'I'm Thinking of Ending Things' plays like prototypical Kaufman*

*for better or worse

Charlie Kaufman's aesthetic -- especially when it is not tempered by an equally audacious and more upbeat collaborator like Michel Gondry or Spike Jonze -- can be aggressively antagonistic to an audience. It's not so much that he resists easy categorization but he has a penchant for wallowing in despair that can be as grating as it can be spontaneously funny.

He gets game, enthusiastic performances from his actors -- especially Jesse Plemons (as yet another neurotic Kaufman sad sack) and newcomer (to me) Jessie Buckley -- and although his writing is his trademark, Kaufman does have a real eye for memorable visual stylization.

But his characters are also often caustic are impenetrable and there's a case to be made for telling a 2 hour and 15 minute inside joke (complete with a pretty mean cheap shot at Robert Zemeckis and a prolonged, Pauline Kael cribbing analysis of John Cassavettes' A Woman Under the Influence) that dares an audience to try to be on the inside is a bit indulgent to say the least. 

I am torn about Kaufman's artistry. I have been an enormous fan of his early work but his solo projects are another kale of fish. I appreciate their ambition and artistry, but I am not as easily enamored with them as many film critics are.

His latest, the dreamy I'm Thinking of Ending Things veers wildly from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf-style black comedy (with Toni Collette and Davis Thewlis playing over-the-top weirdos whose appearance and age change suddenly without explanation) and a surreal mood piece about the disintegration of a relationship (or relationships).

The plot is probably pointless to describe -- it involves a couple that is ostensibly going to visit the man's parents --who appear to be in some kind of time warp. It actually could make an interesting play, but as a film it's claustrophobic and frequently unsettling.

It's certainly never boring -- and Kaufman's unpredictability feels like it can all turn into a horror show at any given moment -- although it's more a surreal supernatural trip. It's a very literate movie, like his Synecdoche, New York its packed with symbolism and psychological complexity but its also aggressively inaccessible.

I supposed I could say it is about the banality of life and death or maybe it's about perils of miscommunication. Your guess is as good as mine. I consider myself a pretty smart guy but I couldn't make heads or tails out of what Kaufman is trying to say here,

I recently heard and interview with Kaufman on a Hollywood Reporter podcast and was shocked by how down to earth and disarming he was. I expected a mercurial David Lynch type who would be evasive and pretentiously playful. But he was funny, friendly and self deprecating. I wish his film's had that kind of sincerity, if not heart.

I don't need films to be easily understandable and certainly I don't need a happy ending. But I often find myself wondering who is films are for. They increasingly seem to be for himself, and if other people want to get one board they can. Clearly, a lot of critics do. And it's understandable. He's an original, doing work that is singular and challenging. It's actually based on a book, which it seems pretty faithful to but I assume Kaufman is putting his own spin on it, which is also admirable.

I suppose I'd recommend it, since I am always looking for big swings at originality and art -- but the difference for me and someone like Lynch is that Lynch almost always has a certain joy in his craft, even when the subject matter is bleak. Kaufman seems to have pity if not outright contempt for people,  and I just choose not to see the world that way.