Thanks for watching! This video was a BEAST to put together, I would love your thoughts below! TIME CODES: Intro - 0:00 Abstract Art - 0:24 Main Premise - 1:37 Oklahoma - 2:15 Who is the Janitor - 2:47 The Car Ride - 5:30 I’m Thinking of Ending Things - 6:48 His Parents House - 9:17 The Basement - 13:05 Dairy Queen - 13:54 The High School - 14:27 The Dance - 15:21 The Finale - 16:23
I didn't read the book, but from the first few minutes I said "it's a memory", because it looked like it. And it's Charlie Kaufman. I mean, come on, the guy is writing about memories, imagination and what separates them from reality his whole life. It was clear that it was the janitor's since we've seen him several times unrelated to the rest of the story. At some point I was wondering if he was a serial killer remembering his victims because there were several clues throughout the movie, like the girl at the counter warning her. And the price at the end was not just any prize, it was the Nobel prize. The ultimate fantasy. I really liked it, even if it was a bit depressing after all. Oh, and I liked how he talked about that author (don't remember his name, sorry) that did a lot of great work but all people remember is that he committed suicide. Probably reflecting about himself
Also not only did her outfits change throughout the movie, but there was one point where she had a different accent and one point where it was a completely different actress in the car. I feel like he also modeled her physical appearance after the Tulsy Town character.
I think the dance could actually be incredibly sad. It could be a form of self hatred. Like, there’s an idealised version- what Jake wishes would’ve happened, but then the janitor- the real Jake- ruins it all. He’s selfish, he grabs her, he’s creepy and he destroys what could’ve been. Possible it’s a type of self sabotage showed on screen. It’s actually quite sad, because it’s layered in self loathing but also self realisation. He's realised that he is a destructive force in his own life. He’s the one that’s ruined it all. This could link to the discussion about blaming your mum or parents for your flaws, which they dismiss as bullshit. He’s realised he’s the thing that’s ruined his own life.
Agreed, I feel the dance scene was very poetically executed in a way that forms the foundations of self hatred. It's like looking at yourself through a single pane of glass, and not having the ability to do or think of anything except cause Chaos to satisfy your own emotions. It's a very sad feeling of not being able to be with someone you really love and watching someone else take your place, but it's a tragedy if the other person is you.
I always envisioned this movie as saying that Jake was his worst critic and his biggest enemy. All of his memories are of his parents downplaying his efforts, and misunderstanding his actual skills and talents. Even the idealized woman that he loves ends up turning on him and falling back into his old ways of thinking.
Nahhh. He had a bad childhood with unstable parents (controlling mother, father won't even look him in the eyes) and was a social outcast, grew up to have no social skills, never had a girlfriend in his life (an incel). 20 years ago, in his 50s, he fell in love with a younger dance teacher at his workplace but she was already taken and too young for him. Her beauty reminded him of the Ice Cream Lady character from the ad (ending scene), the only part of his childhood that he enjoyed. With zero social skills, he tried to approach her but she refused and she already had a partner (the type of guy he always wished he could become). Enraged, he murders her partner out of jealousy to have her for himself in order to take his place (which is irrational and purely done under emotions). In reality, he ends up killing both, that's the secret hunting him. The beautiful dance teacher he murdered is similar to the one he built up in his mind to cope with her death (same hair color, same clothes) but her face is different. Indeed, His own version of her , with the new face, is actually the one he wished she could be: a woman interested in him for no particular reasons. He ends up wearing the man's clothes (symbolics of trying to be like that perfect guy) but the style don't fit him either, he looks ''fake'', unworthy (less in shape, less handsome), he still carries those personal issues and ''imperfections'' that make him socially awkward. He decides to let go (commit suicide) by letting hypothermia take him in his pickup truck. One sign of hypothermia is that the individual suddenly feels hot and starts removing his clothes (it is fake and it's actually the brain tricking you before you die). They found many bodies of people who died of hypothermia practically naked, especially on mount everest. The movie is a mix of his souvenirs, timelines, what he sees during his boring day, what he thinks people think of him, regrets and the ''love of his life'' that never was and that he murdered with his own hands. He's just a filthy pig with rotten wounds that needs to be put down ( his own vision of himself). He takes his Nobel Prize for his life work as in a ''it was boring, i'm a pig and I'm bad but it was the Real me, see you all those who neglected me, hated me, mocked me or just ignored me!''. The End.
Because jakes the pig just like how the father only fed the pig and didn't pay it any attention only to realize too late that it was being eaten alive by maggots
I don't think so, I'm more convinced that the whole movie is set on a "regular" day of Jake as a janitor but thinking of commiting suicide. We see him looking through his window after breakfast, mopping the floors, having his lunch but as that happens he's fantasizing about "Lucy/Louisa/Ames..." which ultimately is his subconscious. At night he returns to the school to keep cleaning while fantasizing and that's where he makes the desicion of killing himself in the truck.
I don’t know if people know this or not but the reason Jake was taking his clothes off was because he was in the final stages of hypothermia, and when that happens you feel irrationally hot and to combat that people take their clothes off as they literally lost rationality
but, at the end when credit rolls, we can hear the sound of engine clunking. i don't know anything about blizzard or snow weather because i live in a tropical country. can people escape or turn on their car again after trapped inside it (just like in the scene)?
@@denissetiawan3645 From what I understood, he wasnt trapped inside the car, he wanted to be inside until he dies, basically committing suicide by hypothermia, he turned of the car and left the keys on the seat next to him and let the cold kill him If you recall, when Jake left "Lucy" in the car and went inside the school, she kept talking to herself and said " How long does it take to get hypothermia?" "Maybe it's not a bad way to go if i have to go" so i guess he wasnt trapped, he let it happen to end his life
I feel like she's a memory of a girl he met briefly 40 years ago and because his memory is sketchy, her clothing and name keeps changing. Also, she starts off in bright colours and then her clothes are muted.
she kept going between boyfriend and girlfriend, and how if having a boyfriend the other boys would stay away... But she has a girlfriends, so Jake must have those thoughts... taking advantage of her and making her the memory which sticks out the most... i dunno, im confused haha
The scene that made me realize that it was from the janitors imagination was from a part in the car ride back when the “young woman” was talking with a different accent and then in the middle of the scene the actress changes to the girl from the tv show the janitor was watching and quickly changed back to the main actress, I love how it was so subtle but gave so many big clues at the same time
Strawberryfeildsforever the accent gave me a hint but there is a quick cut when it’s a different actress, playing the “young lady” and it’s the actress from the tv show the janitor was watching that’s what gave it away for me
The past memories concept really hits when you do notice the labels of his DVD collection in his room "Abandoned Friendships" "Unforgettable Mishaps" "Futile Efforts At Success" "Lasting Memories of Sorrow" He even directly references David Foster Wallace in the car ride home as if he's pulling it from a collection
I recall that when Synecdoche, New York, came out, Kaufman said that he was asked to write a horror movie. So he thought to himself, "What's the scariest thing I can think of?" His answer was: to reach the end of your life and realize that you've wasted it all. I think that's why "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" has some elements of surreal horror. To Kaufman, the regret of a wasted life is truly horrific. I also noticed that Jesse Plemons bares some resemblance to Philip Seymour Hoffman in appearance and demeanor. That introverted awkwardness. Kind of like Kaufman himself, if you've ever seen him.
Just a small detail worth pointing out: when Jake and the Woman are driving towards the farm, they pass by a bill-board of a pig. The woman looks at the bill board and seems to hallucinate the pig saying "Come, join me." Later, Jake explains that a pig had died on his farm and had become infested with maggots. Essentially, the pig was Jakes' subconcious telling him to freeze to death. Pretty creepy stuff. Overall, this movie was really good but extremely depressing.
I do think he ended things. You can tell by the last scene with his truck covered in snow, him taking his clothes off because of hypothermia... Really sad.
I love the fact that Charlie Kaufman promotes the audience to come up with their own interpretations for the film. That way no one has to feel condescended for having their own opinion.
@@ashutoshsingh221 It's funny because it is almost like people don't want to "think" when it comes to movies. The movies that tend to do well are unfortunately ones that spoonfeed you its plot.
@@bossnass9264 dude, sorry. I inherently love this book!!! I was scared to watch it. I didn't want it to do injustice to this work. I hate humans that leave negative comments on my freaking opinions & I just realized that I just did it. Sorry for being such a dumbest & for u bein nice abt it!
One line I keep thinking about and I’m trying to tie in somehow - “I’m sorry about the smell” jake says that about Jimmy, then the girl at the restaurant says it to the Young Woman
I didn’t understand that at first either but I think it’s bc The janitor spends the entire time mopping the floors as in that’s the actual smell. And “ varnish” the girl at the ice cream shop warned her about.
The restaurant girl strongly implies that the smell is a dead body and the last we see of janitor Jake is him in the final stages of hypothermia as he follows the pig into the school, so I’m pretty sure that’s it. Though if all the characters other than Jake are just figments of his imagination, I’m not sure why he’d be smelling his own dead body. Spooky.
this movie made me feel like me myself is getting insane, i had really crazy dreams after that film and even my sleep paralysis showed up again, havent had sleep paralysis for like 4, 5 years before that. crazy flick!
Tell me about it. I watched it earlier today. now it’s 2:30 in the morning and I can’t sleep or turn off the lights because psychological films scares and messes me up more than actual horror films.
Edit : Nice catch on the connection to A Beautiful Mind. My take : Jake is an unreliable narrator due to early stage demetia which runs in his family. He knows he won't be able to take care of himself much longer and decides to commit suicide. The movie is a mixture of memories, regrets and delusions that takes place in his mind while dying of hypothermia. The wide shot of his truck in the parking lot covered in snow is the only "real" image in the film.
I really have found the reviews and other peoples interpretations of this film so valuable. But what I originally got from this film before analyzing it more deeply was a really sharp commentary about how time can slip away from us. It really hit me when Lucy's character was talking about how all the sudden one unenthusiastic "yes" leads you down a whole road of "yeses" until you have a moment where you see life more clearly and wonder how you even ended up down that path. That can happen with relationships, career, etc. Going down a prescribed path with no real say in the matter. Absolutely heartbreaking.
What about all the undertones of rape? Her getting mad about the Christmas song? Her talking about wishing her bf was with her at the bar? Her not being able to describe Jake? The dance with Jack kidnapping her and kills her bf?
Don't forget the fact they mentioned homosexuality a couple of times. At one time i thought about Jake being homosexual and getting a girlfriend just to cover it. Idk
Or the peep hole we see a few times, or him watching someone from an apartment window in the beginning. I'm truly inclined to believe that he may have killed someone, or something to that effect. My "throw spaghetti at the wall" theory, is that at the very least the young woman and young Jake, were real people, that the mentally ill janitor stalked, imagining their life as his own, until he finally tried to take her, the real boyfriend/husband tries to intervine, is stabbed in the fight, and she escapes, but dies in the cold and he is haunted by both of them, trying to fuse his own life and their lives together until finally he can't, has a powerful moment of clarity when encountering her in the end and decides to end his life. But that's kind of a weird interpretation probably.
