I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020)

On my list for quite a while, this story of a woman meeting her new boyfriend's parents wasn't worth the wait. Director/writer Charlie Kaufman's work can be brilliant but sometimes the quirkiness is too much. Despite my fondness for the cast (Jessie Buckley, Jesse Plemons, Toni Collette, David Thewlis–and Jack correctly identified Oliver Platt's voice in one scene), I thought of ending (watching it) several times.

The main character has no name, or she has several names. She and other characters change wardrobe, hair, and backstories from time to time. Oh yeah, and time does not go in a straight line. That's quintessential quirky Kaufman. And, for some reason, I was convinced before watching it that "ending things" meant suicide. It's just a breakup, and not even that important to the plot, such as it is.

Kaufman based his script on the 2016 award-winning novel by Iain Reid. Maybe if I had read the book I might have been more impressed.

The music by Jay Wadley is good, though, and you can hear a track on his soundcloud site.

The Art Directors Guild gave production designer Molly Hughes a well-deserved nomination but she and her team didn't win. There were plenty of other nominations in many categories.

Plemons was last blogged for Judas and the Black Messiah, Collette for Knives Out, Thewlis and Kaufman for Anomalisa, and Wadley for I Carry You with Me. After I wrote about Buckley for Wild Rose she played the wildly eccentric nurse in the last season of Fargo (the one with Chris Rock).

Rotten Tomatoes' critics don't want it to end, averaging 82%, while its audiences are more in line with Jack and me at 48.

We watched it on Netflix April 20. My regular readers know I dislike panning movies, so this and another got pushed to the bottom of the list.