Netflix Movie Shines Light on Mental Health

A movie as bleak as its title, “I’m Thinking Of Ending Things” perfectly encapsulates what it is like to experience depression, loss and utter fear. The movie continues to be profound upon rewatches despite appearing confusing on first viewing.

The movie initially follows a young woman and her boyfriend, Jake, as they visit his family. Before beginning the journey she begins “thinking of ending things,” referring to the relationship. Over the course of the road trip, the viewer begins noticing strange events happening to our characters, the woman’s name changes, the actor looks intensely into the camera lens uninterrupted for a shot, Jake’s parents suddenly change age and even more unnerving occurrences happen to our duo. These events all inflict a sense of utter confusion upon the audience and viewers are never truly given a cause for these occurrences.

Throughout the film are peppered shots of an elderly janitor at a high school, which seem to have nothing to do with the story, until our main characters end up at the very high school he works at. Events stranger than the ones before them begin to happen more often. There is a whole dance sequence to “The Nutcracker,” that seems to parallel the story up to that point for example. 

The story itself is not the only reason to watch the film, however. Director Charlie Kaufman and cinematographer Lukasz Zal are proven to be true visionaries with this film, as they both set the tone for the movie with simple editing and camera choices. The choices to make the film in a 4-by-3 aspect ratio rather than the usual 16-by-9 and the close camerawork make the movie feel tight and tense, almost adding a pinch of abject horror to the story.

The film reaches a head in the final act when Jake disappears and the young woman comes face to face with the janitor alone. The themes of the movie are hard to get into without spoiling the plot, but they are worth raving about nonetheless. If you wish to watch the film without any spoilers, stop reading now.

The janitor is an old Jake, put simply. The young woman and her trip to Jake’s house is entirely within the janitor’s head, hence why information is often inconsistent within this fictional story. The film parallels Jake’s struggles throughout life, his depression manifesting as a troubled relationship. 

Eventually, once things reach a head within the fictional high school, the janitor, now embodying Jake, has a surreal experience, following a pig into a freezing car where he promptly dies of hypothermia. This event may or may not be real, but either way he commits suicide. 

This is the ultimate resolution of the janitor’s story arc, as it reveals he was struggling with depression and “Thinking of Ending Things.” This is only one interpretation of the film however, as viewers can come out of the movie with many different readings of the events that happen throughout.