I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020) Movie • Page 11

Amazon Reed Morano Direct Charlie Kaufman Adapt Yōko Ogawa The Memory Police – Deadline

 

Very interesting premise, color me interested

 

finished reading Antkind today. it was often very funny and sometimes fascinating or even beautiful but much, much too long, especially considering how unlikable the narrator is.

 

Tell me more

 

I have come around to grudging appreciation. I meant to read more about it but I never did.

If the dinner and the characters are meant to be a figment of the janitor's imagination, why is the story framed as the family being uniquely bizarre while the girl is portrayed straight?

 

my interpretation of it was him holding residual grudges against his family over having to move home to take care of them, so he exaggerates their faults to nearly cartoonish levels

also was my thinking as to his random bursts of anger at them

 

Yeah he's imagining what it would be like if his gf met them and all the things he would be ashamed of them for.

 

The Actionboyz and Sean Clements have been raving about Antkind, so I’m gonna finally start it!

 

Finally saw this. Goodness, so many thoughts. I don't know if anyone will read all of this, I just have to get these thoughts down.

I've read a few reviews since and I somehow agree with both the ones that love it and the ones that hate it. It's almost like a Rorschach test in film form. There's nothing like it and I wouldn't blame anyone for thinking it's a masterpiece or thinking it's garbage. Although, that alone makes me lean more towards thinking it's a masterpiece.

The absurd dream logic kept calling Everything Everywhere All At Once to my mind, but they almost feel like antagonists. EEAAO, for all its quirks, was as likable and crowd-pleasing as any film I've seen recently, while this film almost delights in trolling you and doesn't seem very preoccupied with being liked. I actually think this is a more singular work of art for that reason, and maybe even the better film of the two, even though I'd be hard-pressed to hit replay on this the way I would with EEAAO.

I don't know if I can say I liked it. I've never checked the clock more times in a movie than I did with this film. It wasn't because I wasn't engrossed the whole time (I found nothing boring), but because it was really hard to endure. It's so disorienting and doesn't let up, like a bad dream, but every part of the dream is so immaculately put together I wanted to stick it out. I caught on to Kauffman's bag of tricks earlier than expected, right up to knowing the moment tinnitus was mentioned that something subtle was going to happen with the sound design (I took my left ear bud out to make sure I wasn't crazy). It was so unpredictable it became almost predictable, but the turns were still exciting and made me laugh like a crazy person a couple of times.

The craft... hoo boy. The cinematography was amazing. As mentioned, the sound design was insane. The dialogue, even despite the dream logic, felt coherent and brilliant. And most of all, the performances were immaculate across the board. I think Jessie Buckley's performance in particular is one of the best performances I've seen in years. Certainly one of my favorites and the main reason I want to revisit the film again sometime. It's what kept me completely engrossed. The Woman Under the Influence scene where her mannerisms and inflection just transform... So amazing. Also, got cold chills when she looked into the camera reciting the Bonedog poem (which was also an incredible piece).

I think key to the film really maintaining a unique sense of existential horror is that Buckley's character isn't impervious to the dream logic... She didn't keep you grounded in reality like, say, Daniel Kaluuya's character in Get Out. Whenever I thought she'd react to something strange, she didn't react as a normal person ought. This made me feel pretty trapped and ultimately forced me to resign myself to the nightmare logic of the world Kauffman created here, which is pretty brilliant (and obviously makes sense since the whole thing was taking place in the janitor's head). Also, when it comes to dreamlike horror, I thought this did a much better job than Mother!, which sort of crammed the dream logic down your throat in a way that didn't feel subtle or thoughtful at all.

The ending was tough to swallow, but I get it. I just recently read about what humans do when they die of cold, which made the janitor taking his clothes off extra terrifying, and then suddenly there's a talking pig and I'm like, "Welp, here we are then." But I understood what it was going for the more I thought about it and how it all tied together.

What I mainly got out of it was the mind can be so non-linear and, in a world without reason or purpose, we're basically subject to the chaos of our thoughts/fears/regrets all the way until death. It definitely made me cling to my faith a little tighter and propel me to spend time with people outside of my own mind. This and Bo Burnham's "Inside" would make for an uplifting existential Netflix double feature, that's for sure.

All in all, really fascinating, brilliant film. May never watch again, but probably will.

 

new Charlie Kauffman short film

 

I watched this again. Pretty much agree with what I wrote a while back except that I unequivocally love this after the second time.

 

Sounds good

 

OH FUCK YES

 

Oh wow love that logline