Comments on: I’m Thinking of Ending Things Discussed Explained

By: Todd

Todd — Thu, 12 Nov 2020 08:15:23 +0000

Hmm. I seem to have a much darker take on this amazing film. I think there are a lot of truths in the shows within the shows.

I took the song about the farm boy looking down on the kids looking down on him literally as well as his singing that he will take their woman and make them his.

I also saw truth being shown to us with the dance scene in the gym where a janitor-dancer knifes a guy that is trying to stop him from taking his wife.

And ultimately I think the most important truth of the film is when the ‘father’ says he looks forward to the point that his memory fails him enough that he can’t remember that he can’t remember…which is I think the point Jake is at when he leaves messages to himself that there is only one question left to answer. (Is it time to end things?)

In his dementia he is often lost to place and time and his memories are getting swirled around with movies he’s watching and magazines and books he’s reading. For example the characters we see throughout the movie are just 2 random people he saw outside at the beginning of the film being used as placeholders for how he and his ‘girlfriend’ looked because how can you be expected to remember somebody’s name or face from so long ago.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 18:44:39 +0000

I also was just thinking about his parents in the movie. It seems to me like he was very embarrassed of them. When he’s telling “young woman” still as Lucy in the drive to the farm that his mother is not well. And then they get to the house and his parents seem kind of idiotic and they can’t quite keep up with the conversation such as his mother making the mistake of calling Trivial Pursuit “genius” instead of “genus.” Then there was the dirty feet scene-yuck. So for me it just adds to his insecurities as he was growing up. Then we see his room and it’s jam packed with media so he’s mixing his regrets from life with films he’s seen such as the speech toward the end from “A Beautiful Mind.” And then there’s the reality scene from the school where he’s eating his dinner watching some kind of cheesy romance on TV so he’s obviously spent a lot of time alone fantasizing about what his life could have been like and then mixing it with television and musicals he enjoys. There’s an interview with Kaufman with major spoilers on Indie Wire you should check out. Not that you really missed anything but he sort of clarifies his chain of thought while making this film and how he chooses to only do adaptations if he can run with it and add his own touches.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 03:04:11 +0000

It sounds like at the very end that the truck is turned on or am I hearing things? It’s at the very end of the credits which I don’t usually sit for but since it was still focused on the truck I let it run. Right after you hear the truck sound, the film ends. Anyway, I literally just finished watching this and while I didn’t read the book, I took the fact that “Young Woman” as she was called with the subtitles on, is an amalgamation of all the women he’s encountered in his life or rather creeped out by not having the courage ever to speak to any of them since her name and occupation kept changing. I felt like the movie was a running scene from his head. Definitely the kind of film I’d expect from Kaufman. I loved it.

By: Nancy Mescon

Nancy Mescon — Mon, 07 Sep 2020 17:33:55 +0000

Whoa! The minute, rather the second this film ended I was hoping you had reviewed it! What I didn’t understand was at the end, janitor Jake is in his truck. Then takes his clothes off and follows the pig into the school. But at the end they focus on his car. Apparently during the credits, there are some sound effects! Did you catch that? So janitor Jake to me is present day. He is reminiscing about his life. The car trip, going to parents, etc. He was at the school all the time(!?) So we saw all aspects of his life. But, why the car there at the end. Wouldn’t it be his truck? Please your thoughts are important to me.

By: Mir

Mir — Mon, 07 Sep 2020 10:21:28 +0000

In reply to Taylor Holmes. Agree! As difficult as it is to grasp everything in it and make sense of every detail (like the parents and how Jake behaves around them) it's definitely one of the most interesting movies I've seen recently.

By: Taylor Holmes

Taylor Holmes — Mon, 07 Sep 2020 05:52:54 +0000

In reply to Mir.

Here are some random thoughts:

I don’t think the woman, as we saw her, existed. There is a root of her that existed, but it wasn’t who we interacted with. If you know what I mean.

I think Jake was traumatized as a child, but nothing specific. I think it was just him being a thoughtful individual that ultimately caused him to withdraw into a world of make believe.

The only thing that I don’t really grok, are his parents. Does he come home with “women” occasionally, and his parents just play along? Or actually, a better theory is that he just makes up the dialog that he thinks they would say to her. (Don’t touch me maaaaaaaa! gah! Sort of fake conversation he would like to have happen.

In the book, there is a “sibling” but it turns out that kid was mythical, and it was just another alternate personality side of Jake that he was telling us about. The movie collapses him down to just one child. No sibling.

Such a great movie.

By: Mir

Mir — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 22:01:56 +0000

Taylor, TAYLOR! Don’t do this to me. Come back here and explain this freaking movie hahah
So I just finished watching it and I sprinted here because who else would explain this nutjob (and I say this as the highest of compliments). I didn’t read the book so bear with me- I had a million, no a TRILLION hypothesis through the movie about what the hell was going on. I got that the janitor was literally Jake but I had also a million things going on in my mind like- oh are the girl and Jake the same person? Are their parents maybe? Are they siblings? Is this all in one of their heads? Did Jake do something bad to her and he dissociated himself from his own self and created this entire other reality in which she was his girlfriend? GOD. A Trillion, I’m telling you. Of course the ending didn’t really explain any of it and I will stop talking now and wait for you to finish reviewing it to discuss some more xD Anyway I had fun (a weird, eeire, phylosophical kind of fun) with this one.