“I’m Thinking of Ending Things” is the saddest film I’ve ever watched

Directed by highly acclaimed pragmatist Charlie Kaufman, I’m Thinking About Ending things is the saddest film I’ve ever watched. From Being John Malkovich and the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the movie serves as his comeback after leaving the film industry for a short leave. The movie even received applause from critics.

An overview of I’m Thinking of Ending Things

The 2020 film follows a couple whose relatively short relationship seems to have hit the rocks. It began when the young woman joins her seven-week boyfriend on a long drive to his farm. In the beginning, the young woman is referred to as Lucy. And, she was already thinking of ending things with Jake.

He doesn’t appear to have any idea and seems to feel more worried about “Lucy” meeting his eccentric parents. The film then goes on to show a very inconsistent narrative. This is shown when she started to be referred to by other names like Louisa, Lucia, and Ames among others.

Adding to her changing interests, even Jake’s parents shift from one age to another throughout the entire interaction. Throughout the first two parts of the film, scenes from the janitor appeared. These scenes appear to be completely detached from the storyline that the film features.

A certain sadness surrounds the film.

A layer of class commentary reflects the movie’s plot and themes even though it remains pragmatic and philosophical. Although many wouldn’t see or view this film as political in nature, critics often forget to utilize the political and economic lens. This extracts real-world applications from the director’s usually fantastical and imaginative settings.

In the film, Jake is incredibly smart, educated, cultured, and well-read. His extensive and in-depth intelligence isolated and alienated him from his blue-collar profession. He was a janitor capable of immense self-reflection and extensive loneliness. This shows that he is actually a deviation from the usual film trope. This, of course, revolves around stereotypically depicting low-income workers as shallow and ignorant.

The film also shows a form of class struggle that remains so imperative and different. This involves the telling of Jake struggling with his own class disposition within himself and not any other extrinsic elements. A form of man versus society narrative so deeply immersed from a man versus himself trajectory that many of the class commentary depicted in the film may escape many viewers.

Loneliness in film.

The humanized depiction of the janitor in this film involves one of the most tender and careful ways of depicting a low-class character in the film industry. The usual tropes and cheap cinematic elements used to depict poverty and class struggles are not present in this masterpiece.

Jake’s empty wallet was never shown. Nor was he depicted to be hungry nor in danger of being homeless. Rather, one of the most highlighted depictions of Jake’s poverty was his immense shame from “Lucy” seeing his janitor uniform. This humanizes the lower class because it gives them a sense of dignity and integrity that they can lose.

The fact that Jake cannot even bear to simply create an imagined reality built upon a girl falling in love with him despite his profession. This showed that even in an imagined world- that thought still seemed to be too fantastical to be convincing.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a film about how our incapacity to live in the dark, sordid realities of the real world. This could cause us towards a life of reclusion in our own minds. Wherein our realities – no matter how imagined and fabricated they may be, can no longer hurt us.