I’m Thinking of Endings Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020) — A-
Joe (John G. Avildsen, 1970) — B
The Boondock Saints (Troy Duffy, 1999) — F
The Secret Life of Bees (Gina Prince-Bythewood, 2008) — C+
Cabaret (Bob Fosse, 1972) — A-
The Year of Spectacular Men (Lea Thompson, 2017) — C-
I Think We’re Alone Now (Sean Donnelly, 2008) — C+
Beyond the Lights (Gina Prince-Bythewood, 2014) — A-
Old Enough (Marisa Silver, 1984) — B+
Minor spoilers for I’m Thinking of Ending Things ahead.
I’m Thinking of Ending Things completely eschews the typical conventions of what we know as a movie and instead focuses completely on the emotion and feeling of the story. Continuity comes and goes, initially scenes apart but eventually within the same scene. All logic is tossed aside with complete purpose. It’s easily writer/director Charlie Kaufman’s most inaccessible movie, but even as it is confounding it is completely compelling. The movie remains confusing even once its over, avoiding any sort of easy answer key at the end with which to re-watch the movie and help decipher it. It’s almost unspoilable in how complicated it is — there’s nothing I can say to someone that would fundamentally change their viewing experience. It’s essentially about a couple in a new relationship on a road trip to visit his parents for the first time, their dinner, and their drive back. Time moves through the characters rather than the other way around, and there’s a reading of what’s on screen that would place Jessie Buckley’s Lucy firmly inside Jesse Plemons’ mind, rather than as a real-life counterpart sitting next to him.
But I also think there’s a reading here of I’m Thinking of Endings Things as a trans story, whether intentional or not.
Jake is an adult male, completely familiar with his parents and the farmhouse that he grew up in. There’s his childhood bedroom, helpfully labeled “Jake’s childhood bedroom.” Meanwhile, Lucy’s life and history is less clear. There’s a moment where she sees a photo of a child and is confused about the identity. Jake says it’s him — and it does look like it’d be a young Jesse Plemons. But her inner monologue is confused, because it also looks like it could be a young Jessie Buckley. Sometimes she’s a student, sometimes a painter, a poet, a waitress; she at one point says the farmhouse reminds her of the one she grew up in, but at other times mentions a childhood apartment and a house. Eventually, even her first name comes into question. It feels like Jake sorting through the person that he really wants to be, and really wants to bring home to introduce to his parents. But we run the gamut of the timeline of his parents life, and there doesn’t really seem to be a good time to introduce this woman to his parents for the first time. His mother is overbearing in her attempts to accept her as his father pushes back against her. He has a difficult experience and is ultimately distracted taking care of his parents as they age, and things end. Instead of fulfilling his potential — or becoming Buckley’s character in his outer life — Jake grows more and more internally frustrated and warped as he grows older until he becomes the elderly janitor at the high school he attended. He spends his days jealous of the teenage girls around him and wonders about what happens to the students after they leave the school. Until that memory of his failed coming out attempt walks right into the school and he is transformed again, even if just for a moment. There are a few more vivid memories that play before he dies alone in his car.
I’m not necessarily sure if that’s what Ian Reid, the writer of the source novel, or Kaufman were attempting to place into I’m Thinking of Endings Things. In fact, I don’t think it’s intentional at all. But because Kaufman’s writing is constantly tinkering with ideas of identity, aging, time, solipsism, and consciousness, there’s room for the idea that there’s a woman inside Jake trying to get out.
- Even though it’s a little uneven at times, Joe feels somewhat apt during this 2020 presidential campaigns. The titular character, played brilliantly by Peter Boyle, is an angry, white, blue collar worker who blames minorities and liberals for everything wrong in his life. That might sound like it’s more fitting for 2016, but while Joe is sitting at a bar spewing the N-word and holding its bartender hostage with his rants, he runs into a well-off man who’s just accidentally murdered his daughters’ druggie boyfriend. Joe is impressed and the movie kind of takes off from there — delving deep into the psyche of the type of “patriot” who would intentionally murder fellow Americans in the name of what he thinks to be the one true America. Look no further than the movie’s tagline to see how prescient it was: “Keep America Beautiful.”
