I'm Thinking of Ending Things

Charlie Kaufman’s version of Iain Reid’s novel had another lead first: Brie Larson was cast late in 2018 and replaced by Jessie Buckley in March 2019, the month shooting began in Fishkill, New York. It wrapped in late April. Łukasz Żal held the picture in a 4:3 frame, which holds the two in the car and the four at the farmhouse table tight. Much of the talk is borrowed. The woman’s speech about A Woman Under the Influence on the drive back comes from Pauline Kael’s review, and a collection of Kael’s writing sits on a shelf in Jake’s childhood home. The prize speech old Jake gives at the close is lifted from the end of A Beautiful Mind, whose disc sits in the same room. The poem recited in the car, Bonedog, is by Eva H.D. The ending routes through Oklahoma!, the show rehearsed at the school: both the dream ballet and the song old Jake sings come from it. At the 41st Boston Society of Film Critics Awards, Kaufman won screenplay and Robert Frazen won editing. A good fit if you read this as a mind stacked with other people’s texts rather than a puzzle with a solution. Not for anyone wanting a flat answer to why the woman’s name and job keep changing through the film.