It would appear that third time was not the charm for Charlie Kaufman, since his most recent directorial effort was an attempt to adapt Iain Reid’s impenetrable I’m Thinking of Ending Things, a novel that seemed even too abstract for someone who has been making a career out of his penchant for the bizarre side of life and the human condition. As one of Kaufman’s most vocal supporters, it’s disheartening to have seen how he failed to deliver anything close to the peaks of his career, whether in his three most significant screenplays (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) or his staggering directorial works (Synecdoche, New York and Anomalisa, the former my choice for best film of the 2000s, the latter an astonishing work that blends stunning animation with a heartfelt story). This film is a different kind of staggering – it forces you to take a few steps back and actually wonder if what you’re seeing is some impossibly-complex story of the human mind falling apart through the guise of a surrealist take on a failing relationship (similar to what Ari Aster did last year in his deranged Midsommar, which isn’t all that better than this one in its approach, but at least had something to say, and presented some kind of rigour in whatever message he was hoping to convey, which isn’t the case here), or just two hours of convoluted, nonsensical ramblings made by a director who is becoming so ensconced in this own genius, he finds himself imploding under the weight of his style. He’s creating a self-indulgent series of moments that seem to be reaching for something profound but fails to find anything remotely meaningful anywhere in this prosaic, aimless film that sadly had its own artistic growth stunted early on by a meandering attempt at sampling from the school of postmodern thought without doing so much as to even look beyond the introductory chapters of the most pedestrian texts on the subject.

What is less of a flaw and more of a blatant annoyance when it comes to looking at I’m Thinking of Ending Things is how it strives so hard to be profound, without actually getting anywhere. Kaufman constructed this film as something that appears to be insightful and interesting on the surface – we’re drawn into this world, where the opening scenes are extremely promising, hinting at something quite enduring. There’s a sense of mystery surrounding the film at the start – the conversations the two characters have are foreboding and fill the viewer with such dread, so we’re naturally very interested in seeing where it’s going, and the (meta)physical voyages these two sorrowful souls are embarking on. Then, at the moment when a more rational filmmaker would pull away to add more nuance to what we know already, Kaufman just compounds more misguided ambiguity onto this, creating an uneasy imbalance between intention and execution. The longer these scenes become, the more one realizes how little this film has to say. Before we know it, we’ve reached the midway point, and not only has the film failed to deliver anything in terms of some coherent meaning, it seems to be actively trying to incite even more confusion. The resounding cries of “surrealism isn’t supposed to make sense” doesn’t quite fit here, because even the most abstract works of art have some meaning behind it. Similarly, claims that Kaufman was adapting a book that was impossible to translate to screen doesn’t work either, since transforming one work into another format is far from an achievement that should be used as the hinge upon which a film should be considered great. For someone who has epitomized the idea of cinematic originality and produced absolutely essential texts in the three screenplays mentioned above, Kaufman deciding to use his already elusive time as a filmmaker to adapt a novel that quite simply was fine to stand on its own without the tampering of a film that truly could not ever encompass everything the author had to say, feels like an enormous downgrade, and a waste of the time of one of cinema’s great iconoclasts.

“Why should things be easy to understand?” is often used as a clever way to establish a foundation for postmodernism, with many thinkers and critics adopting Thomas Pynchon’s mantra as a means to show how art doesn’t have to follow any rules, but rather actively subverting them can be seen as a legitimate form of expression. This is the problem with I’m Thinking of Ending Things – not only does it fail to set itself within a clear vision of the world, which it subsequently deconstructs, but it also seems wholly uninterested in putting in the effort. This is a film that wants to be strange simply for the sake of it, and while this may appear to be artistically-resonant, it just doesn’t hit any of the right notes to be considered all that effective. The story centres on a young couple who start to realize the cracks in their relationship, which appear during a road-trip to visit parents. Undoubtedly, this is a story with a great deal of potential – Reid made sure to infuse the original text with layers of meaning that offered fascinating glimpses into the lives of these characters – but in the case of Kaufman’s adaptation (which I’m hesitant to call a butchering since there’s at least some iota of reasoning behind his methods of working from the source). The problem is that there is a complete lack of warmth, pathos or recognizable human emotion to be found anywhere in I’m Thinking of Ending Things, which is counterproductive for a work that proposes itself as something that gets to the root of existence through a blend of nihilistic discourse and existential ponderings but doesn’t always deliver on its promises. Even the most arid works of surrealism tend to burrow themselves into the psyche of the viewer in a way that they actually do enjoy it, even in a more unconventional way – Reid’s novel does just this, especially in the more challenging moments that simply had no chance at making it into the film. Kaufman seems to be daring us to have an unpleasant experience with this film – we’re actively encouraged to keep our distance, remain far away from the events we see depicted. Normally, this wouldn’t be a bad approach – but how exactly does one explain such decisions when the very fabric of your story is supposedly a deep-dive into the most haunting orifices of the human mind? The film wants to expose the most harrowing recesses that reside in each and every one of us – as evident by the narrative shifting between the two protagonists, especially in the use of voice-over narration to indicate inner thoughts – without actually looking to engage with the most fundamental themes, instead choosing the avenue of the most mundane balderdash imaginable, going for something that couldn’t be achieved without a clear understanding of where it wanted to go in the first place.

