I’m Thinking of Ending Things: A Most Unusual Film (Netflix)

This film is adapted from an acclaimed novel of the same name by Canadian author Iain Reid.  Perhaps, if I had read it, I might have a better understanding of the film... but I doubt it.  I don't think this film was meant to be understood, but rather experienced.  The plot, if one can even say that there is one, is that a young woman (Jessie Buckley) is in a car being driven by her boyfriend of about two months, Jake (Jesse Plemons), to visit his parents who live on a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.  The woman is ambivalent – seemingly about everything.  She is thinking about ending things, but is she referring to her brief relationship with Jesse, her life, her career, or even something else?  The woman is given various names in the film (Lucy and Yvonne, among others), perhaps reflecting different facets of herself.  At the start of their trip, it appears that she's a poet and she recites a poem she claims she just wrote, "Bonedog."  (This poem was actually written by Eva H.D.)  I loved the poem, which reflects on the loneliness, monotony, and futility of life, but I felt like stopping the movie and going to the medicine cabinet to look for a cyanide capsule right after it. They arrive at Jake's parents' house, where the woman meets Jake's mother (Toni Collette) and father (David Thewlis).  At first, they seem normal enough, but strange things happen.  While at the house, time is fluid as Jake's parents age and grow younger during the evening.  At dinner, the young  woman is now an artist and she shows Jake's parents some of her landscape paintings which she has on her iPhone.  Rather than focusing on a person or element in them, the landscape is meant to evoke an emotional response in the viewer – this is the way I chose to view the film.  It's a landscape or a dream, where plot and time take a "back seat."  My emotional response was anxiety, confusion, despair, and anger; however, these aren't my favorite feelings, so I didn't enjoy the film while I was watching it.  That being said, I am thinking so much about it now that I think it's a better movie than I originally thought.  (It's a must for college film students.  They can get stoned and spend hours talking about it.) The writer/director Charlie Kaufman has made some great films, including "Being John Malkovich" and "The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."  It's not light entertainment and concerns serious themes such as identity, love, connection, time, meaning, and death.  The cinematographer (Lukasz Zal) is very creative and adds to the chaotic nature of the film.  Jessie Buckley and the rest of the cast are terrific.  After you see it, as my dear friend Maxine said, "There is much to discuss." Right about now, "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" – or at least this review!