Normally I strive to avoid any lies in a review. Half-truths, omitted information, and misleading statements are all fine. If the solution is the murder was faked, in my plot summary I’ll say “So-and-so is apparently murdered in a locked room.” A little wink to those who have already experienced the story that doesn’t tip our hand to those who haven’t. After all, if I lie, what else is left here? How can there be a discussion if I lie about what happened? If I lie about that, what if I lie about my feelings? Accuracy is the best policy.
But that’s not going to work for I’m Thinking of Ending Things. It just can’t. So I officially admit defeat, and submit to I’m Thinking of Ending Things’ lies. As much as I want to cleverly sidestep around the truth, that’d be like trying to jump the Grand Canyon. Another reason this is the intro you're getting is that I had a certain introduction planned in my head for most of the book, but it completely dissipated in the final sequence.
I thought about other intros. “I’m thinking of ending things” is too direct, but how about “I’m thinking of ending this blog”? I can talk about how I don’t get many views, how it takes time and effort to write these things, how ending the blog would free me to just enjoy things without having to worry about whether I’ll be able to write a decent review for it, how ending it would free me from the anxiety of having too many reviews that need to be written and not enough written reviews waiting in my back pocket, how the original purpose of writing this blog was so I could just type my thoughts out on something once and direct people to the post rather than needing to write it out over and over and over again in different contexts but the fact that I’m making my reviews spoiler-free tends to preclude them from that purpose.
Of course, now I’m writing about all those things anyway.
Then I’d go “Nah, just kidding,” but who cares? Would it be seen as whiny? Would it be seen as a transparent attempt to garner attention and self-pity without trying to be seen as garnering attention and self-pity? Would it be seen at all?
“I’m not thinking of ending things”? Again, who’d care?
If I’m having such a tough time thinking of how to write my introduction… what if I just write about that? Sure, whatever. It'll do.
The introduction wasn’t the only issue I had when putting this review together. There was also the question of the header image.
I actually have a confession to make. I never actually “read” I’m Thinking of Ending Things… I listened to the audiobook. I actually listen to audiobooks a fair amount. I never explicitly mention it, however, mostly because I think using the verb “listen” rather than “read” when discussing a book would be confusing (even if technically accurate) without a disclaimer that I listened to the audiobook, and such a disclaimer seems like it’d mostly be a waste of words and space. This also lets me avoid that (possibly non-existent) contingent of people who don’t believe listening to audiobooks counts as “reading,” but that’s a minor concern.
That doesn’t mean I don’t drop hints, though. As a murder mystery blog, it’s a bit natural to sneak in small puzzles and Easter eggs, isn’t it? As a general rule, for each review I try to use the cover of the version I actually played or read as the header image. (Of course, there are still a few exceptions. For instance, for multi-platform or digital-only video games I tend to take a random marketing image rather than boxart, and for Japanese stories in the public domain I’ve opted for random cover art rather than the plain generic Amazon cover.) That means using the audiobook cover when I listened to the audiobook. (Usually.)
But I had a separate problem when considering the header image for this post, besides just the fact that I listened to the audiobook. I’m also reviewing the movie! How do I handle that? I don’t really have a set precedent. In my other post where I review a book and its movie adaptation I have the book cover art the start of the post and then the movie poster at the beginning of the movie review. But there the movie review was supposed to be a surprise, and the art was completely different. I’m being open about it this time! When I reviewed Contradiction and Her Story I did basically the same thing, but those were two completely distinct works. In my Whodunnit? reviews I put both covers at the start, but those were also two separate works, I never really discussed them individually in the review, and using both covers was still aesthetically pleasing since they were the same size and in the same style.
In the end, as you can see, I decided to just use the audiobook cover as my header image. The deciding factor was that the audiobook cover uses the same image as the movie poster. If it’s the same image as the movie poster, it can serve as an image representative of the movie as well, right? If they were different images I’d probably try to work both in, but they’re not, so I didn’t need to deal with that problem.
Of course, in practice this was settled by just staring at the audiobook cover for a few seconds and going “Yeah, I can just use that.” Everything above was certainly a consideration, but it was all just built into my feelings on the matter. I didn’t have to explicitly verbalize everything in my mind. It’s interesting how our brains can just process a bunch of information and spit out a result instantly, but then when we go back and express how that result was actually reached it takes paragraphs and paragraphs, isn’t it? Of course, sometimes it turns out something was wrong, or we realize we were being illogical about something, but it’s still amazing the way our minds can subconsciously weigh evidence and string together chains of logic.
Are you enjoying this review? I’m Thinking of Ending Things is about a woman who goes on a small road trip with her boyfriend to have dinner at his parents’ house while, as the title puts it, thinking of ending things (with him). It’s about a road trip. And what do you do on a road trip? You talk and you think about random topics.
If I had to describe I’m Thinking of Ending Things in one word it’d be “meandering,” but don’t take that as an insult. It’s about a drive and then dinner while wrestling with an internal conflict, meaning there is a perfect resonance between style and substance. The book meanders just like the conversation in a real road trip would. The protagonist talks with her boyfriend Jake, then will have some sort of inner monologue, perhaps reminiscing about some past experience, until the conversation with Jake begins again. It feels natural and organic—just like a mundane road trip.
The prose of the novel reinforces this atmosphere of banality as well. Most novels take place over days, weeks, or even months, but I’m Thinking of Ending Things only covers a few hours—meaning it’s able to focus on the actions of those hours in that much more depth and detail. There’s extra attention spent to tone and mannerisms than in most other novels. A character doesn’t just “pick up two (empty plastic) cups.” He “grabs both cups in one hand, using his thumb and index finger as pincers.” A common, natural movement we’d probably instinctively perform ourselves, but wouldn’t necessarily imagine just from the word “grab.” This sort of detail breathes life into the story.