@@NyxSunspot that's really interesting, it's possible. I love how everyone is getting different interpretations. I think this movie will be divisive but will gain a huge cult following
@@NyxSunspot Exactly my thoughts. That's why I believe he was uninterested in the lamb being left dead frozen in the snow. It was symbolic to him abandoning her lifeless body after he killed her. I felt like he was haunted by her memory and he wanted to humanize himself by showing his family life. Sn: he also had no respect for women because every time his mom tried to show him affection he pushed her away until she was on her death bed.
Through the credits roll, you can hear the engine of the car roaring, as if Jake is struggling to start the engine because of the snow. The movie made my mind go brrr but yeah its brilliant. (Kinda regret watching it at 2am though.)
@@elinsamuelsson2424 Maybe. But the car covered in snow is obviously the younger Jake's car. Older Jake's car is not shown so my first thought was, that old Jake undressed and entered the school again and in the morning he tries to start up his truck.
@@zakkwyldesdmf13 -In the book it's made very clear that he did in fact kill himself as you get the reactions of the people who found his body, only in the book he's found in the janitors closet in the school as he stabbed himself in the neck with a coat hanger, & they talk about finding what he wrote as he was bleeding out.
A cool thing about Oklahoma that sort of explains the ballet sequence. The first act of Oklahoma! ends in an iconic sequence referred to as a "dream ballet". Essentially, the main female character Laurey drinks laudanum and starts tripping balls. The orchestra erupts into a lush instrumental sequence while the ensemble begins dancing. Laurey and her love interest, Curly, are replaced with two featured dancers (and usually the staging has the dancers appear behind or next to them, similar to the scene in the movie). A fantastic romantic dance takes place that acts as a "what if I go with him?" scenario, but then the trip turns bad and she hallucinates the antagonist, Jud, killing him, solidifying that the man she was dancing with is the one for her, and setting up the conflict of the next act. In the film, the dream ballet is instead a "what if I had asked for her number?" scenario. He imagines marrying this woman and living happily ever after with her, before the janitor kills that version of him. It's a darker take on the dream ballet idea; instead of dreaming about the future and the paths one could take, he dreams about the path he couldn't take, for whatever reason, which led him to be the lonely man; the antagonist in his own life. Also interesting is the fact that in the play, Jud is the antagonist only because he's lonely and desperate for a connection with Laurey. At one point, Curly even tries to talk Jud into suicide, at a point where he hasn't really done anything wrong. When Curly leaves, Jud instead sings the song "Lonely Room", determined to make Laurey his bride. This is the song that Jake sings, while sitting in the smokehouse set where Jud lives. Also, slightly less related, and also not very subtle, but whether or not the film actually takes place in Oklahoma, Tulsey Town is a nickname for Tulsa, the city in Oklahoma.
Damn, good insight that I never would have caught otherwise due to my lack of theater knowledge. I loved this film, even though I didn't completely understand it until watching some yt videos to get some context from the novel and such... Now I like it even more.
Yes! And during “lonely room” the plot is basically bottle fed to the audience but instead of getting a girl, jake ends things. Jake basically day dreams all day about ending his life and uses an imaginary person to talk to about his personal life and lessons and to get closure about his failed attempts at love (or lack of attempts) before finally deciding (as Jud does in the climax of his song) to finally stop dreaming resulting in him ending his life.
I saw things pretty similarly, but with an additional thought. Love is sometimes thought of as a yin/yang situation, where you find someone who compliments you through differences. There is a well known confusion in romance where one might be unsure if they are in love with another or if they just want to be them, and I find that the yin/yang perception of love makes it possible for the co-existence of those states (i.e. being in love with someone and wanting to be them aren't mutually exclusive). I propose that his fantasy love interest represents also all of the things he wanted to be, hence his deep knowledge of poetry and literature and the paintings in his basement. One thing that stuck out to me frequently during the farm portion of the film was the fact that they were both physicists but also artists. These two studies are contemporaneously thought of as being distinct (B.A. vs B.S. as opposed to a robust liberal arts degree). Well, in my reading, Jeff was destined to become an artist but his overbearing nonartistic parents forced him into science, where he did ok but was in no way exceptional or noteworthy. His fantasy girlfriend is brilliant in both fields. Where he floundered, she succeeded. Where he consumed art, she created. She is everything he wished he could be for himself and for others, and perhaps he also might have wished to be a tad bit less sensitive, dependent, and thought of as a creep. He may have even thought being a girl would have been easier... especially a pretty girl. I do think it's interesting that in the high school scene, his pursuit of this girl-- his ideal self-- ends with the janitor killing him and taking her away. As you mentioned in your video, his janitorial job kind of destroyed his artistic ambitions, which were the only thing he had left after failing the scholastic ambitions his parents placed on him. Working full time can kill anyone's artistic ambitions. You get tired. As any artist laboring under capitalism. Anyway thanks for the awesome video, I hope you like my comment.
I really enjoyed the movie. I thought it was mostly playing with movie storytelling, and not even trying much to "make sense". However, this analysis is great and logical. Now I feel that I need to watch the movie a second time keeping this interpretation in mind.
I'm particularly curious about the "varnish" smell in the ice cream shop. The brunette worker states that she "can stay here" and that she doesn't have to keep moving forward with time. Saying it isn't really a varnish smell, but doesn't seem to want Jake to hear. Could this have something to do with his method of suicide? That's the part I'm having trouble grasping. Or is the ice cream vendor suggesting suicide saying that she doesn't have to keep moving forward with time? What is the significance of the varnish detail, then?
John Robinson varnish is used to polish tile floors, and I think that the girl is not just something he wanted but a part of himself, the real him, what he wished he was, a painter, physicist, all kinds of things that would require talent that he couldn’t live up to (reference to his mother) I think in a way the girl was speaking to jake through Lucy, saying you don’t have to hurt yourself, nothing has to change, you can live in this world in your mind, but the real jake new that it was a fantasy, that he just couldn’t do it
@@justsomestuff4971 I actually had watched that again since I posted and came to a similar conclusion with the young girl. I actually haven't read the book either, though I recently ordered it, but apparently in the book they mention something more about the smell and that he was using it on the floors that night which were causing hallucinations. Which definitely also explains his other hallucinations too, like the pig. Man, what a fantastically thought-provoking movie. I loved it.
I am also wondering about the shot of all the piled up thrown out milkshakes in the dumpster. I assume this is symbolic of his numerous previous considerations of suicide? He can’t stand to have the milkshakes melting in his car, he needs to throw them out. So maybe this is him trying to get the thoughts of suicide out of his mind? As in, he’s already thought about it so many times, you see how many times the milkshakes were thrown away.
@@lexj23 I thought of the milkshakes as him repeating the same mistakes over and over again and not learning the necessary lesson. Getting an ice cream in the middle of the night, in the middle of a snow storm seems like a poor choice. Then he didn't eat them and the consequences of them not being eaten and sitting in the car he couldn't deal with, so, he walked them to the trash with his other poor choices.
I love reading everyone's interpretations on this. In an interview discussing the movie, Charlie Kaufman (not sure if I'm spelling that right) said that he didn't want to give direct answers to specific elements or scenes in the movie for this very reason! So that it would warrant wonder and discussion and could be left to interpretation. I found the milkshake thing quite chilling. Sort of reminded me of the 2009 movie "Triangle" (which is a brilliant horror/mystery if you haven't saw it yet). It sort of dealt with similar themes as your interpretation of the milkshake scene also: being doomed to repeat the same actions/mistakes. I like that interpretation for sure!
I think they did that to bring more lucidity to the sense of fantasizing. When we fantisize, our minds recall some traits of the people we're thinking of even if that doesn't add much to what's going on. Sometimes that happens to us when dreaming. So Jake was remembering his mother and when his subconcsious (Lucy) got too close to his mother's lap he briefly remembered the nasty looking toe but then kept going with showing the paintings as if nothing had happened.
I watched this film with my Dad, he just put it on and I had never eben heard of it before hand. We were coming up with all kinds of theroies throughout the film from it all being a dream to kidnapping and murders to an oldman remenising about his life. In the end, I really enjoyed it but kinda felt like I had been robbed because I couldn't come up with a conclusion to what I just saw. We both pretty much agreed that the Janitor was Jake but he came up with the conclusion it was about Jake looking back at his life and the Girl was like the one girlfriend he had. After giving it a few hours and watching several videos with several dofferent interpretations I have came up with my own version of what happened which is just as valid as anyones. One thing I loved was how dream like the scene at the house was. My Dad said it was like a dream and then I couldnt get that idea out my head. Things dont quite make sense in a dream like way. For example the fire starts its self, he doesnt put the needle down on the record, the picture is of him and Lucy (who may or may not be the same person), the Dog randompy appears and disapears, the parents age and deage and the food it all suddenly on the table. Like in a dream you rarely dream the journey from upatairs to downstairs, you just kinda teleport around to the correct place, ninda like with the dinner scene where the table magically sets its self. There is aot of pther dream like stuff I could point out but that was one of my favourite scenes in the film.
I love that this movie is able to be interpreted in so many different ways. I can't pinpoint one specific idea, I feel like there's so many little things that are thrown in and make you think something completely different. Very interesting
I’ve seen a few videos about this movie and no one has pointed out that her clothes change throughout the movie. In the beginning she’s wearing a bright yellow scarf and a red coat, then she takes her coat off in the car and she’s got an orange striped shirt, then it goes to a purple striped shirt for just a minute and goes back to orange. It switches to a dress for a scene and then goes back to the brown striped sweater. By the end her coat is dark blue and her shirt has dark blue stripes. I’m sure there’s some significance there. Also, when they’re in the car going to his parents house, she’s not even in the passenger seat when the camera is on him while he’s talking/responding to her. It’s pretty clear that he is a smart guy but he clearly has some issues with anger and relationships. Of course she’s a manifestation of his mental illness/past regrets and there’s so much dialog because he’s talking to himself, trying to decide wether or not he should just get it over with or keep on living alone and invisible. Of course we know what option he decided to go with.
Yes, I did notice all the different clothes on her through out the movie... also Did you notice that there’s a part when she’s in jake’s parents house where she is wearing a pearl necklace with small pearl earrings, when in fact she was wearing big hoop earrings all along. That caught my eye, don’t know why! Very interesting and unique movie, I’m intrigued actually, I don’t know what to make of it! 🤔😌
Also during the dinner scene Toni Collete’s hair length changes. At the beginning its shoulder length but towards the end it become past shoulder length. Also her skirt changes from brown to blue.
Brief trigger warning here bc my comment is going to discuss my experiences w suicidal thoughts and how I interpreted the end of the movie. So, while the ending of the movie does feel quite beautiful in a lot of ways, I still believe that Jake does ultimately kill himself. I say this because when I attempted a few years back, I remember this overwhelming feeling of peace, relief, and almost joy knowing it was coming all to a close. I think the ending really encapsulates that, that feeling just before the fade to black, or in this case, blue. After all his years, struggling with abuse and a life that feels unfullfilled and lacking in companionship, the one time he felt confidence was when nothing else mattered anymore. Also while watching the film, the 'young woman' character to me seemed to really represent what it must feel like to live with dementia. Forgetting things, fogginess, confusion, feeling like no one is listening to you, everything feels surreal. I think her confusion does represent Jake's memory loss in his old age, and his own confusion and bewilderment at it. This isn't a young man killing himself, this is a sad lonely old man who is losing his mind, the only thing he ever really had. It's a sad story, but I do appreciate a representation in a film of depression and suicidal thoughts in an older/elderly person. Too often all the focus is on teenagers in these types of stories, which can feel isolating to those who are older and struggling.