- I hadn’t seen The Boondock Saints since at least college — when a New Englander housemate of mine was obsessed with it — and mostly remembered it as stupid and trashy. But rewatching it, I honestly feel it’s much worse than that. The movie wants to portray its protagonists as anti-heroes, but they’re not, they’re just terrible people. The movie is misogynistic, racist, and homophobic. It’s got an intensely warped sense of morality that’s not just present in its main characters, but truly tries to convince the viewer of as well. It feels like instead of becoming a school shooter, Troy Duffy made his Irish Catholic Tarantino knockoff — which I suppose is a win for society even if it means I had to sit through it again. Every line the main characters speak feels like a manifesto from the most extreme depths of the cult of Christianity. On top of it’s despicable morality, the movie is poorly edited, the soundtrack is awful, and the plot barely holds together. I’m a lover of trash, but this is worse than trash. It’s a thoroughly unenjoyable viewing experience.
- The Secret Life of Bees is a fairly straight-forward based-on-a-bestseller race relations movie. It has plenty of strong points — and most of them are the interpersonal relationships of the film’s central figures when they are free of outside factors. For the most part, though, because it approaches its thorny subject matter with little teeth, the moments of vulnerability do not hit as hard as they could’ve.
- My mother and her five sisters are such showtune freaks and such hams that despite this being the first time I’ve seen this movie (or any version) I knew every single song except the Nazi pride song. This movie is contemplative, sexy, gloomy, beautiful, and politically sharp all rolled into one. I’m certainly a fan of The Godfather, but I have no qualms with the Academy for awarding Bob Fosse’s work on Cabaret as the best directing of 1972.
- The Year of Spectacular Men is a family affair. It was directed by Lea Thompson, produced by her husband Howard Deutch, written by their daughter Madelyn Deutch, and stars Madelyn and her younger sister, Zoey. It’s terribly overwritten in a way that so many mid-aughts indie movies were, leading to some out-of-place monologuing and some attempted quips that don’t really land.
- I Think We’re Alone Now is a heartbreaking indie documentary about two obsessive fans, borderline stalkers of ’80s pop singer Tiffany. The filmmakers handle their stories mostly without judgement or pity and seem to beg the viewer to do the same, but it becomes difficult at times. Jeff is a man diagnosed with Asbergers who loves Tiffany, believes they are friends, and regularly goes to her concerts. Kelly was born intersex, appears to have been raised as a boy, and her current gender identity is left unremarked upon. Kelly has never seen a Tiffany concert but had a vision in a coma that they were destined to be together. The movie, which is mostly direct-to-camera talking heads, is barely more than an hour long and offers up only as much of a resolution as you can imagine this scenario can have.
- Beyond the Lights brings such a force of sincerity to everything that it does to the point where even something cheesy or off-putting in it feels completely earned. It’s a straightforward romantic drama, something we don’t really see much of anymore, in the same vein as Prince-Bythewood’s debut, Love and Basketball. It nails the music, both Gugu Mbatha-Raw and (the now-rightfully-cancelled) Nate Parker are excellent as the leads, and the whole thing works on a level that the romantic comedies that streaming services pump out nowadays just can’t reach. Also, now that we’ve officially finished the films of Gina Prince-Bythewood along with the Blank Check Podcast, here are my GPB rankings:
- Love and Basketball (2000)
- Beyond the Lights (2014)
- The Old Guard (2020)
- The Secret Life of Bees (2008)
- Old Enough is a coming-of-age movie featuring two new friends: Lonnie, a 12-year-old from a wealthy family, and Karen, a 14-year-old whose father is a building super. There’s such innocence and easygoingness throughout the entire thing, even during the clashes between them and others, but certainly not in a boring way. The movie is simple and laid-back in exactly the way it wants to be.