Charlie Kaufman makes a movie that I wish I could have.
Note: The following contains major spoilers for Charlie Kaufman's I'm Thinking of Ending Things, which is streaming on Netflix. I strongly discourage reading further if you have not yet watched the film, which I highly recommend, both because it would negatively spoil the movie and also what I write may not make any sense otherwise.
In high school we were assigned to write either a satire or a dramatic monologue from a character of our choosing. I had what I thought was quite a good idea: a play on “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” from the perspective of the woman at the bottom of the stairs about whom Prufrock longs for, where she is aware of Prufrock, she knows what Prufrock is thinking, and she is relieved when he leaves her alone because she does not want him back. I did not write this for several reasons: firstly, I did not have the idea until after the assignment was due. Secondly, I knew that I did not reasonably have the experience to put myself into her mind and write on such a topic with any competency. And thirdly, I was not (nor am I now) the skilled writer I would have wanted to be to seriously write a rebuttal to a T.S. Eliot poem.
I still like the idea though, and think fondly of it sometimes, enough that years later I still remember it despite the fact that the above paragraph is the most it has ever been put to paper. I am very glad to say that I no longer feel obligated to write it, however, because Charlie Kaufman of all people did it better (and/or perhaps Iain Reed, whose 2016 novel I’m Thinking of Ending Things Kaufman’s latest movie is adapted from).
This is utterly remarkable of course, because this is the same Charlie Kaufman who wrote Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (two outstanding movies which I consider personal favorites). Both of these films I think one could argue are “Prufrockian” in a broad sense. Adaptation’s climactic line which it presents pretty plainly as a thesis to the viewer bluntly goes “You are what you love, not what loves you.” Eternal Sunshine is maybe a bit more of a stretch, however I think it is worth noting that for the vast majority of the movie Clementine only exists in Joel’s head - he is reflecting on the “idea” of her, not experiencing Clementine herself. Clementine even calls him out in the final scene: “I’m not a concept Joel, I’m just a fucked up girl looking for my own piece of mind.”
I’m Thinking of Ending Things is so antithetical to Eternal Sunshine, Kaufman’s most beloved movie, that it’s frankly stunning to me he made it at all. This time around, Clementine is a concept. There is no victory of love. In fact, there is no love at all. Where Eternal Sunshine is joyous, Ending Things is a horror movie. I would argue that to even give an accurate description of the movie’s real subject matter or themes is a spoiler. Which oddly enough, is not to say that the movie has a “twist”. This is not a Shutter Island. For the first half if not more, the movie is downright disorienting, confusing, and feels a bit directionless. It’s not entirely clear what Kaufman is after, besides just toying with horror tropes in his own surrealist way. Even when it starts to become more clear who Jake is, the young woman’s nature is only gradually revealed and never given a single “a-ha.”
The movie’s perspective is ultimately not of its protagonist. It is told by the most unreliable of narrators, a figment of Jake’s imagination who does not exist. Her character becomes increasingly confused and inconsistent, both to herself and to the viewer, all the while the movie becomes more clear in its premise. She can’t make sense of herself, and slowly starts to realize she only exists as Jake imagines her to be, or as Jake projects himself. She has no self apart from Jake, no fear (Caroline pointed out to me that as their detour goes away from the road to home she is never afraid - only angry). Her primary thought - of ending things - pertains exclusively to her relationship with Jake. It’s only when she finally sees the janitor face to face that the truth can come out - she never knew Jake. Jake did not ask her for her number. She saw him across a bar, once, and thought little of the encounter.
In the end, Kaufman suggests something more profound than I had ever thought of: it is not that “the peach” does not want you back, it is that the peach doesn’t exist. The idealized version of the woman at the bottom of the stairs is a falsehood entirely, completely made up in Prufrock’s mind. To write from her perspective is in a sense to write from Prufrock’s, because only in Prufrock’s mind does she exist at all. The real woman? There is likely no monologue to be given from her on Prufrock - he was just a man at the bar once, a minor figure of which there is no story to tell at all.