Swear down I thought Jake was a psychic that kidnapped a girl and tried changing her mindscape and killed her as a janitor when he failed and he did it several times because that bin was so full XD
I don't know if anybody noticed it, so we see Pauline Kael's book on the shelf, and the monologue Jessie Buckley gives about Woman Under the Influence is the word for word review that Pauline Kael gave that movie.
I noticed it and Pauline Kael was one of the few critics who despised "A Woman Under The Influence". Lucy BECOMES Pauline as she recites the review verbatim.
Awesome breakdown mane. I just love this film soo so much. BTW that mane Jake is FULLY dead. Reasons: 1.When Jake meets lucy as his old self in the hall, HE finally accepts and comes to the realization that, maybe the constant controlfreak in him should just let go of the steering wheel for once and move on. Which he decides to do and just gives a peaceful smile towards Lucy and moves on... 2)...To fight the fantasies/wishes where the troubled younger self can always get a "love of his life" as long as the old man is still alive. Of course the future can always fix all past shortcomings, one greatest lie ever told. The dance- fight wich the older jake(janitor) wins by stabbing these fantasies in the heart is when he defeats the lie. The lie that traps him in wishful past times that nevee occurred. 3. The older Jake after having found the answer to THE question, decides to shower himself in delusions and acquire every desire that life has denied him one last time. He's fully aware of this. He gets a Nobel prize and he performs his most favorite musical to an audience that is absolutely enchanted. An aged-up audience of a very happy& old lucy is full of joy and love in hes eyes . This shows that Jake is now ok to stare at death. So he decides to go out all out, fulfilled and all albeit made-up fulfillments. Thoughts are, after all, just like colors in our brain. The brain makes it all up. 4) For me, the final nail in the coffin👀 is when the maggot-filled pig representing death comes to pick him up. The pig is chill about death and tries to reassure Jake. 5. Lastly, ideas&thoughts are like viruses. Lucy actually says that she'd be okey goin out by hypothermia when she is left alone, freezing in the car. That's when the idea how he'll shut lights manifests itself. But the claustrophobic cold weather, imbeded in his memory/thoughts influenced how he died. In the cold, locked in own car. The moment when the animated pig shows up, that's when he's taking his last breaths. These are just some of what I picked up. There's probably more clues on the fate of that old man but I think The poor janitor did indeed succumb to the virus that targets a lot of lonely older folks. Another perspective is that he won against misery of living in the treacherous and luring promises of the future knowing that if shit didn't happen in the past, it doesn't necessarily mean that the future will eventually amend. Indeed a very depressive film but a very good one. 4,9/5 Excuse the english, it's not my first tongue. :)
Some movies just don’t have to make sense. I’m thinking’s of ending things is yet another smoothly disturbing Kaufmanesque trip.Standout performances from all the cast members,beautiful cinematography.Literally poetry in motion.As a person who doesn’t read books nor watch plays,to be honest I was totally intrigued by the abstractiveness of it.But then the movie just caught me in a flurry of emotions that I have never experienced.People would be quick to shut this down for its abstractiveness but I think if you’re not innit for the plot and is willing to put down 2 hours 15 minutes for a different experience,this movie is a no brainer
deepblur For godssakes, man, read a book. The book that this film was based on was brilliant, disturbing, creepy and deeply surprising. I absolutely LOVED the book. This movie shouldn’t have been made, or at least not by Kaufman. It absolutely did not do the book justice. IMO there’s only so much you can do with a book that’s based on interior thought. And it maybe takes one extra hour to read the book. READ BOOKS. It’s worth it. In this case, you’ve already ruined the book by seeing the movie.
Yeah man I get why people who read the book were disappointed with the movie,but Kaufman being Kaufman took all his artistic liberty.I like abstract movies whether it’s lynch ,mallick or kaufman. But I do think there were some moments in the film where atleast some of the plot was explained but yeah it was too hard to notice in between all the heavy dialogue.Im pretty sure I would have hated the movie if I had read the book.
I want to know more about the significance of the missed calls to Lucy. There is a picture hanging in the entryway of Jake's parents house that says "call again". It seems like when things started to spiral the phone would ring and it would put the story back on course.
It's not really clarified in the book either, but I believe it was simply just Jake talking to himself? The call is by an old man talking about 'there's only one question. One question to answer.' It's the exact same thing that you hear Janitor-Jake say at the beginning of the movie as he's looking out the window. I believe the question simply is 'are you going to do it? You're thinking of ending things, but will you do it?'
A bit of trivia: The poem that the girl recites in the car, “Bonedog” by Canadian poet Eva H.D., is not actually in the book Rotten Perfect Mouth, as implied in the bedroom scene. Even though the film shows the girl reading the poem from the book, the poem is actually an unpublished work. But Rotten Perfect Mouth is real, published and fantastic, and can be ordered here: mansfieldpress.net/2015/03/rotten-perfect-mouth-2
I also think he may have raped that girl in the bar. There’s so many rape references and creepy pervert references. The song, the fact Lucy/the young woman can describe Jake (kind of like how it would be difficult to describe your attacker), How Lucy hides from the janitor
Not necessarily, but I can also see where you're coming from. Lucy hiding from the janitor is the real life old Jake's own doing. He's trying to hold on to Lucy and shield her from the eventual demise she's going to have to meet. He has been here many times before. But this time, he has sensed it's different. He knows that this is the end. That when reality sets in and the janitor finally has his answer. His death will also mean the death of the fictionalized "love of his life" As for the song, I think it was just to show that the only real truth in life rests comfortably on the jaws of time. The song was celebrated before but time has come to shine a different light on it. That no matter how much demented things can, at first seem beatiful and enchanting from a certain light, eventually time will have it's due share. Whether through a death of a glorious or a horrendous thing. Idk, this is how I interpreted their relationships.
@@melikatl His own fears...He just want to reassure himself through Lucy, trying to figure out/ convince himself that he's a good man. I'm pretty sure everbody have private dark thoughts& scenarios where put themselves in other people's shoes in thise those scenarios to see how one would react.
Dreezy fair point, but I feel as though there’s too many rape and peeping Tom references for that to be a mistake... perhaps it’s just his over all disgust with himself for being a creepy pervert guy who can’t get girls so it’s a source of shame for him... but on the further end of that spectrum it’s that he’s remorseful for maybe forcing himself on someone or scaring girls etc
The scene where Janitor Jake says his goodbyes to the woman in the hall and they both cry, probably one of the best shot scenes of al time, it's a tragedy that we're all afraid of, being lonely, dying along.
The one thing I was able to pick up on is when the girlfriend starts talking about a film in the car ride back and she immediately starts doing a perfect impression of movie critic Pauline Kale, whose massive book of collected essays is also present in Jake’s pile of books and DVDs in his childhood bedroom. Once that happened, it became clear Lucy/Louise/Amy was also a receptacle for his artistic influences, in the same way she mentions in the basement how most people are just copies of other people’s opinions.
I do feel like he had raped that girl. The way she describes him as a creep and wishing her boyfriend was there at the time when she met him because he wouldn’t leave her alone and so many other mentions of rape. She was very triggered by the “baby it’s cold outside” song. This is a man with dementia replaying his life before his suicide. Oh and the two girls that worked at that ice cream place could be victims as well? Idk
@Eran Menashri He did give me that creep vibe but those girls were actually student at the high school he cleaned. However watching it again, you notice that she often changed the story on they met. So, I'm thinking it might've been constant thoughts of what he could've happened that night. If he had just approached her or if she had approached him. And then when she actually talked about how they met, you realize that his insecurity had gotten to him.
I only realized it on replay but the brunette girl working at the ice cream store is also a student at the school, you see her walk past the janitor and it’s obvious that she’s lonely and doesn’t have any friends there- I think he could’ve assaulted her at school?
I don't think he raped her, I think it's just him thinking about what he could have done on trivia night, but her not wanting to stay and talk to him, she just wanted to go home with her friend.
Its such a mind bending movie. It reminds me of Jake Gyllenhaal's movie, Enemy. And the dialogue is so beautiful. Which makes me appreciate it even more because I can actually understand it. Pleasantly surprised by this.
You did a great job putting this together Austin. This movie more than anything tells us to do the best with the time that is given to us while we're young. Jake states at one point that the greatest discoveries in art and science are made by young people. Otherwise the hopes ambitions and dreams of your life would remain just that ... dreams. A fantasy that you play over and over in your head, like Jake who visits the memories of his past and what could have been accepting awards, being a scientist or an artist. It's the story of a deeply lonely man. I've read the book and now seen the movie and I think it's one of the best of this year. One of those movies that you keep pulling new stuff from upon rewatching. I'll also add that reading the book helps in understanding the movie much better.
The movie is so full of details, every other minute you see a new thing to make your mind go brrr, one of those being where jake dismisses her after every sentence she says that he disapproves of, probably kinda reflecting on his want for her girlfriend to be submissive
This movie fees like a visual representation of the album Everywhere at the End of Time, by The Caretaker. The same haunting existential drift of a fractured mind trying to glue moments of time into cohesion but ending up trapped in a world of their own. Aren't we seeing it from an unreliable narrator with dementia? I thought he died I a fugue state at the end, horribly confused with reality bending around him.
This is the greatest English explanation so far, because you do it calmly and also refer to the book. I only watched a 10-minute German explanation which was just as good as yours.
I had Toni Colette's tinnitus in form of a Hans Zimmer BRRR packed as ice cream from Tulsey Town in my head while watching this. It was a bit too sweet. I'm in awe but also super confused.
Much like the cinema of David Lynch, I believe Charlie's work is depicting not literal narratives/plot events, and NOT the"it's all a dream" narrative but a "state-of-mind" subconscious narrative, if such a thing exists. Even though the "syndromes" his characters deal with change in every movie, the distinction is often meaningless. It's all just shades, or "tinges" of blue/depression. Even when rooted in childhood trauma, parenting and attachment styles, the characters struggle with that deeply embedded self-loathing which manifests in the many odd syndromes they manifest, as well as the crippling lack of connection to others. I'm personally quite attracted to this style of cinema, and it stands to reason that most of these deal with themes death and the nature of consciousness, and have magical realism or surreal elements. 2001 being the most well known example of this kind of movie, Gravity is likely one of the most recent and highest grossing versions of it. And Mr. Robot probably the best TV example of it.
This was a wonderful explanation, coming from someone who hasn’t read the book. But I was so enamored with the movie, and you’re explanation of the story that I fully intend on picking up the book as soon as I can.. The story now that I’ve been guided through is oddly relatable, and wonderfully played out. Thank you for the vid. Definitely deserve a sub for it ❤️
The actress in the movie the janitor is watching actually appears next to Jake in the car (appearing as his girlfriend), right before they reach the high school.
Charlie Kaufman attention to details is amazing, one of the things I have noticed in the movie is no one touched their food when they sat at dinner, Amy thanks jake’s mother then takes the plates back full to the kitchen.
I've read the book, so I had a bit of an easier time following the movie, but Kaufman's interpretation of it was awesome and the changes and ending were surprising and poetic.
A brilliant movie, and a brilliant novel. I know a lot of people weren't crazy about Kaufman replacing the chase at the end with a speech; but I thought it was beautiful and tragic in its own way. Rather than being brutal, it shows the audience one last glimpse of how far Jake's self-hatred has gone.
