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WTF is happening in 'I'm Thinking of Ending Things'? (Patreon)

Published:
2020-09-09 15:14:23
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Charlie Kaufman's latest film I'm Thinking of Ending Things is arguably his most inaccessible work yet. I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about it, reading about it, and dissecting it. Here's the best explanation I've been able to come up with (Note: Spoilers, obviously).

It's been a long time since I've made a video essay as researched as this one, and it'll probably be a long time until I do one again. It's just too much work to do on top of my full time job to become a regular thing, but this movie was so compelling (plus I had a brief opening with the holiday weekend) that I pushed through to make it happen. I hope enjoy it.

Executive Producers on this Patreon are thanked at the end of the video. Thanks as always to all Patrons for making my work possible. 

Files

What Is Happening in 'I'm Thinking of Ending Things'? - Plot Summary, Analysis, and Ending Explained

David breaks down the plot of Charlie Kaufman's enigmatic and brilliant new film 'I'm Thinking of Ending Things.' Back me on Patreon: http://Patreon.com/davechen Follow David on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davechensky Listen to David's podcast: http://www.culturallyrelevantshow.com Subscribe to David's newsletter: http://davechen.net/letters Indiewire's interview with Charlie Kaufman: https://www.indiewire.com/2020/09/charlie-kaufman-explains-im-thinking-of-ending-things-1234584492/ Joanna Robinson's breakdown of the film: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/09/im-thinking-of-ending-things-ending-explained-book-oklahoma #netflix #charliekaufman #imthinkingofendingthings

Comments

Jeanie Wayker

Thank you so much for this video essay! This is excellent! I too very much enjoyed the film. It held my attention and made me think. Your excellent video allows me to process and digest this film that I do much appreciate. Thank you for all that you do, Dave! I can’t thank you enough! 👏👏👏💕🙏

Lisa Hawthorne

I'm going to watch this and come on back. I do love your video essays but I have to do my homework!

natalia lopes

Hi Dave, great video. I was also puzzling about this one. Did you watch to the very end, after all the credits? Specially, did you hear something? I think I did and it makes me reinterpret the whole movie (at least a bit).

David Chen

SPOILER FOR THE MOVIE . . . . . . . I initially interpreted it as snow being removed from the parking lot but some people are saying it’s the car trying to start. Yes, this would indeed alter my entire interpretation of that ending. What a maddening thing to put in the post credits! (The whole movie was pretty maddening, but still)

natalia lopes

More spoilers.... I only looked at the credits because in an interview charlie kauffman said something like people should watch the credits because I explain more references there... Well, there weren't that many explained references there so I started to wonder if he was trying to point at something else. My take in the end is that is a recurring pattern for Jake, sort of like his nightly exercise of going through his life and frustrations (therefore the many many cups in the trash, the name changes). Maybe this interpretation is equaly sad.

Frank Parrinello

This kind of movie is usually catnip for me, and I have the Twin Peaks unified theory word doc to prove it!! I'm still trying to process how I feel about this one, though. That’s because I was really attached to the movie I thought this was for the first two-thirds of its running time, when it seemed to be about a woman who is thinking of ending things with her boyfriend as she realizes some very uncomfortable things about him, and herself. The movie I’m Thinking of Ending Things turned out to be -- about a frustrated, lonely, unfulfilled person trying to reckon with his life -- isn’t as interesting to me. The scene of the young woman reciting her poem -- and Jake’s reaction to it -- is a good example, I think. In my original reading of that scene, it seemed that the young woman was expressing her own feelings, but that Jake couldn’t help but project his insecurities onto the poem. But with the ending in mind, it’s clear that the poem really is about Jake’s feelings about his home, and has nothing to do with the young woman at all. As clever as that is, I liked my incomplete understanding of events better. It’s more interesting to me to see the dynamic of two two characters who are simultaneously bonded by and unable to connect because of their mutual sadness about life’s realities. I think it’s totally fair for a two-hour feature to pull something like this, though. The movie this turned out to be is pretty great, too, and I guess that my reaction is part of the point the Kaufman is trying to make about Jake’s sense of loss. Also, while I agree that this is a pretty depressing movie overall, I think the fact that Jake’s girlfriend rejects him (even in his fantasy!) is probably a good thing, in terms of Jake’s development as a person. The young woman repeatedly points out that Jake doesn’t really know her, and only wants someone to bear witness to his self-sacrifice and goodness. His dawning awareness that any woman so little understood would and should ultimately reject him might show some growth! I think that the scene near the end, which has them hugging (but her declining to take his slippers) bears this out.