What differentiates I’m Thinking of Ending Things from other films that fail to achieve what they set out to was that this is a film that could’ve very easily succeeded, meaning that its decision to take up residence in the realm of complete, unhinged mediocrity was even more upsetting. Kaufman’s changes to the novel are obviously well-documented by both admirers and detractors (and strangely used in tandem with the belief that having read the novel gives some deeper understanding of this text by the former group), and one can’t ever begrudge a filmmaker for working from the perspective of making necessary elisions and additions to what is already a very complex text, in the hopes of adding his own artistic stylings into it. Kaufman is a very distinct artist, which made the idea of him adapting the Reid novel both extremely appropriate, and somewhat intimidating – originality has always been his most primal asset, even when working from a previously-published text, or crafting something in the realm of the familiar (such as a metaphysical odyssey into the mind of a famous actor, or ruminating on the feeling of isolation after the end of a relationship). Yet, in I’m Thinking of Ending Things, he seems to abandon his authorial voice entirely – the remnants of Kaufman are certainly there, but more as if someone is doing a poor impersonation of him, rather than the artist himself producing something on his own terms. Not quite self-parody in the way that other idiosyncratic artists have tended to become too enveloped by their styles later in their careers, but rather a kind of realization to his own genius that removes the elusive mystique that previously defined his more successful work, and instead sees him traversing similar themes, but without the endless imagination that established him as an essential artist in the first place, which creates the sensation that we should be captivated by what we’re witnessing, but which the director simply struggles to convey in any legitimate way.

Inarguably, Kaufman has never struck me as one to rest on his laurels, and his entire career has been constructed from perpetual progression, moving on to new and exciting ideas while retaining his most primordial and distinct qualities, adapting them to specific artistic endeavours built from nothing but insatiable curiosity – his films have always pursued some deeper understanding of our species, and whether on the subject of celebrity culture, relationships, existential crises and challenges of identity, Kaufman has consistently demonstrated his own originality, and his persistent refusal to tread through familiar territory. This film inverts that, whereby Kaufman is being almost self-reflective, which causes a massive shift from his more consistently provocative methods of exploring the human condition, and results in a plodding, jejune series of moments that seem disconnected from anything even vaguely recognizable. Detachment from reality is a powerful artistic tool, but it’s also one that can be dangerously lethal to any work that attempts it, especially when it doesn’t have a clear sense of what it wants to say. The novel gives I’m Thinking of Ending Things some context – and by no means do I intend to support the idea that preexisting works should remain untouched by filmmakers – but when a clear understanding of what is being explored is buttressed by another work, you’ve immediately alienated your audience. The film is trying laboriously to be profound but makes the fatal error of believing that concealing relatable messages by way of the path of abstraction equates to brilliance. This doesn’t mean I’m Thinking of Ending Things is entirely void of meaning – the film does have a few interesting ideas, and Kaufman’s tinkering with the source material isn’t always entirely unsuccessful – but it’s in the enormous gaps between these brief moments that the film feels really unnecessarily convoluted and aimless. We have a tendency to mistake what is incomprehensible for something meaningful, when in actuality, something like I’m Thinking of Ending Things is persistently against logic in quite a unfortunate way, being propelled by some literary brennschluss after all the potential artistic fuel has run out.