Has anyone posted about the end credits? Sounds like the janitors car starting up, so did he (Jake) survive and accept his life? Thinking about it the car covered in snow looks more like (young) Jake's car. Anyone have an opinion???
Damn, I watched this movie because I was expecting a horror movie. It’s a complete 360. And it’s a very intellectual movie, and I liked it. It kinda gave me a heavy feeling.
in the end jake's car-engine was clunking then it turned on & we heard the car drive off. i think that means jake did not "end things" in the end ; i think he survived the suicidal thoughts and suicide attempt.
that was a great analysis, thank you! one thing about the ending though, i think it's pretty clear that he is in fact going to "end things", that's clear from his "dialogue" with the pig
You reach an age when you realize you are alone, and the only people, your parents, who ever loved you are all dead. You have achieved nothing, and made no name for yourself, and left no legacy of work or in you DNA. You sired no one into to this world to recall you fondly. I think the entire movie takes place in the car at the school's parking-lot. I don't think he ever gets out of the car. He wakes up, drives to the lot, and dies. Maybe he will make a stir in the neighborhood by how he offed himself. That is his legacy, but it won't last either. Time goes on...
I’ve always believed movies that leave you with a thought is true art. I didn’t understand this movie at first but that’s the movie experience, your suppose to leave with something
I love this film, it's so sad, I am devastated. I hope that we'll be able to see that a lot people is fighting a huge battle, and that we'll try to help each other. What an intriguing film. I'll probably keep thinking of Charlie Kaufman's I'm Thinking of Ending Things for the many weeks to come.
Well I'm Jake I guess. The fantasies, the mental state that I'm in, and the constant visualisation of "what ifs" moments of the past, future or present. That's why I'm always thinking of ending things. "Once this thought arrive. It stays. It sticks. It lingers. It dominates." Something you carries with you 'til you die.
Oh Man, I really loved how you dissected this. I watched it and thought it was amazing, but now after watching this I'm going to watch it again. I really loved it, and every actor in this film, really made it even more amazing. Can't say enough good things about this wonderful piece of art!
What about the random man talking on the phone, that kept saying “there’s only one question to resolve. I’m scared, I feel a little crazy. I’m not lucid. The assumptions are right. I can feel my fear growing. Now is time for the answer, just one question. On question to answer”
I’m thinking of ending things is the newest Netflix film directed by Charlie Kaufman. This was a film I was very excited for, it had so many things going for it. All the talent in front and behind the camera and the story just looked fascinating. Did it deliver though, in short answer kinda but there’s more to be said. First of all let me just say how much I respect and admire Charlie Kaufman as a Screenwriter and even director. His work is always super unique, different and they seem to focus on characters that are well realized. I’m thinking of ending things though, feels like a 2020 Charlie Kaufman film monitored by Netflix where he is under restrictions on creativity and can’t fully express this story the way he would have liked. I know that this film is based on a book so that may explain why this story and the outcome of it all is so unfulfilling but it had so much potential to be something better. Let me just give credit where credit is due though, because there’s a lot of positives to I’m thinking of ending things and there’s no denying that. It’s a well done film overall, the way it was shot, the musical theme the film has throughout its runtime is pleasant and joyous, the acting from everyone is excellent but the standout for me was Toni Collette. She was always an actress of such range, where she is able to go with the characters she plays, her commitment and her performance here just gave me more respect for her. I’m thinking of ending things is a character driven film that prioritizes conversations that characters have with each other. It has a lot of dialogue, and there aren’t many locations that are explored. Most of the settings are in locations that are seen often and we’re supposed to get comfortable spending time in them. Since the film has so much dialogue it’s important for the screenplay to be strong. The screenplay is intriguing at times and I liked the tone of it all but I felt like what the film was trying to convey it didn’t do a good job of conveying. The first two acts of the film are great, I liked the setup, where the story was potentially going and how the film wasn’t afraid of not explaining itself. Let’s talk about that, how the film doesn’t explain itself. From the get go a lot of how this story unfolds is odd, weird, creepy and you have a lot of questions. That’s how we the audience relate to the protagonist because we're experiencing the same things and have the same questions as she does. So there is some sense and search to find out what is going on but I felt like all that went to waste in the clumsy third act. The third act didn’t wrap things up at all, but instead got more confusing, weird and I checked out. I’m thinking of ending things is a film with a lot of depth, hidden meanings and there’s so much more under the surface. I give it praise for not trying to go the straightforward route but with a third act that doesn’t care about giving the answers and explaining itself the outcome of it all made me ask what was the purpose of all that just happened.
I'm about to watch this for the third time! I've gone through a dozen YT vids on this movie, all of which pretty much agree on the same points, but there is something no one has mentioned yet. If you watch the end credits all the way through, there's the sound of a car (or a truck???) turning over and possibly driving off. I have to watch it again to confirm, but it's almost as if Jake DID attempt to suicide by freezing naked in the truck, but then decided not to. IDK....thought it was worth a mention because the audio design of this film is friggin' incredible. Thought the motor sounds at the end left some questions for the viewer. Be well! G
Now I get how the movie was all about Jake and his life, when I was watching it I kind of thought it was about the woman and when she was on her way to his house she was picturing all these scenarios of meeting his parents and ultimately thought if I don't end things this is how they could end but then it took a weird turn and it was definitely about Jake lol
So at the end, he dies in the car or really goes into the school following the pig? Also, what about those Brrr cups in the wastebin outside the school? And the girl who had a scar on her hand like Jake was she also just a part of his imagination fighting himself or as another theory suggests his wife whom he used to beat up?
It was pretty easy to figure out Jake was the janitor, but even with all the clues it was impossible for me to come to the conclusion that the whole thing was his fantasy and that the girl wasn't real... because the entire movie is from her perspective. It's filmed as if it's her story, not his. There needed to be something more substantial to show the audience that she was just a fantasy and the story was really about him. This is a little cliche, but what if after the dance routine in the school, you see the old janitor again, then he sees the girl, then she just fades away, then it it cuts to the part where he kills himself. I would have been a Eureka moment... like WOW! HOLY SHIT IT ALL MAKES SENSE!! It could have been a great moment... like in eternal sunshine when you realize the beginning was actually the end and he get's to meet the girl all over again. Kaufman missed a great opportunity with this one. C-
I think you should watch it again with the knowledge that she isn’t real kept in mind. The idea that Jake is projecting his memories onto this character. All the clues are there and its not there for you to catch on the first watch. It’s really subtle. If it was revealed like the way you said, I would’ve hated it. It would of been too obvious and it would be like they were spoon feeding the audience.
@@volcancism.a.d6010 I did watch it again, and you are right. All the clues are there, but (spoiler warning) imagine if you watched Sixth Sense for the first time... and the entire scene where the main character realizes he is dead is left out. The movie would end and you wouldn't have a clue what just happened. Then you would have to watch it again or watch a youtube video to figure out that he was actually a ghost the whole time. It certainly wouldn't have been one of the most iconic movies of all time. Am I right?
The one question to be answered reminded me of Hamlet: To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep; Magnificent film. 9/10
I think the janitor was a pervert, very similar to Norman Bates, a peeping tom. He watched all these girls throughout the years as a janitor and fantasized about them. In the end I think he felt lonely and guilty and decided to end things. Lucy was a girl from school he fantasized about the most and she may have been nice to him. While the ice cream stand girls mocked him and saw him for what he was. The dance scene tells you everything thing you need to know…first the fantasy version of himself yearning to love this girl and live happily ever after and then...reality takes over, and we the audience, as well as himself can see that he’s actually a monster. P.S. Like Norman before him, his mom may also be stuffed in the basement, explaining why he didn’t want fantasy Lucy to go down there😊
I have researched over and over and no one talks about the scene where it is snowing only on the car but the exterior is green. So here's my take on it... The car represents the interior of the janitor, and no matter how much you fantasize and romanticize, you cannot change what is in the interior, which is why it is stuck in the present time.
I got the same story as you did from it. I didnt like the ending at the time of watching, i think I wanted some corroboration of the version of events I had put together, thats why i appreciate your video.I thought what the hell kind of ending is that and gave it a thumbs down but I dont think it was a bad movie at all, I think it gets a bit better once you think about it a bit more. I usually like dreamlike films where you can get into a persons head so on reflection I might change my rating. I dont think I'd want to watch it again though.
Thanks for watching!
This video was a BEAST to put together, I would love your thoughts below!
TIME CODES:
Intro - 0:00
Abstract Art - 0:24
Main Premise - 1:37
Oklahoma - 2:15
Who is the Janitor - 2:47
The Car Ride - 5:30
I’m Thinking of Ending Things - 6:48
His Parents House - 9:17
The Basement - 13:05
Dairy Queen - 13:54
The High School - 14:27
The Dance - 15:21
The Finale - 16:23
Don't need time code . watching it fully 🤪
Which did you prefer the book or the film?
I didn't read the book, but from the first few minutes I said "it's a memory", because it looked like it. And it's Charlie Kaufman. I mean, come on, the guy is writing about memories, imagination and what separates them from reality his whole life. It was clear that it was the janitor's since we've seen him several times unrelated to the rest of the story. At some point I was wondering if he was a serial killer remembering his victims because there were several clues throughout the movie, like the girl at the counter warning her. And the price at the end was not just any prize, it was the Nobel prize. The ultimate fantasy. I really liked it, even if it was a bit depressing after all. Oh, and I liked how he talked about that author (don't remember his name, sorry) that did a lot of great work but all people remember is that he committed suicide. Probably reflecting about himself
Also not only did her outfits change throughout the movie, but there was one point where she had a different accent and one point where it was a completely different actress in the car. I feel like he also modeled her physical appearance after the Tulsy Town character.
she is also changing personalities every now and then.
when the actress changed in the car really freaked me out
It’s these very minor details that really impressed me.
When the actress changed it was the same person from the fake Robert Zemeckis movie right?
Ian Levinson yea
I think the dance could actually be incredibly sad. It could be a form of self hatred. Like, there’s an idealised version- what Jake wishes would’ve happened, but then the janitor- the real Jake- ruins it all. He’s selfish, he grabs her, he’s creepy and he destroys what could’ve been. Possible it’s a type of self sabotage showed on screen. It’s actually quite sad, because it’s layered in self loathing but also self realisation. He's realised that he is a destructive force in his own life. He’s the one that’s ruined it all. This could link to the discussion about blaming your mum or parents for your flaws, which they dismiss as bullshit. He’s realised he’s the thing that’s ruined his own life.
Agreed, I feel the dance scene was very poetically executed in a way that forms the foundations of self hatred. It's like looking at yourself through a single pane of glass, and not having the ability to do or think of anything except cause Chaos to satisfy your own emotions. It's a very sad feeling of not being able to be with someone you really love and watching someone else take your place, but it's a tragedy if the other person is you.
I always envisioned this movie as saying that Jake was his worst critic and his biggest enemy. All of his memories are of his parents downplaying his efforts, and misunderstanding his actual skills and talents. Even the idealized woman that he loves ends up turning on him and falling back into his old ways of thinking.
