![]() But does he really see her? The Young Woman is not so sure. Jake is seemingly attentive to this woman he takes an interest in her work, or at least convincingly pretends to. Who is this Young Woman, what are those phone calls about, and what does she want from Jake? What does Jake want from her? The drive to the parental homestead is stacked with prickly arguments, occasionally simpatico repartee and numerous awkward silences. A male voice offers an imploring riddle: “Now is the time for the answer, just one question, one question to answer.” She also keeps receiving strange calls on her cellphone, from her own number. The Young Woman thinks Jake can hear her thoughts-and maybe he can. Right at the beginning, in a statement we don’t yet know how to parse, she lets us know that she’s “thinking of ending things.” Kaufman also signals early on that none of this should be accepted as realism the story is an examination of psychological see-sawing, maybe even a kind of disintegration. He picks her up in his car just as a snowstorm is threatening. The guy is Jake (Jesse Plemons), and he’s invited the Young Woman to meet his parents, who live somewhere out in the country. Jessie Buckley, the Irish actor who was so captivating in 2018’s Wild Rose, plays a character known as the Young Woman, who’s having doubts about a guy she’s been seeing for about six weeks. ![]() Which isn’t to say the lead actors don’t give their all, even when Kaufman hasn’t made it clear what we’re supposed to make of any of it. I’m Thinking of Ending Things must have been arduous to make, and it’s excruciatingly tedious to watch. For every moment of raw, affecting insight there are zillions of milliseconds of Kaufman’s proving what a tortured smartie he is. ![]() But the result isn’t extra tenderness, just more lumpy baggage. Kaufman has poked many holes in its surface, the better to fill it with extra stuff, like you’d pierce the skin of an uncooked chicken to add pats of butter. Its efficiency, at least, is gratifying you can almost read it in less time than it takes to watch the movie. Reid’s novel is slim and tense, a low-commitment dose of mental-illness horror. But how many hamster wheels is too many? Kaufman’s reading of I’m Thinking of Ending Things may provide a rough answer.
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