To his credit, Kaufman crafted something that seems meaningful, and could be easily misinterpreted as something that does offer some interesting discourse on a few different issues – he just faced too many obstacles in realizing his vision. The director seemed to be ticking off a variety of artistic quirks, in the hopes that compounding abstract ideas on top of one another would result in some stupefying experience that will distract from the flimsy attempt at wisdom at the core of the film – throughout the film, we witness musical numbers, apparently insightful discussions into the work of John Cassavetes (when in actuality, it’s a direct replication of Pauline Kael’s wildly negative review of A Woman Under the Influence, which is almost insulting, since Cassavetes was actually able to construct some insightful conversations into the fragile nature of the human mind, something Kaufman outright fails to do here) and many rambling discussions that seem to be deep and complex based on a surface-level judgment, but actually prove themselves to be incredibly shallow, with the intention and the content of these conversations not intersecting all that effectively. It doesn’t help that Kaufman, who is normally exceptional when it comes to writing or directing actors, assembles a small but interesting cast, but fails to use them all to their full potential. Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons are both very good (even though they’ve been better in other works that were far less challenging than this), and lead the film quite well, even when it is clear we’re not ever going to get to know them beyond a few allusions to their background. The film wants us to care about these characters – especially Jake, who was originally conceived as a broken young man whose troubled past is projected as the events of the story – but seems uninterested in diving too deep. However, despite some obstacles, they do emerge unscathed. Toni Colette and David Thewlis are two incredibly talented actors who are done such a monumental disservice by this film, appearing to be fascinating characters, but used so poorly (Colette in particular feels like she’s making some extremely broad choices, nearly every one of them falling entirely flat, resulting in quite an excessive performance in a film that was already struggling to reign itself in). The film seems to be constructing itself as a chilling domestic horror that sees conflict between generations – a perverted, metaphysical version of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner – only to abandon this far too soon. To its credit, this aspect was part of the source material, but unlike here, it did make sense in the context of the novel – in Kaufman’s version, it seems less like a turning point for the narrative, and more like a brief sojourn into the past that yields very little success, even though it had all the potential to be a triumph, and which makes the manifestation of the rest of the film all the more disconcerting.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things so badly strives to be an effective psychological thriller, but fails on both accounts – it doesn’t do anything in terms of deconstructing the psychological states of these characters, beyond a few moments of supposed insightfulness, and it certainly doesn’t thrill us in either definition of the word, instead believing that nightmarish imagery and a looming sense of the unknown is more than sufficient to keeping us engaged. What it does manage to accomplish is a thoroughly pointless exercise in supposed profundity, reaching at something that it knows isn’t within its grasp, but lacks the self-awareness to ever acknowledge, I’m Thinking of Ending Things is the cinematic equivalent of the over-eager elementary school student that always has their hand up, but never gives the right answer, but is insatiable in its genuine belief that it’s contributing something. Kaufman was in dire need of some guidance himself here, which is even more disheartening, considering how he’s a very gifted artist that has succeeded in this realm before, but really seemed to be distracted by the weight of too many ideas to actually conceive of something lucid. This is a film that doesn’t necessarily fail to give us any answers to the problems it poses at the outset, but instead doesn’t ask any real questions to begin with, supporting itself on the idea that audience will naturally be drawn to the supposed audacity of a premise that dares relate something as common as a disintegrating romance with existential despair. Whether as a manifesto to a failing relationship, a harrowing tale of the darkest recesses in the psyches of the most ordinary individuals, or simply just an exploration of some common themes,  I’m Thinking of Ending Things really doesn’t seem all that striking – and while the idea that the film doesn’t make sense may be seen as a criticism, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a more fluid approach to logic coming into play, as long as it’s done well, which is absolutely not the case with this film. Pitched to an unbearable level of pretentiousness, I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a truly unpleasant experience – whether or not this was the intention (and I’d like to give Kaufman the benefit of the doubt in this case since he’s very talented and should be allowed to continue to tell the stories that interest him), the result is something truly unlikable, a rambling jumble of ideas that seem to want to say something acute, but doesn’t even know how to begin the conversation in the first place, instead settling for a bombardment of ideas, none of which really work all that well. Empty, void of any real personality, and vague to the point where we ourselves want to retreat, I’m Thinking of Ending Things is an enormous disappointment.