But this is also where my main problem with I’m Thinking of Ending Things pops up. There’s no issue or problem to be resolved other than the protagonist’s internal dilemma on whether to end things. The book is a psychological thriller, but it seems like the tension comes from knowing it’s a psychological thriller rather than the actual plot or prose. For the most part it’s just a normal, mundane story. There are some weird or awkward bits, but nothing explicitly wrong (until the end, when things go very, very wrong).
I didn’t mind tagging along with this couple on their road trip, but the end of the book just made it all feel pointless. Maybe I was expecting the wrong thing from this book. I like murder mysteries. I’ve previously discussed what I like and look for in mysteries. What I want out of them is catharsis, which requires a spark of surprise and originality. Thrillers are different. The line between thrillers and detective fiction can get blurry, so sometimes one will wander into my orbit, but they’re generally not my preferred genre. Thrillers are still trying to surprise, but don’t particularly concern themselves with playing fair. And that doesn’t mean they’re inherently worse, they just aren’t my preference. Thrillers, like mysteries, still prioritize an internally consistent plot, and often strive for a big twist at the end. Writing around a big twist takes wit and tact. I’m Thinking of Ending Things has a big twist, as any proper thriller should, but it’s an incredibly lazy twist—I’d say one small step above what is commonly considered the most infamous type of cop-out “twist”—that requires absolutely no effort to implement.
But again, maybe I was looking for the wrong thing. The twist is trivial to implement in plot, but not necessarily in theme. Except, again, I’m a fan of detective fiction, I don’t care about theme or nuance or stuff like that. (Well, perhaps I care about them more than I admit, but they still aren’t a priority.)
Part of me wonders if it’s better to be spoiled on the twist of I’m Thinking of Ending Things before reading, so it can be experienced as what it is rather than what it pretends to be. I’m Thinking of Ending Things feels to me like the bizarro version of The Human Chair. To be completely honest, part of the reason I’m bringing up The Human Chair is because the more time passes the more I love it and I want to talk about it more, but I think there are real thematic similarities. Both works have twists that “invalidate” themselves in a sense, but in The Human Chair that invalidation is the entire point, while in I’m Thinking of Ending Things it’s a cheap trick created solely by denying context from the reader presumably to get us to care more about the characters and events than we otherwise would or should.
An interesting note about I’m Thinking of Ending Things is that the protagonist is never named. While it’s not the first time I’ve seen this, I do think it’s the most interesting time I’ve seen it done.
Lastly, the audiobook does something really cool with the narration in one passage. Something that doesn’t feel like it could have been done in any other medium, and that wouldn’t work in basically any other story. But the way they pull it off here is just awesome. (And another reason I mentioned I listened to the audiobook at the beginning of this review is because I wanted to comment on this.)
But that’s enough on the book. Now let’s turn to the movie.
I liked the movie a lot more than book. However, I’m not sure how much of that is actually liking the movie more, and how much is from being able to appreciate the story more when I knew the twist from the beginning. When you watch the movie after reading the book you can see what was changed—and understand why it was changed, which is what I found to be the interesting part.
After all, the film I’m Thinking of Ending Things is not a direct adaptation of the book. In fact, it would be nearly impossible to make such a thing. It feels like Kaufman’s (the director’s) goal wasn’t to adapt the novel, but rather to translate the core idea of the story to film. And it works! Seeing what was added or removed and understanding why that change had to be done showed Kaufman understood both the story he was telling and the medium he was using. There are also a ton of smaller background details that contribute to the atmosphere, which I suspect are much easier to pick up on when you don’t need to fully pay attention to the characters and plot. Thinking about the changes and trying to pick out these minor yet clearly deliberate details was cool and entertaining.
Until it wasn’t. The movie is two and a quarter hours. That’s long. And it was initially fun seeing how Kaufman adapted such an unorthodox work, but when the novelty of that wore off, there wasn’t much left. I knew what was going on, I knew what was coming, and I just wanted to get to it—yet the movie never relented with scene after thematic theme. I felt like I was consistently ready for the movie to transition to the next part about 10 minutes before it actually did it.
I also felt that the movie was almost obvious in what was happening—but I don’t think my opinion is particularly trustworthy on this point, since I watched with the benefit of hindsight. Or is it foresight? Regardless, the movie feels much more brazen than the book in flaunting the truth, which in turn makes the movie overtly creepy where the book is largely mundane.
Of course, the ending of both goes completely off the rails. But the movie, true to form, veers off in a completely different direction from the source material. If there’s one thing the movie performs poorly at, it’s clarity of the plot. That’s another reason it’s fortunate I read the book before watching the movie, since I doubt I would have understood the ending of the movie without the full context from the book.
I do want to give a special shout-out to the dinner scene in the movie, which felt much more effective there than in the book.
So now we’re at the end of the review, and what do I even write here? I think I’m Thinking of Ending Things is interesting for what it is, but what it is is the core twist of the story. Knowing the twist is how I was able to appreciate it for the second time, but would simply spoiling yourself and then watching the movie provide the same experience? The book doesn’t function as a thriller, but perhaps the movie could—although my viewing was tainted, so to speak, so I can never personally know.
I suppose the bottom line is, you just need to decide if you think this sounds interesting to you. It’s not a mystery. It’s not really a thriller. It’s just… somebody’s thoughts. About ending things.
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