Nahhh. He had a bad childhood with unstable parents (controlling mother, father won't even look him in the eyes) and was a social outcast, grew up to have no social skills, never had a girlfriend in his life (an incel). 20 years ago, in his 50s, he fell in love with a younger dance teacher at his workplace but she was already taken and too young for him. Her beauty reminded him of the Ice Cream Lady character from the ad (ending scene), the only part of his childhood that he enjoyed. With zero social skills, he tried to approach her but she refused and she already had a partner (the type of guy he always wished he could become). Enraged, he murders her partner out of jealousy to have her for himself in order to take his place (which is irrational and purely done under emotions). In reality, he ends up killing both, that's the secret hunting him. The beautiful dance teacher he murdered is similar to the one he built up in his mind to cope with her death (same hair color, same clothes) but her face is different. Indeed, His own version of her , with the new face, is actually the one he wished she could be: a woman interested in him for no particular reasons. He ends up wearing the man's clothes (symbolics of trying to be like that perfect guy) but the style don't fit him either, he looks ''fake'', unworthy (less in shape, less handsome), he still carries those personal issues and ''imperfections'' that make him socially awkward. He decides to let go (commit suicide) by letting hypothermia take him in his pickup truck. One sign of hypothermia is that the individual suddenly feels hot and starts removing his clothes (it is fake and it's actually the brain tricking you before you die). They found many bodies of people who died of hypothermia practically naked, especially on mount everest. The movie is a mix of his souvenirs, timelines, what he sees during his boring day, what he thinks people think of him, regrets and the ''love of his life'' that never was and that he murdered with his own hands. He's just a filthy pig with rotten wounds that needs to be put down ( his own vision of himself). He takes his Nobel Prize for his life work as in a ''it was boring, i'm a pig and I'm bad but it was the Real me, see you all those who neglected me, hated me, mocked me or just ignored me!''. The End.
@@zoommaroctv5225 I think you're reading too literally into it. This whole dance sequence is basically the opening scene to Oklahoma.
@@lockekappa500 did you miss the flashback where he's spying on teenagers through a hole in the wall? he's got some serious issues
Whats really intersting is that jakes father didnt look at him in the movie. Not even once. He was just staring at the young Woman.
Because jakes the pig just like how the father only fed the pig and didn't pay it any attention only to realize too late that it was being eaten alive by maggots
@@nordette omg i never realised that. Wow
I honestly just think the whole movie is just Jake sitting in the truck freezing to death and thinking about his pass and all things he had done wrong
I don't think so, I'm more convinced that the whole movie is set on a "regular" day of Jake as a janitor but thinking of commiting suicide. We see him looking through his window after breakfast, mopping the floors, having his lunch but as that happens he's fantasizing about "Lucy/Louisa/Ames..." which ultimately is his subconscious. At night he returns to the school to keep cleaning while fantasizing and that's where he makes the desicion of killing himself in the truck.
I don’t know if people know this or not but the reason Jake was taking his clothes off was because he was in the final stages of hypothermia, and when that happens you feel irrationally hot and to combat that people take their clothes off as they literally lost rationality
That's actually the only part of the movie I understood because I just watched a documentary a couple weeks ago where they were talking about that.
Thank you i didnt know that!
It's called paradoxical undressing
but, at the end when credit rolls, we can hear the sound of engine clunking. i don't know anything about blizzard or snow weather because i live in a tropical country. can people escape or turn on their car again after trapped inside it (just like in the scene)?
@@denissetiawan3645 From what I understood, he wasnt trapped inside the car, he wanted to be inside until he dies, basically committing suicide by hypothermia, he turned of the car and left the keys on the seat next to him and let the cold kill him
If you recall, when Jake left "Lucy" in the car and went inside the school, she kept talking to herself and said " How long does it take to get hypothermia?" "Maybe it's not a bad way to go if i have to go"
so i guess he wasnt trapped, he let it happen to end his life
I feel like she's a memory of a girl he met briefly 40 years ago and because his memory is sketchy, her clothing and name keeps changing. Also, she starts off in bright colours and then her clothes are muted.
Hanging onto someone you met briefly 40 years ago is a really really sad thought
Fred Gorgenchuck its because he’s imagining what his life couldve been if he went up to her
Yea well she doesn’t exist so he had to have just seen her one time and was to scared to talk to her he made her up in his head
That's actually the case in the book
she kept going between boyfriend and girlfriend, and how if having a boyfriend the other boys would stay away... But she has a girlfriends, so Jake must have those thoughts... taking advantage of her and making her the memory which sticks out the most... i dunno, im confused haha
The scene that made me realize that it was from the janitors imagination was from a part in the car ride back when the “young woman” was talking with a different accent and then in the middle of the scene the actress changes to the girl from the tv show the janitor was watching and quickly changed back to the main actress, I love how it was so subtle but gave so many big clues at the same time
Ah I noticed the actress changed in the car but didn’t notice it was the waitress from the film!
Which part
Gianna Ramirez I forget the exact scene but it’s some point on the drive back from the parents house
Swimming In circles I noticed the transatlantic accent change too, but I didn’t draw that connection
Strawberryfeildsforever the accent gave me a hint but there is a quick cut when it’s a different actress, playing the “young lady” and it’s the actress from the tv show the janitor was watching that’s what gave it away for me
The past memories concept really hits when you do notice the labels of his DVD collection in his room
"Abandoned Friendships"
"Unforgettable Mishaps"
"Futile Efforts At Success"
"Lasting Memories of Sorrow"
He even directly references David Foster Wallace in the car ride home as if he's pulling it from a collection
I recall that when Synecdoche, New York, came out, Kaufman said that he was asked to write a horror movie. So he thought to himself, "What's the scariest thing I can think of?" His answer was: to reach the end of your life and realize that you've wasted it all. I think that's why "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" has some elements of surreal horror. To Kaufman, the regret of a wasted life is truly horrific.
I also noticed that Jesse Plemons bares some resemblance to Philip Seymour Hoffman in appearance and demeanor. That introverted awkwardness. Kind of like Kaufman himself, if you've ever seen him.
god, toni collette is just so good
She was a delight in this film she deserves every award
Just a small detail worth pointing out: when Jake and the Woman are driving towards the farm, they pass by a bill-board of a pig. The woman looks at the bill board and seems to hallucinate the pig saying "Come, join me." Later, Jake explains that a pig had died on his farm and had become infested with maggots. Essentially, the pig was Jakes' subconcious telling him to freeze to death. Pretty creepy stuff. Overall, this movie was really good but extremely depressing.
I do think he ended things. You can tell by the last scene with his truck covered in snow, him taking his clothes off because of hypothermia... Really sad.
Shedding his skin, accepting who he is.
I love the fact that Charlie Kaufman promotes the audience to come up with their own interpretations for the film. That way no one has to feel condescended for having their own opinion.
Open ending always frustrate people
@@ashutoshsingh221 It's funny because it is almost like people don't want to "think" when it comes to movies. The movies that tend to do well are unfortunately ones that spoonfeed you its plot.
That whole discussion of her paintings at dinner with his dad makes total sense now!
Goddammit. Now I have to go and watch it again.
You're a real genus, Austin!
I wish!! But thanks a ton. Appreciate it.
nope
He's not a genius, he read the book.
As I did & posted what I thought b4 I watched his vid.
@@imkitti1942 It was a joke, you remember the "genus - genius" conversation?
But Austin's still a genius...
@@bossnass9264 dude, sorry. I inherently love this book!!! I was scared to watch it.
I didn't want it to do injustice to this work. I hate humans that leave negative comments on my freaking opinions & I just realized that I just did it. Sorry for being such a dumbest & for u bein nice abt it!
One line I keep thinking about and I’m trying to tie in somehow -
“I’m sorry about the smell”
jake says that about Jimmy, then the girl at the restaurant says it to the Young Woman
I didn’t understand that at first either but I think it’s bc The janitor spends the entire time mopping the floors as in that’s the actual smell. And “ varnish” the girl at the ice cream shop warned her about.
The restaurant girl strongly implies that the smell is a dead body and the last we see of janitor Jake is him in the final stages of hypothermia as he follows the pig into the school, so I’m pretty sure that’s it.
Though if all the characters other than Jake are just figments of his imagination, I’m not sure why he’d be smelling his own dead body. Spooky.
this movie made me feel like me myself is getting insane, i had really crazy dreams after that film and even my sleep paralysis showed up again, havent had sleep paralysis for like 4, 5 years before that. crazy flick!
Yeah crazy stuff, right? It messes with your mind.
Me too!
Tell me about it. I watched it earlier today. now it’s 2:30 in the morning and I can’t sleep or turn off the lights because psychological films scares and messes me up more than actual horror films.
I had sleep paralysis after watching this movie too (last night). Haven’t had that in absolute YEARS. Scary!!!
Edit : Nice catch on the connection to A Beautiful Mind.
My take : Jake is an unreliable narrator due to early stage demetia which runs in his family. He knows he won't be able to take care of himself much longer and decides to commit suicide. The movie is a mixture of memories, regrets and delusions that takes place in his mind while dying of hypothermia. The wide shot of his truck in the parking lot covered in snow is the only "real" image in the film.
I really have found the reviews and other peoples interpretations of this film so valuable. But what I originally got from this film before analyzing it more deeply was a really sharp commentary about how time can slip away from us. It really hit me when Lucy's character was talking about how all the sudden one unenthusiastic "yes" leads you down a whole road of "yeses" until you have a moment where you see life more clearly and wonder how you even ended up down that path. That can happen with relationships, career, etc. Going down a prescribed path with no real say in the matter. Absolutely heartbreaking.
Or as we saw in Locke, a long road trip is also a good way to have a character talk to themselves, and some imaginary characters.
Ohhhh yes, very nice comparison
I figured out he was the Janitor but that was about it lol 🤣
holy shit well done you're so clever
And i guess Freddie has a bad day.
Toni Collette really doesn't like dinner, huh?
BTW thank you so much for the explanation I was dying to decipher this movie.
What about all the undertones of rape?
Her getting mad about the Christmas song?
Her talking about wishing her bf was with her at the bar?
Her not being able to describe Jake?
The dance with Jack kidnapping her and kills her bf?
Yeah definitely present for sure.
All throughout
Don't forget the fact they mentioned homosexuality a couple of times. At one time i thought about Jake being homosexual and getting a girlfriend just to cover it. Idk
Or the peep hole we see a few times, or him watching someone from an apartment window in the beginning.
I'm truly inclined to believe that he may have killed someone, or something to that effect.
My "throw spaghetti at the wall" theory, is that at the very least the young woman and young Jake, were real people, that the mentally ill janitor stalked, imagining their life as his own, until he finally tried to take her, the real boyfriend/husband tries to intervine, is stabbed in the fight, and she escapes, but dies in the cold and he is haunted by both of them, trying to fuse his own life and their lives together until finally he can't, has a powerful moment of clarity when encountering her in the end and decides to end his life.
But that's kind of a weird interpretation probably.
@@NyxSunspot that's really interesting, it's possible. I love how everyone is getting different interpretations. I think this movie will be divisive but will gain a huge cult following
@@NyxSunspot Exactly my thoughts. That's why I believe he was uninterested in the lamb being left dead frozen in the snow. It was symbolic to him abandoning her lifeless body after he killed her. I felt like he was haunted by her memory and he wanted to humanize himself by showing his family life. Sn: he also had no respect for women because every time his mom tried to show him affection he pushed her away until she was on her death bed.