Peter Hart

SPOILERS FOR THE BOOK AND MOVIE...Great analysis and interpretation. You talking about some of the references helped me understand the film more. My one problem with this movie is that it feels like it’s sometimes needlessly confusing. There were times where I think Kaufman could have dropped in some more hints as to what is going on without it hurting the movie. Still, I thought it was very thought provoking. Here's my interpretation. I already posted this in the youtube comments section of your video, but I kept editing it and adding onto it as I thought about it more, so I thought I might as well post the final version here. I’m sure my interpretation will change over time since there’s so much going on in this movie. The thing Jake is most insecure about is that he is (or at least he feels that he is) unintelligent, unoriginal, and ultimately unremarkable. This is apparent when the girlfriend tries to enter the basement and he stops her because it represents a part of him that he's insecure about and doesn’t want her to see. When the girlfriend eventually enters the basement it's revealed that Jake’s paintings are just copies, and she remarks that “It's tragic how few people possess their souls before they die. Nothing is more rare in any man than an act of his own. Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” This is how Jake sees himself, and he tries to compensate for this by hiding behind a facade of intellectualism. It’s why he’s so obsessed with being seen as smart by everyone else, it’s why he constantly corrects the girlfriend and bores her with discussions on academic topics, it’s why he’s frustrated that he got an award for “diligence” instead of “acumen,” and it’s why his last fantasy is a recreation of the final scene of “A Beautiful Mind.” Jake tries to imagine a woman who will validate him as a man of exceptional intelligence, but even in his own mind she resists conforming to the role he has created for her, and she often intellectually bests him (most notably when she rips apart his reasons for liking "A Woman Under The Influence"). Kaufman’s movies are often about how people hide behind facades because they’re scared that people won’t love them for who they really are. This theme is laid out pretty bluntly in the lyrics for the song "Song for Caden" from the Synecdoche, New York soundtrack: “I'm singing this song, but it's about you. Whoever else is listening, this song is only about you. See there's just one story, and everyone's the star, and it goes like this: No one will ever love you for everything you are, and so you build up layers of deception, and you leave out things to alter the perceptions of the ones you love who would never love you back If they knew all about you, every solitary fact. And the sadness of your life Is built upon this lie of really knowing anyone or having them know you.” In the book, the girlfriend is an idealized version of a woman Jake met long ago in a bar. Jake wanted to get her number but was too shy to ask, and the story of the book is him imagining what would have happened if he got her number. In the movie the girlfriend seems less like one particular girl that got away and more like an amalgamation of many different women in Jake's life which is why her personality and identity change throughout the movie. These women include Pauline Kale, the woman who wrote “Bonedog,” the waitress in the romantic comedy, past crushes, possibly various women he's been in relationships with, and maybe even feminine parts of himself(?). It's significant that this amalgamation of women takes on the form of a girl who resembles the waitress in the romantic comedy; note that the waitress nicknames the guy in the movie “nimrod” and calls him an idiot multiple times, but she ends up falling in love with him anyway. Jake connects to this movie because while on one level he desires to be validated as intelligent (especially by the women in his life), on a deeper level he wants someone who sees past the intellectual facade and loves him for who he really is even if he's a “nimrod." However, the ultimate point of the film might be that no one has a "real self" underneath the facade and that what Jake is insecure about is actually just an essential fact of the human condition. As Jake's girlfriend says, our opinions are someone else's opinions, our lives are a mimicry, and our passions are a quotation. This is why much of the movie (which is to say much of Jake's fantasy) is just characters quoting other works, and why there are even whole scenes lifted from plays and other movies; Jake's whole internal world is constructed out of other people's ideas. Even when Jake breaks down in the car and is trying to be honest about his inner turmoil he can only express his suffering in terms of cliches, and the girlfriend responds to his vulnerability by saying "platitudes all!" It's a pretty cynical movie lol.

Judson White

This is a great interpretation video and made me appreciate the film much more. I tend to grow to love mind boggling films like this over time (i.e. Mulholland Drive), but video essays like this make me want to immediately rewatch it. Seeing the story through this interpretation makes it quite haunting and one I won’t forget anytime soon. *SPOILER BELOW* I also listened through the end credits (the sound of birds was oddly comforting), and I also picked up on the sounds off screen. I agree it seems to be the sound of a snow plow nearby, but early on I could’ve sworn I heard a car driving out of the parking lot. Perhaps Jake’s fantasy persona driving back home with Lucy to live the happy life he never had? Who knows. Also, what’s up with the dumpster full of ice cream cups? Wasn’t sure how to interpret that. Netflix is pushing the ice cream in the marketing - it was on the movie’s icon when I pressed play.

David Chen

The dumpster full of ice cream cups might be an indication that this is a fantasy that is repeated...