Movie Netflix “I’m thinking of ending things”

Aug 14, 2001
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Caught it tonight. Reminded me a little of Mulholland Drive.

General consensus seemed to be that Jake and the girl and the same person and that Jake is the janitor, with the whole thing being his attempt to create a fantasy relationship out of chance meeting with a girl when he was young.

I took the murder aspect literally and thought he might have been sprung perving on her and her boyfriend at the school and killed them, but others have not seen it that way.

Gets you thinking regardless.
 
Mar 14, 2002
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Gasometer Wing
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Caught it tonight. Reminded me a little of Mulholland Drive.

General consensus seemed to be that Jake and the girl and the same person and that Jake is the janitor, with the whole thing being his attempt to create a fantasy relationship out of chance meeting with a girl when he was young.

I took the murder aspect literally and thought he might have been sprung perving on her and her boyfriend at the school and killed them, but others have not seen it that way.

Gets you thinking regardless.
Weird as it is that’s how I dream
 

JamisonRun40

Norm Smith Medallist
May 26, 2013
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Good grief I cannot believe this movie is a post. My sister I watched this last night but we fast fwd it and hated it. Worse movie ever. Could not work out the plot at one stage I thought the parents were shift changes. Still don't know why the movie was made and why would Toni Collete waste her time making this movie.
 
Mar 26, 2008
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The first hour was great. Loved the dinner scene, the four of them sharing the same screen was hypnotic.

But then it really dug its heels in, in a way that was more frustrating than welcome. Still, the performances led by Buckley were terrific and I think it my estimation of it would grow on a second watch. Would say though that if going into the film, or during, you think any of the characters are alien shape shifters, then it's probably not for you. 8/10

Apparently the book spells out what's going on more clearly than what Kaufman did. I don't think the film needs to because at the very least I think most people will get that the girl isn't a real character (or at least that version of her). It is kind of amusing though because all of Kaufman's film plays with and deconstructs the manic pixie dream girl. Dude really needs to find himself another trope, or just get laid.
 
Watching this became unbearable. Like crossing a river of molasses... Insufferable and heavy going. But this is what a Kaufman movie does for me.

I should have known better.
 

Sonny Bonds

Cancelled
Jul 21, 2019
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Like what Warsaw said,

The first hour kinda grips you. Suspense in the tour of the barn, parents taking ages coming down the stairs, the marks on the basement door.
Toni Collette was absolutely chilling in her performance.
 
Aug 21, 2016
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Oldham
There were some fun, awkward scenes in the house but overall it failed for me. It was too confusing, and I'm not a fan of movies where it only makes sense if you have read the book. There were a few fairly long monologues and dialogues that didn't give you a chance to think about the concepts being spoken about, and sometimes lost my interest altogether. Visually it was unappealing.

4/10

If you want to see a movie with a dreamlike feel that contemplates life and aging, and also looks good - try Youth by Paolo Sorrentino.
 

JamisonRun40

Norm Smith Medallist
May 26, 2013
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Agree with the scene about the parents taking to long to come down, scratches on doors and the kitchen scene. Then it went downhill. My sister didn't even realise that characters had change appearances until I mention it. Could someone please explain to me what the movie was trying to say? Was the two young people did they become the parents.
 
Jun 27, 2012
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Agree with the scene about the parents taking to long to come down, scratches on doors and the kitchen scene. Then it went downhill. My sister didn't even realise that characters had change appearances until I mention it. Could someone please explain to me what the movie was trying to say? Was the two young people did they become the parents.
my take was that the two young people were both the janitor. or at least he was (there are constant references throughout the film to indicate this) and she was a construct of his mind based on a woman he met once and himself.
the trip to his parents house (they were really his parents) was him looking back on his life to see how he ended up being the lonely old man that he was.

i thought i was following along up until they started dancing and everything from there was too obscure to figure out. judging by the film title though and a few other little clues i'm guessing it was just a round about way of showing that he killed himself.

i could be way off base on all of this. i probably need to watch it again but i really don't want to.
 
Sep 23, 2007
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Supercoach Hell
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Agree, this was a head scratcher.... The first hour was gripping, i was glued with the dialogue, all the acting was mesmerising. Then the minute it started to travel through time it completely lost me.
I felt dumb watching it because i couldn't follow what was happening.
This seemed to help
4 September 2020
Warning: Spoilers

Yes this movie can be confusing. Yes this movie can seem all over the place. Not to fear I'm here to dole out understanding.

1) Let me get this out of the way quickly. The girl, let's name her Louise, does not exist. She is an embodiment of Jake's imagination the entire time. When she is at the high school she reveals to the Janitor that she never knew him. She was there with her girlfriend celebrating an anniversary and this guy lingered. That is the extent and reality of their interaction.

2) Jake take his embodiment girlfriend Louise to meet his parents in different aspects of his life. When his parents were healthy, as they got older with illnesses, and when he was a child. At dinner Louise shows the parents paintings that she has done. Father doesn't seem to like them much. But those are Jakes paintings. When Louise goes into the basement those oil paintings are the same ones she showed the parents.

3) Now the Janitor is Jake. Jake was never anything more than a janitor most of his adult life. He sees the kids at the school some stay around and work other move on. There are many quick cuts scenes throughout the movie showing the janitor being at the school when kids are there. There are two girl close to the beginning of the movie who make fun of the way he looks and walks those are the same mean girls at the ice cream shop. Before they get to the ice cream shop he talks about seeing kids everyday and it shows one shy girl walking by herself in hallway full of kids talking to each other and not her. She made the ice cream. The kids who dance and kick the locker by accident are the kids who do the interpretive dance at the end.

4) LASTLY I promise. The interpretive dance is a symbol. Jake thinks that if he would have just talked to her when he first saw her and he was all these things he wasn't. Physicist, author, painter, just a genius he could have married her and loved each other. But the reality was he is a janitor and how can someone so beautiful love a janitor like him. Then the musical number is a reality of how he lives his life. He lives his life at night in his head. He grinds through the day to get by. At night he gets to imagine a whole wonderful life for himself.
 
Sep 15, 2011
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The first hour was great. Loved the dinner scene, the four of them sharing the same screen was hypnotic.

But then it really dug its heels in, in a way that was more frustrating than welcome. Still, the performances led by Buckley were terrific and I think it my estimation of it would grow on a second watch. Would say though that if going into the film, or during, you think any of the characters are alien shape shifters, then it's probably not for you. 8/10

Apparently the book spells out what's going on more clearly than what Kaufman did. I don't think the film needs to because at the very least I think most people will get that the girl isn't a real character (or at least that version of her). It is kind of amusing though because all of Kaufman's film plays with and deconstructs the manic pixie dream girl. Dude really needs to find himself another trope, or just get laid.
Pretty much agree with this, the first hour is great, the acting excellent, some of the concepts around time and space intriguing, a building sense of unease. But the conclusion can be best described as baffling. It makes so many literary and filmic references that it's simply impossible to know them all (who knew on first listen that the final speech was a direct lift of Russell Crowe's speech from A Beautiful Mind?). I was following a few of the threads around Jake and the Janitor, the girl etc, but was lost by the dancing.

That said, if you look up an explanation of the ending, it does make sense. It's been on my mind the last couple of days, so that's a sign of an interesting film at least. If one watched this simply because it was the latest 'big Netflix release', they're likely to be left confused or angry.
 
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