Through the credits roll, you can hear the engine of the car roaring, as if Jake is struggling to start the engine because of the snow. The movie made my mind go brrr but yeah its brilliant. (Kinda regret watching it at 2am though.)
I thought it was a snowplow out of the picture
@@elinsamuelsson2424 That's the interpretation I have heard a few times. It is a snowplow starting up which will eventually find his body.
@@elinsamuelsson2424 Maybe. But the car covered in snow is obviously the younger Jake's car. Older Jake's car is not shown so my first thought was, that old Jake undressed and entered the school again and in the morning he tries to start up his truck.
@@zakkwyldesdmf13 -In the book it's made very clear that he did in fact kill himself as you get the reactions of the people who found his body, only in the book he's found in the janitors closet in the school as he stabbed himself in the neck with a coat hanger, & they talk about finding what he wrote as he was bleeding out.
A cool thing about Oklahoma that sort of explains the ballet sequence.
The first act of Oklahoma! ends in an iconic sequence referred to as a "dream ballet". Essentially, the main female character Laurey drinks laudanum and starts tripping balls. The orchestra erupts into a lush instrumental sequence while the ensemble begins dancing. Laurey and her love interest, Curly, are replaced with two featured dancers (and usually the staging has the dancers appear behind or next to them, similar to the scene in the movie). A fantastic romantic dance takes place that acts as a "what if I go with him?" scenario, but then the trip turns bad and she hallucinates the antagonist, Jud, killing him, solidifying that the man she was dancing with is the one for her, and setting up the conflict of the next act.
In the film, the dream ballet is instead a "what if I had asked for her number?" scenario. He imagines marrying this woman and living happily ever after with her, before the janitor kills that version of him. It's a darker take on the dream ballet idea; instead of dreaming about the future and the paths one could take, he dreams about the path he couldn't take, for whatever reason, which led him to be the lonely man; the antagonist in his own life.
Also interesting is the fact that in the play, Jud is the antagonist only because he's lonely and desperate for a connection with Laurey. At one point, Curly even tries to talk Jud into suicide, at a point where he hasn't really done anything wrong. When Curly leaves, Jud instead sings the song "Lonely Room", determined to make Laurey his bride. This is the song that Jake sings, while sitting in the smokehouse set where Jud lives.
Also, slightly less related, and also not very subtle, but whether or not the film actually takes place in Oklahoma, Tulsey Town is a nickname for Tulsa, the city in Oklahoma.
Wowow fascinating. Thank you!
He definitely states that it's in Oklahoma, because when the Oklahoma song plays on the radio, he says its popular in this area for "obvious reasons"
Damn, good insight that I never would have caught otherwise due to my lack of theater knowledge. I loved this film, even though I didn't completely understand it until watching some yt videos to get some context from the novel and such... Now I like it even more.
Yes! And during “lonely room” the plot is basically bottle fed to the audience but instead of getting a girl, jake ends things. Jake basically day dreams all day about ending his life and uses an imaginary person to talk to about his personal life and lessons and to get closure about his failed attempts at love (or lack of attempts) before finally deciding (as Jud does in the climax of his song) to finally stop dreaming resulting in him ending his life.
I saw things pretty similarly, but with an additional thought. Love is sometimes thought of as a yin/yang situation, where you find someone who compliments you through differences. There is a well known confusion in romance where one might be unsure if they are in love with another or if they just want to be them, and I find that the yin/yang perception of love makes it possible for the co-existence of those states (i.e. being in love with someone and wanting to be them aren't mutually exclusive).
I propose that his fantasy love interest represents also all of the things he wanted to be, hence his deep knowledge of poetry and literature and the paintings in his basement. One thing that stuck out to me frequently during the farm portion of the film was the fact that they were both physicists but also artists. These two studies are contemporaneously thought of as being distinct (B.A. vs B.S. as opposed to a robust liberal arts degree). Well, in my reading, Jeff was destined to become an artist but his overbearing nonartistic parents forced him into science, where he did ok but was in no way exceptional or noteworthy. His fantasy girlfriend is brilliant in both fields. Where he floundered, she succeeded. Where he consumed art, she created. She is everything he wished he could be for himself and for others, and perhaps he also might have wished to be a tad bit less sensitive, dependent, and thought of as a creep. He may have even thought being a girl would have been easier... especially a pretty girl. I do think it's interesting that in the high school scene, his pursuit of this girl-- his ideal self-- ends with the janitor killing him and taking her away. As you mentioned in your video, his janitorial job kind of destroyed his artistic ambitions, which were the only thing he had left after failing the scholastic ambitions his parents placed on him. Working full time can kill anyone's artistic ambitions. You get tired. As any artist laboring under capitalism.
Anyway thanks for the awesome video, I hope you like my comment.
I really enjoyed the movie. I thought it was mostly playing with movie storytelling, and not even trying much to "make sense". However, this analysis is great and logical. Now I feel that I need to watch the movie a second time keeping this interpretation in mind.
I'm particularly curious about the "varnish" smell in the ice cream shop. The brunette worker states that she "can stay here" and that she doesn't have to keep moving forward with time. Saying it isn't really a varnish smell, but doesn't seem to want Jake to hear. Could this have something to do with his method of suicide? That's the part I'm having trouble grasping. Or is the ice cream vendor suggesting suicide saying that she doesn't have to keep moving forward with time? What is the significance of the varnish detail, then?
John Robinson varnish is used to polish tile floors, and I think that the girl is not just something he wanted but a part of himself, the real him, what he wished he was, a painter, physicist, all kinds of things that would require talent that he couldn’t live up to (reference to his mother) I think in a way the girl was speaking to jake through Lucy, saying you don’t have to hurt yourself, nothing has to change, you can live in this world in your mind, but the real jake new that it was a fantasy, that he just couldn’t do it
@@justsomestuff4971 I actually had watched that again since I posted and came to a similar conclusion with the young girl. I actually haven't read the book either, though I recently ordered it, but apparently in the book they mention something more about the smell and that he was using it on the floors that night which were causing hallucinations. Which definitely also explains his other hallucinations too, like the pig. Man, what a fantastically thought-provoking movie. I loved it.
I am also wondering about the shot of all the piled up thrown out milkshakes in the dumpster. I assume this is symbolic of his numerous previous considerations of suicide? He can’t stand to have the milkshakes melting in his car, he needs to throw them out. So maybe this is him trying to get the thoughts of suicide out of his mind? As in, he’s already thought about it so many times, you see how many times the milkshakes were thrown away.
@@lexj23 I thought of the milkshakes as him repeating the same mistakes over and over again and not learning the necessary lesson. Getting an ice cream in the middle of the night, in the middle of a snow storm seems like a poor choice. Then he didn't eat them and the consequences of them not being eaten and sitting in the car he couldn't deal with, so, he walked them to the trash with his other poor choices.
I love reading everyone's interpretations on this. In an interview discussing the movie, Charlie Kaufman (not sure if I'm spelling that right) said that he didn't want to give direct answers to specific elements or scenes in the movie for this very reason! So that it would warrant wonder and discussion and could be left to interpretation. I found the milkshake thing quite chilling. Sort of reminded me of the 2009 movie "Triangle" (which is a brilliant horror/mystery if you haven't saw it yet). It sort of dealt with similar themes as your interpretation of the milkshake scene also: being doomed to repeat the same actions/mistakes. I like that interpretation for sure!
what about the scene where lucy is staring at toni collettes toe? explain LMAO i cant stop thinking ab that
I think they did that to bring more lucidity to the sense of fantasizing. When we fantisize, our minds recall some traits of the people we're thinking of even if that doesn't add much to what's going on. Sometimes that happens to us when dreaming. So Jake was remembering his mother and when his subconcsious (Lucy) got too close to his mother's lap he briefly remembered the nasty looking toe but then kept going with showing the paintings as if nothing had happened.
I watched this film with my Dad, he just put it on and I had never eben heard of it before hand. We were coming up with all kinds of theroies throughout the film from it all being a dream to kidnapping and murders to an oldman remenising about his life. In the end, I really enjoyed it but kinda felt like I had been robbed because I couldn't come up with a conclusion to what I just saw. We both pretty much agreed that the Janitor was Jake but he came up with the conclusion it was about Jake looking back at his life and the Girl was like the one girlfriend he had.
After giving it a few hours and watching several videos with several dofferent interpretations I have came up with my own version of what happened which is just as valid as anyones.
One thing I loved was how dream like the scene at the house was. My Dad said it was like a dream and then I couldnt get that idea out my head. Things dont quite make sense in a dream like way.
For example the fire starts its self, he doesnt put the needle down on the record, the picture is of him and Lucy (who may or may not be the same person), the Dog randompy appears and disapears, the parents age and deage and the food it all suddenly on the table. Like in a dream you rarely dream the journey from upatairs to downstairs, you just kinda teleport around to the correct place, ninda like with the dinner scene where the table magically sets its self. There is aot of pther dream like stuff I could point out but that was one of my favourite scenes in the film.
I love that this movie is able to be interpreted in so many different ways. I can't pinpoint one specific idea, I feel like there's so many little things that are thrown in and make you think something completely different. Very interesting
I’ve seen a few videos about this movie and no one has pointed out that her clothes change throughout the movie. In the beginning she’s wearing a bright yellow scarf and a red coat, then she takes her coat off in the car and she’s got an orange striped shirt, then it goes to a purple striped shirt for just a minute and goes back to orange. It switches to a dress for a scene and then goes back to the brown striped sweater. By the end her coat is dark blue and her shirt has dark blue stripes.
I’m sure there’s some significance there.
Also, when they’re in the car going to his parents house, she’s not even in the passenger seat when the camera is on him while he’s talking/responding to her.
It’s pretty clear that he is a smart guy but he clearly has some issues with anger and relationships. Of course she’s a manifestation of his mental illness/past regrets and there’s so much dialog because he’s talking to himself, trying to decide wether or not he should just get it over with or keep on living alone and invisible. Of course we know what option he decided to go with.
Yes, I did notice all the different clothes on her through out the movie... also Did you notice that there’s a part when she’s in jake’s parents house where she is wearing a pearl necklace with small pearl earrings, when in fact she was wearing big hoop earrings all along. That caught my eye, don’t know why! Very interesting and unique movie, I’m intrigued actually, I don’t know what to make of it! 🤔😌
Also during the dinner scene Toni Collete’s hair length changes. At the beginning its shoulder length but towards the end it become past shoulder length. Also her skirt changes from brown to blue.
Jessie Buckley reciting the poem in the car had me mesmerized. Her performance was astonishing.
Brief trigger warning here bc my comment is going to discuss my experiences w suicidal thoughts and how I interpreted the end of the movie. So, while the ending of the movie does feel quite beautiful in a lot of ways, I still believe that Jake does ultimately kill himself. I say this because when I attempted a few years back, I remember this overwhelming feeling of peace, relief, and almost joy knowing it was coming all to a close. I think the ending really encapsulates that, that feeling just before the fade to black, or in this case, blue. After all his years, struggling with abuse and a life that feels unfullfilled and lacking in companionship, the one time he felt confidence was when nothing else mattered anymore. Also while watching the film, the 'young woman' character to me seemed to really represent what it must feel like to live with dementia. Forgetting things, fogginess, confusion, feeling like no one is listening to you, everything feels surreal. I think her confusion does represent Jake's memory loss in his old age, and his own confusion and bewilderment at it. This isn't a young man killing himself, this is a sad lonely old man who is losing his mind, the only thing he ever really had. It's a sad story, but I do appreciate a representation in a film of depression and suicidal thoughts in an older/elderly person. Too often all the focus is on teenagers in these types of stories, which can feel isolating to those who are older and struggling.
