“Charlie Kaufman makes movies about death and the ways we try (and usually fail) to make our own meaning. While his screenplay for I’m Thinking of Ending Things is largely faithful, story-wise, to Ian Reid’s book, it’s also a perfect vehicle for his preoccupation with how we use art and pop culture to try to give our own lives context. Adaptation and Synecdoche, New York are about artists struggling to realize their (ultimately unfinished) vision, but I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a sadder variation on this theme. What starts as a story about a woman going to meet her boyfriend’s parents gradually reveals itself to be about a protagonist who never became the person they hoped to be, who can now only understand their own life through the language of songs from old musicals, overwrought movie monologues and other pop cultural ephemera that has lodged in their brain. As the character played by Jessie Buckley (quoting Wilde) puts it, ‘Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.’
“As downbeat a subject as this is for a movie, I find that Kaufman – like Bradbury, or Vonnegut – hits a bittersweet spot for me. Though I don't have a lot in common with Buckley's or Jesse Plemons' characters, seeing these anxieties and morbid ruminations realized is paradoxically comforting, even if only because it means I’m a little less alone. After this one, I’m not sure Kaufman would want me to feel this way; oh well. And though the movie’s bleak, there’s also joy in its creation. There’s the playfulness of Kaufman’s writing (where a character can suddenly transform into Pauline Kael), how much the cast is clearly enjoying the freedom the material allows (Buckley, in particular, is a revelation and, along with Delroy Lindo, one of my favorite performances this year), and the possibility that, though the movie’s world is dark, a ballet could and will happen. That the movie has been divisive makes it feel more like it belongs to me, especially in a year where it resonated in ways Kaufman couldn’t have anticipated, when it often feels like we’re stuck in a car in the middle of nowhere, en route to an unknown, possibly sinister destination.”
Andrew Bemis is an actor and filmmaker. His most recent movie, Most Likely, premiered at the Boston LGBTQ film festival (more info at bang-films.com). He lives in New Hampshire with his family.
No comments:
Post a Comment