the school, trips the hell out in his truck and reenters the school naked and with off-brand DQ and dead pig animation (yes, really). Then Jesse in old wig/makeup become the old janitor in a Nobel Prize award ceremony on the set of Oklahoma! the musical with Toni in Aunt Eller drag and most of the audience (including Thewlis and Buckley) in the kind of old age makeup they do in high school productions where you just draw a bunch of lines on your face. Jesse delivers the Nobel acceptance speech from A Beautiful Mind and then goes into the set for Jud’s shack and sings Jud’s (often cut) song from Oklahoma!, “A Lonely Room”...and scene! Now aren’t you glad I told you about Oklahoma!???? 

Ultimately, this is the movie for the theater nerd who demanded that Jud hisself got his own damn dream ballet and also imagines Jud to be a modern-day janitor who thinks he’s smart and cultured and deserves a cool girlfriend and dabbles in landscape painting. But wig-wise...

VERDICT: WURQS!

It was an all too familiar experience for me.

Nearly six hours of manically attempting to navigate through this wasteland. The phosphorous smelling, black speckled white fog was layered so thick resulting in my inability to see past my nose and leaving each and every step to feel inconsequential.

“There’s a way you don’t have to worry about any of this. It’s not like you haven’t thought about it before. It would be so easy”

The voice whispered from amongst the fog again. It’d been a while since I’d heard her siren call, but I remembered it all too well. I’m in no mood to entertain it now. I decide better to keep hoping to find a way out as opposed to resolving myself to die in this spot. How far have I traveled? Surely it’s been far, but how could I possibly tell? For all I know I’ve been walking in circles this entire time. The thought perishes at the sight of yet another dimly lit cavern.

Another rabbit hole no doubt. With an exasperated step out of the mist to attempt to see inside but it’s just as illuminating as the fog. Annoyed and almost certain of where this will lead, I hold my right hand out to reach for a wall and begin my trek down the rabbit hole. Mother always said there was a chance that traveling through these could provide a chance for escape, it’s just a matter of finding the right one. I wonder if she knew just how many there were.

I cautiously shuffled through unsure of what to expect this time. Remaining close to whatever side of the cave I’m on, my hand continues to brush against the wall feeling nothing more than the dusty texture leading me on a straight path. Strange. I reach my left hand out but am unable to feel anything. Normally these caves would feel narrow and meandering but this one seems to be a straight shot. I press on, dragging my feet allowing my hand to be the guide eventually feeling what appears to be a corner. I reach my hand forward to feel a wall in front of me. I follow that wall for about six steps only to feel another one. A dead end.

“What is the point?” I wonder aloud

Feeling dismayed by my waste of time I begin to turn around and find my way back to the beginning only to at once feel gravity grab my ankles and drag my entire body down. I quickly begin sliding down a slanted, narrow, winding path bumping back and forth between walls yelling. Eventually coming upon a light and being flung forward and tumbling to a halt. Face on the ground, and sprawled out against the hard floor.

I begin trying to push myself up only to be greeted by an all too familiar sign that has been the crux of my harrowing journey. The reason for my being lost for hours. I’ve once again been brought back to the same starting point. The blue, green, red, and yellow culprit all my struggles and confusion and dismay. In a fury I begin to scream.

“I hate you Google!”

I angrily close out of the browser and lean back in my chair. It would’ve been easier to just listen to the voice. At once I push the thought out of my head. We’re not returning to that. We just have to find a way to either resolve the issue or just find ways to cope. I hadn’t had an episode like that in a while, and I don’t know why today was the day I decided to have a crisis. It had been a great weekend. I got to spend time with friends I hadn’t seen in a while and I really thought I’d put the issue behind me once and for all. What a wonderful seventy-two hours it had been. Believing that the one thing I felt had held me back for five years had finally been resolved. For once, I’d almost felt happy.

How had I even gotten here?

I reopened the browser and scrolled through my internet search history.

Oh yeah. Churches in NYC.

To think this was all supposed to be hopeful. After nearly three years, I was ready to give it a chance again, and instead felt closer to the state of mind that had originally been the reason for my departure than I had in quite sometime.

I think it’s time we gave it another try.

I opened a notepad up on the desktop and began typing.

I’ve Thought Of Ending It (But I’m Still Here) A Queer Christian navigating the concrete jungle, faith and the absurdity of being alive

This was something I’d wanted to do for a while, but had always been too afraid to actually follow through with it. I wasn’t sure if it was something even worth going through with, but today I need an outlet. Even if no one reads it, I like to pretend that someone will.

‘I hope to have this be the only time I’m required to address in a very direct and explicit way to the audience what I hope to accomplish; by stating directly the intent of this specific piece of text.’

A small chuckle escapes my lips. How dreadfully formal of me.

‘Let us begin anew. Hello Dear Reader. You don’t know me, and I will almost certainly never know you, and it is likely for both of our best interests we keep it that way. I will be frank, in fact, let’s say that’s my name: Frank. If you couldn’t tell by the title of this blog. I’ve thought about ending it. All. Just getting it over with. Calling it quits.’

My hands stop. Perhaps this is a bit too casual.

‘I’m a Christian who has for five years now struggled with the fact that I am predominantly attracted to men in what feels like the worst time to have both of those attributes. Christians say I’m going to hell, and Gay people can’t understand why I choose to remain in the faith. I constantly feel alone in this struggle, and in short… I’ve thought of ending it.’

It felt weird saying that in a truthful context. It wasn’t the first time I’d said it out in the open. Like so many of my peers I say “I’m going to kill myself” more often than what one would probably care to admit. However, most of the time it is more joke than truth despite the tiny amount of truth that may be found beneath the surface.

‘I want to define what this blog is not intended to be. It is not intended to be a cry for help. That’s why I plan to stay anonymous. It’s also not intended to be an actual follow through of a plan. I also hope for it to not be a glamorization of depression or suicide. Nor do I want it to be used in the modern culture war of bigotry towards LGBTQ+ people. I don’t even know where I stand on the topic of how I feel about it. Truthfully, I want an artistic space to just freely explore the process of the highs and lows of being in this paradoxical state of existence I’m in. An autobiographical account of loving and hating myself. A dark comedy of errors. An absurdist work. And hopefully something to offer me and others hope. Because I have to assume there are others like me. Who wrestle with what this means for them, and who just want a reason to laugh and cry about how absolutely insane this existence is.’

I read everything once over.

‘And free Palestine”

Perfect. I go and copy the word document. I open the browser on my desktop once again, and go to my blog. It looks the same as it did 5 years ago. Nothing but the title. I create my first post and publish it. I lean back in my desk chair and sigh. I open my email to see if anyone responded. I then grab my phone to check my instagram messages. Nothing.