Swear down I thought Jake was a psychic that kidnapped a girl and tried changing her mindscape and killed her as a janitor when he failed and he did it several times because that bin was so full XD
I don't know if anybody noticed it, so we see Pauline Kael's book on the shelf, and the monologue Jessie Buckley gives about Woman Under the Influence is the word for word review that Pauline Kael gave that movie.
I noticed it and Pauline Kael was one of the few critics who despised "A Woman Under The Influence". Lucy BECOMES Pauline as she recites the review verbatim.
Awesome breakdown mane. I just love this film soo so much. BTW that mane Jake is FULLY dead.
Reasons:
1.When Jake meets lucy as his old self in the hall, HE finally accepts and comes to the realization that, maybe the constant controlfreak in him should just let go of the steering wheel for once and move on. Which he decides to do and just gives a peaceful smile towards Lucy and moves on...
2)...To fight the fantasies/wishes where the troubled younger self can always get a "love of his life" as long as the old man is still alive. Of course the future can always fix all past shortcomings, one greatest lie ever told. The dance- fight wich the older jake(janitor) wins by stabbing these fantasies in the heart is when he defeats the lie. The lie that traps him in wishful past times that nevee occurred.
3. The older Jake after having found the answer to THE question, decides to shower himself in delusions and acquire every desire that life has denied him one last time. He's fully aware of this. He gets a Nobel prize and he performs his most favorite musical to an audience that is absolutely enchanted. An aged-up audience of a very happy& old lucy is full of joy and love in hes eyes . This shows that Jake is now ok to stare at death. So he decides to go out all out, fulfilled and all albeit made-up fulfillments. Thoughts are, after all, just like colors in our brain. The brain makes it all up.
4) For me, the final nail in the coffin👀 is when the maggot-filled pig representing death comes to pick him up. The pig is chill about death and tries to reassure Jake.
5. Lastly, ideas&thoughts are like viruses. Lucy actually says that she'd be okey goin out by hypothermia when she is left alone, freezing in the car. That's when the idea how he'll shut lights manifests itself. But the claustrophobic cold weather, imbeded in his memory/thoughts influenced how he died. In the cold, locked in own car.
The moment when the animated pig shows up, that's when he's taking his last breaths.
These are just some of what I picked up. There's probably more clues on the fate of that old man but I think
The poor janitor did indeed succumb to the virus that targets a lot of lonely older folks. Another perspective is that he won against misery of living in the treacherous and luring promises of the future knowing that if shit didn't happen in the past, it doesn't necessarily mean that the future will eventually amend.
Indeed a very depressive film but a very good one.
4,9/5
Excuse the english, it's not my first tongue. :)
Some movies just don’t have to make sense.
I’m thinking’s of ending things is yet another smoothly disturbing Kaufmanesque trip.Standout performances from all the cast members,beautiful cinematography.Literally poetry in motion.As a person who doesn’t read books nor watch plays,to be honest I was totally intrigued by the abstractiveness of it.But then the movie just caught me in a flurry of emotions that I have never experienced.People would be quick to shut this down for its abstractiveness but I think if you’re not innit for the plot and is willing to put down 2 hours 15 minutes for a different experience,this movie is a no brainer
deepblur For godssakes, man, read a book. The book that this film was based on was brilliant, disturbing, creepy and deeply surprising. I absolutely LOVED the book. This movie shouldn’t have been made, or at least not by Kaufman. It absolutely did not do the book justice. IMO there’s only so much you can do with a book that’s based on interior thought. And it maybe takes one extra hour to read the book. READ BOOKS. It’s worth it. In this case, you’ve already ruined the book by seeing the movie.
Yeah man I get why people who read the book were disappointed with the movie,but Kaufman being Kaufman took all his artistic liberty.I like abstract movies whether it’s lynch ,mallick or kaufman. But I do think there were some moments in the film where atleast some of the plot was explained but yeah it was too hard to notice in between all the heavy dialogue.Im pretty sure I would have hated the movie if I had read the book.
I want to know more about the significance of the missed calls to Lucy. There is a picture hanging in the entryway of Jake's parents house that says "call again". It seems like when things started to spiral the phone would ring and it would put the story back on course.
Yes, I couldn't understand it's importance and couldn't link it to what was happening. Was Jake getting calls from someone called Lucy?
It's not really clarified in the book either, but I believe it was simply just Jake talking to himself? The call is by an old man talking about 'there's only one question. One question to answer.' It's the exact same thing that you hear Janitor-Jake say at the beginning of the movie as he's looking out the window. I believe the question simply is 'are you going to do it? You're thinking of ending things, but will you do it?'
I feel like the missed calls are all representative of failed romantic relationships. But that’s just a thought.
A bit of trivia: The poem that the girl recites in the car, “Bonedog” by Canadian poet Eva H.D., is not actually in the book Rotten Perfect Mouth, as implied in the bedroom scene. Even though the film shows the girl reading the poem from the book, the poem is actually an unpublished work. But Rotten Perfect Mouth is real, published and fantastic, and can be ordered here:
mansfieldpress.net/2015/03/rotten-perfect-mouth-2
I also think he may have raped that girl in the bar. There’s so many rape references and creepy pervert references. The song, the fact Lucy/the young woman can describe Jake (kind of like how it would be difficult to describe your attacker), How Lucy hides from the janitor
Agreed. And describing him as a creep who wouldn’t leave her alone and her wishing her boyfriend was there.
Not necessarily, but I can also see where you're coming from. Lucy hiding from the janitor is the real life old Jake's own doing. He's trying to hold on to Lucy and shield her from the eventual demise she's going to have to meet. He has been here many times before. But this time, he has sensed it's different. He knows that this is the end. That when reality sets in and the janitor finally has his answer. His death will also mean the death of the fictionalized "love of his life"
As for the song, I think it was just to show that the only real truth in life rests comfortably on the jaws of time. The song was celebrated before but time has come to shine a different light on it. That no matter how much demented things can, at first seem beatiful and enchanting from a certain light, eventually time will have it's due share. Whether through a death of a glorious or a horrendous thing.
Idk, this is how I interpreted their relationships.
@@melikatl His own fears...He just want to reassure himself through Lucy, trying to figure out/ convince himself that he's a good man. I'm pretty sure everbody have private dark thoughts& scenarios where put themselves in other people's shoes in thise those scenarios to see how one would react.
Dreezy fair point, but I feel as though there’s too many rape and peeping Tom references for that to be a mistake... perhaps it’s just his over all disgust with himself for being a creepy pervert guy who can’t get girls so it’s a source of shame for him... but on the further end of that spectrum it’s that he’s remorseful for maybe forcing himself on someone or scaring girls etc
i thought exactly the same thing!
The scene where Janitor Jake says his goodbyes to the woman in the hall and they both cry, probably one of the best shot scenes of al time, it's a tragedy that we're all afraid of, being lonely, dying along.
Kino
wtf are you doing here
Wasn't expecting to see you here how did you like the movie?
he's looking for answers guys stop laughing
Incredible.
The one thing I was able to pick up on is when the girlfriend starts talking about a film in the car ride back and she immediately starts doing a perfect impression of movie critic Pauline Kale, whose massive book of collected essays is also present in Jake’s pile of books and DVDs in his childhood bedroom. Once that happened, it became clear Lucy/Louise/Amy was also a receptacle for his artistic influences, in the same way she mentions in the basement how most people are just copies of other people’s opinions.
I do feel like he had raped that girl. The way she describes him as a creep and wishing her boyfriend was there at the time when she met him because he wouldn’t leave her alone and so many other mentions of rape. She was very triggered by the “baby it’s cold outside” song. This is a man with dementia replaying his life before his suicide.
Oh and the two girls that worked at that ice cream place could be victims as well? Idk
yeah i got that feeling too, he also said that age was just a number in like a regrettable way, so i dunno
Interesting take, I totally didn't think about that
@Eran Menashri He did give me that creep vibe but those girls were actually student at the high school he cleaned. However watching it again, you notice that she often changed the story on they met. So, I'm thinking it might've been constant thoughts of what he could've happened that night. If he had just approached her or if she had approached him. And then when she actually talked about how they met, you realize that his insecurity had gotten to him.
I only realized it on replay but the brunette girl working at the ice cream store is also a student at the school, you see her walk past the janitor and it’s obvious that she’s lonely and doesn’t have any friends there- I think he could’ve assaulted her at school?
I don't think he raped her, I think it's just him thinking about what he could have done on trivia night, but her not wanting to stay and talk to him, she just wanted to go home with her friend.
Its such a mind bending movie. It reminds me of Jake Gyllenhaal's movie, Enemy. And the dialogue is so beautiful. Which makes me appreciate it even more because I can actually understand it. Pleasantly surprised by this.
Cannot thank you enough! I was so frustrated that I JUST didn’t get it! Now I do!
🙌🏻🙌🏻
You did a great job putting this together Austin. This movie more than anything tells us to do the best with the time that is given to us while we're young. Jake states at one point that the greatest discoveries in art and science are made by young people. Otherwise the hopes ambitions and dreams of your life would remain just that ... dreams. A fantasy that you play over and over in your head, like Jake who visits the memories of his past and what could have been accepting awards, being a scientist or an artist. It's the story of a deeply lonely man.
I've read the book and now seen the movie and I think it's one of the best of this year.
One of those movies that you keep pulling new stuff from upon rewatching.
I'll also add that reading the book helps in understanding the movie much better.
Love this comment! I agree!
imma need to rewatch this. I might like it even more on the rewatch
Did you go all the way to the end of the credits? It sounds like he starts his car, so he might have decided to live?
Yes, incredible Easter egg
The movie is so full of details, every other minute you see a new thing to make your mind go brrr, one of those being where jake dismisses her after every sentence she says that he disapproves of, probably kinda reflecting on his want for her girlfriend to be submissive
This movie fees like a visual representation of the album Everywhere at the End of Time, by The Caretaker. The same haunting existential drift of a fractured mind trying to glue moments of time into cohesion but ending up trapped in a world of their own. Aren't we seeing it from an unreliable narrator with dementia? I thought he died I a fugue state at the end, horribly confused with reality bending around him.
This is the greatest English explanation so far, because you do it calmly and also refer to the book. I only watched a 10-minute German explanation which was just as good as yours.
I had Toni Colette's tinnitus in form of a Hans Zimmer BRRR packed as ice cream from Tulsey Town in my head while watching this.
It was a bit too sweet.
I'm in awe but also super confused.
Much like the cinema of David Lynch, I believe Charlie's work is depicting not literal narratives/plot events, and NOT the"it's all a dream" narrative but a "state-of-mind" subconscious narrative, if such a thing exists. Even though the "syndromes" his characters deal with change in every movie, the distinction is often meaningless. It's all just shades, or "tinges" of blue/depression. Even when rooted in childhood trauma, parenting and attachment styles, the characters struggle with that deeply embedded self-loathing which manifests in the many odd syndromes they manifest, as well as the crippling lack of connection to others. I'm personally quite attracted to this style of cinema, and it stands to reason that most of these deal with themes death and the nature of consciousness, and have magical realism or surreal elements. 2001 being the most well known example of this kind of movie, Gravity is likely one of the most recent and highest grossing versions of it. And Mr. Robot probably the best TV example of it.
Movie left me in a weird state of emotion but explanation gave me goosebumps!!!!
At 1:35:00 (or 39m left in the movie) “Lucy” actually replaced by the actress in the movie that old Jake saw.
This was a wonderful explanation, coming from someone who hasn’t read the book. But I was so enamored with the movie, and you’re explanation of the story that I fully intend on picking up the book as soon as I can.. The story now that I’ve been guided through is oddly relatable, and wonderfully played out. Thank you for the vid. Definitely deserve a sub for it ❤️
SPOILER ALERT...
CHARLIE KAUFFMAN IS A GENUS..
Best analysis I've been on UA-cam of this movie 😊 spot on!
The actress in the movie the janitor is watching actually appears next to Jake in the car (appearing as his girlfriend), right before they reach the high school.
Charlie Kaufman attention to details is amazing, one of the things I have noticed in the movie is no one touched their food when they sat at dinner, Amy thanks jake’s mother then takes the plates back full to the kitchen.
I've read the book, so I had a bit of an easier time following the movie, but Kaufman's interpretation of it was awesome and the changes and ending were surprising and poetic.
A brilliant movie, and a brilliant novel. I know a lot of people weren't crazy about Kaufman replacing the chase at the end with a speech; but I thought it was beautiful and tragic in its own way. Rather than being brutal, it shows the audience one last glimpse of how far Jake's self-hatred has gone.
Has anyone posted about the end credits? Sounds like the janitors car starting up, so did he (Jake) survive and accept his life? Thinking about it the car covered in snow looks more like (young) Jake's car. Anyone have an opinion???
That was one heck of explanation. Very thorough and helpful
Damn, I watched this movie because I was expecting a horror movie. It’s a complete 360. And it’s a very intellectual movie, and I liked it. It kinda gave me a heavy feeling.
I think I’m scared I’ll be like Jake someday.
in the end jake's car-engine was clunking then it turned on & we heard the car drive off. i think that means jake did not "end things" in the end ; i think he survived the suicidal thoughts and suicide attempt.
I have mixed feelings about this one. It was intriguing and had good performances, but it also felt incredibly pretentious...
when pretention and decay mix. :/
that was a great analysis, thank you! one thing about the ending though, i think it's pretty clear that he is in fact going to "end things", that's clear from his "dialogue" with the pig
You reach an age when you realize you are alone, and the only people, your parents, who ever loved you are all dead. You have achieved nothing, and made no name for yourself, and left no legacy of work or in you DNA. You sired no one into to this world to recall you fondly. I think the entire movie takes place in the car at the school's parking-lot. I don't think he ever gets out of the car. He wakes up, drives to the lot, and dies. Maybe he will make a stir in the neighborhood by how he offed himself. That is his legacy, but it won't last either. Time goes on...
I’ve always believed movies that leave you with a thought is true art. I didn’t understand this movie at first but that’s the movie experience, your suppose to leave with something
I love this film, it's so sad, I am devastated. I hope that we'll be able to see that a lot people is fighting a huge battle, and that we'll try to help each other. What an intriguing film. I'll probably keep thinking of Charlie Kaufman's I'm Thinking of Ending Things for the many weeks to come.
Well I'm Jake I guess. The fantasies, the mental state that I'm in, and the constant visualisation of "what ifs" moments of the past, future or present.
That's why I'm always thinking of ending things. "Once this thought arrive. It stays. It sticks. It lingers. It dominates." Something you carries with you 'til you die.
Thank you, bro, for a spoiler review! I’ve been thinking of this film all day since screening it. A+
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The dinner scene reminded me of Eraserhead's dinner. Specially Thwelis looking at Lucy, just as the dad in Eraserhead lost look.
Oh Man, I really loved how you dissected this. I watched it and thought it was amazing, but now after watching this I'm going to watch it again. I really loved it, and every actor in this film, really made it even more amazing. Can't say enough good things about this wonderful piece of art!
What about the random man talking on the phone, that kept saying “there’s only one question to resolve. I’m scared, I feel a little crazy. I’m not lucid. The assumptions are right. I can feel my fear growing. Now is time for the answer, just one question. On question to answer”
you summarized this perfectly in 20 mins, this is exactly what i was looking for, thank you
I love that you caught the beautiful mind on a pile, but didn't notice that that speech is from a Beautiful Mind.
Yea I definitely needed to watch this lol. The best thing about it for me was the poem bonedog
You somehow made sense of this movie. I didn't know this was possible.
I’m thinking of ending things is the newest Netflix film directed by Charlie Kaufman. This was a film I was very excited for, it had so many things going for it. All the talent in front and behind the camera and the story just looked fascinating. Did it deliver though, in short answer kinda but there’s more to be said. First of all let me just say how much I respect and admire Charlie Kaufman as a Screenwriter and even director. His work is always super unique, different and they seem to focus on characters that are well realized. I’m thinking of ending things though, feels like a 2020 Charlie Kaufman film monitored by Netflix where he is under restrictions on creativity and can’t fully express this story the way he would have liked. I know that this film is based on a book so that may explain why this story and the outcome of it all is so unfulfilling but it had so much potential to be something better. Let me just give credit where credit is due though, because there’s a lot of positives to I’m thinking of ending things and there’s no denying that. It’s a well done film overall, the way it was shot, the musical theme the film has throughout its runtime is pleasant and joyous, the acting from everyone is excellent but the standout for me was Toni Collette. She was always an actress of such range, where she is able to go with the characters she plays, her commitment and her performance here just gave me more respect for her. I’m thinking of ending things is a character driven film that prioritizes conversations that characters have with each other. It has a lot of dialogue, and there aren’t many locations that are explored. Most of the settings are in locations that are seen often and we’re supposed to get comfortable spending time in them. Since the film has so much dialogue it’s important for the screenplay to be strong. The screenplay is intriguing at times and I liked the tone of it all but I felt like what the film was trying to convey it didn’t do a good job of conveying. The first two acts of the film are great, I liked the setup, where the story was potentially going and how the film wasn’t afraid of not explaining itself. Let’s talk about that, how the film doesn’t explain itself. From the get go a lot of how this story unfolds is odd, weird, creepy and you have a lot of questions. That’s how we the audience relate to the protagonist because we're experiencing the same things and have the same questions as she does. So there is some sense and search to find out what is going on but I felt like all that went to waste in the clumsy third act. The third act didn’t wrap things up at all, but instead got more confusing, weird and I checked out. I’m thinking of ending things is a film with a lot of depth, hidden meanings and there’s so much more under the surface. I give it praise for not trying to go the straightforward route but with a third act that doesn’t care about giving the answers and explaining itself the outcome of it all made me ask what was the purpose of all that just happened.
I'm about to watch this for the third time! I've gone through a dozen YT vids on this movie, all of which pretty much agree on the same points, but there is something no one has mentioned yet.
If you watch the end credits all the way through, there's the sound of a car (or a truck???) turning over and possibly driving off. I have to watch it again to confirm, but it's almost as if Jake DID attempt to suicide by freezing naked in the truck, but then decided not to. IDK....thought it was worth a mention because the audio design of this film is friggin' incredible. Thought the motor sounds at the end left some questions for the viewer.
Be well!
G
Favorite movie of the year so far thanks for helping me figure it out
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Now I get how the movie was all about Jake and his life, when I was watching it I kind of thought it was about the woman and when she was on her way to his house she was picturing all these scenarios of meeting his parents and ultimately thought if I don't end things this is how they could end but then it took a weird turn and it was definitely about Jake lol
So at the end, he dies in the car or really goes into the school following the pig?
Also, what about those Brrr cups in the wastebin outside the school?
And the girl who had a scar on her hand like Jake was she also just a part of his imagination fighting himself or as another theory suggests his wife whom he used to beat up?
100% read the book
Youve explained it supremely well, though. It takes a hell lot of time to scratch out the intricacies, thanks for this!
It was pretty easy to figure out Jake was the janitor, but even with all the clues it was impossible for me to come to the conclusion that the whole thing was his fantasy and that the girl wasn't real... because the entire movie is from her perspective. It's filmed as if it's her story, not his. There needed to be something more substantial to show the audience that she was just a fantasy and the story was really about him. This is a little cliche, but what if after the dance routine in the school, you see the old janitor again, then he sees the girl, then she just fades away, then it it cuts to the part where he kills himself. I would have been a Eureka moment... like WOW! HOLY SHIT IT ALL MAKES SENSE!! It could have been a great moment... like in eternal sunshine when you realize the beginning was actually the end and he get's to meet the girl all over again. Kaufman missed a great opportunity with this one. C-
I think you should watch it again with the knowledge that she isn’t real kept in mind. The idea that Jake is projecting his memories onto this character. All the clues are there and its not there for you to catch on the first watch. It’s really subtle. If it was revealed like the way you said, I would’ve hated it. It would of been too obvious and it would be like they were spoon feeding the audience.
@@volcancism.a.d6010 I did watch it again, and you are right. All the clues are there, but (spoiler warning) imagine if you watched Sixth Sense for the first time... and the entire scene where the main character realizes he is dead is left out. The movie would end and you wouldn't have a clue what just happened. Then you would have to watch it again or watch a youtube video to figure out that he was actually a ghost the whole time. It certainly wouldn't have been one of the most iconic movies of all time. Am I right?
Thank you for this soooo much!!🙌🏾🙌🏾
The garbage can full of ice creams was the Janitors thoughts of suicide , going over it over and over again. Until he finally did it.
Exactly what I thought.
The one question to be answered reminded me of Hamlet:
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep;
Magnificent film. 9/10
I think the janitor was a pervert, very similar to Norman Bates, a peeping tom. He watched all these girls throughout the years as a janitor and fantasized about them. In the end I think he felt lonely and guilty and decided to end things. Lucy was a girl from school he fantasized about the most and she may have been nice to him. While the ice cream stand girls mocked him and saw him for what he was. The dance scene tells you everything thing you need to know…first the fantasy version of himself yearning to love this girl and live happily ever after and then...reality takes over, and we the audience, as well as himself can see that he’s actually a monster.
P.S. Like Norman before him, his mom may also be stuffed in the basement, explaining why he didn’t want fantasy Lucy to go down there😊
thanks, you explained a lot to me with out unnecessary details
Appreciate it my friend
I have researched over and over and no one talks about the scene where it is snowing only on the car but the exterior is green.
So here's my take on it... The car represents the interior of the janitor, and no matter how much you fantasize and romanticize, you cannot change what is in the interior, which is why it is stuck in the present time.
I got the same story as you did from it. I didnt like the ending at the time of watching, i think I wanted some corroboration of the version of events I had put together, thats why i appreciate your video.I thought what the hell kind of ending is that and gave it a thumbs down but I dont think it was a bad movie at all, I think it gets a bit better once you think about it a bit more. I usually like dreamlike films where you can get into a persons head so on reflection I might change my rating. I dont think I'd want to watch it again though.
You are a genus Austin..Loved your explanation.. I also had similar thoughts on the movie
The first 40 mins watching, I thought I had it all figured out but whenever everything started going really random and crazy I was like
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