I'm Thinking of Ending Things

This is one of the greatest surprises of my moviegoing life -- and it's the writer I grew up with. This isn't Anomalisa -- this is Charlie Kaufman here and now. It's almost unrecognizable, and nearly inscrutable. I've never experienced a movie so tantalize my predictions and so ruthlessly defy them. Mulholland Drive is the obvious comparison for me, though that felt fantastically alien beside the ever-humble, ever-human writer who was always egocentric enough to penetrate my egocentrism. Mulholland Drive felt like someone else's nightmare, while this wormed itself in cozily. Trite to say I love the lead performance -- Bill could have said it for me, or anyone who ever shared my taste. Finally! a Kaufman character to love. Caden was too grotesque, Hazel too awkward, Joel too pitiful, Clementine too irritating, Michael too egotistic, Lisa too average,... this I love. I wonder whether the novel would grant me any interpretive purchase. I hope not. This is gorgeous, if incoherent. But I'm not sure. Eternal Sunshine and Mulholland Drive both rewarded chronology- or identity-tracing. I really don't have much here, and I hope there's nothing to miss in this sense. I don't like when movies require their companion works. I like when movies are self-contained. I hate adaptations.

As for "almost unrecognizable": Jake almost didn't look like Philip Seymour Hoffman, and the play-within-a-play scene could almost be mistaken as merely coincidental with Synecdoche. There were other small trips, especially in dialogue, plus lyrics I knew were Kaufman's -- he probably needs to stop touching the music.

Tough to say I love a movie I've seen one incomprehensible time, but I am impressed for the effect it had on me. Rarely do I anticipate events in a plot like this -- and fail to foresee the left hook. Nor can I call any of it a left hook, but shades of blows, a march of shadows, cuts to new dreams: no plot-twist; always shifting. This is one the most unexpected movie experiences in my memory.

When I recently reviewed Anomalisa, I asked whether Kaufman would grow up. Here is a massive step forward. I'm listening.

P.S. Can you imagine a more egocentric filmography? In Adaptation he put himself in the film, twice; in Eternal Sunshine he spent half the movie in his head; in Synecdoche he manifested through infinite microcosms; and finally, in Anomalisa, he was actually the only person. In this movie, I'm not sure, though much is along those lines. One would expect Kaufman's psychological horror to be entirely internal, and much of this is, but there's always the question which of the characters is messed up: none, one, or all.

P.P.S. It's also difficult to imagine a homelier career of characters. Think them all through. Even tropey Cameron Diaz is downgraded as much as possible. PSH is famously unfortunate; the whole idea of Lisa is zero remarkability. This movie certainly doesn't blaspheme the idea, but here we have a character who kind of works. There was certainly room to aim higher, but he's not reaching for the bottom of the barrel like he usually does. The barrel of cinema, that is, not the barrel of humanity. It's also really interesting I've never seen this act(or/ress). Anyway, Kaufman developed.

Second watch 10/2

Hannah suggests the following, as I understand:

Jake is certainly central/main/fundamental character. The janitor is older Jake, and most of the movie is his memory or imagined memory. He probably never spoke to the woman, but perhaps saw her once, perhaps at the trivia night. She's mostly imagined, from name to occupation to events. She suggests as much when speaking to the janitor in the school -- they never really met. Anyway, the janitor is mentally ill or severely lonely. He prodigiously fabricates memory and identity. The woman is still our rock, but sadly the movie's not about her.

Django Unchained

While I liked much of this movie, ultimately it flails and lounges too much to be really great. Some of it is great -- but I could never call the movie great with such an aimless ending. An ending seals the envelope, and everything after the climax felt tragically random. Tarantino built far too much tension to flounder. His tacky "frontier justice" is usually satisfying like little else in cinema, but the end here lacked gravity, and it wasn't convincing. I do believe much of this movie is great, which leaves me highly disappointed. Besides the misguided ending, the director's signature self-indulgence often falls short here: for example, the head-bag eye-hole bit. Indulgence with execution is savory, as in most Tarantino, but indulgence without execution puts me off. He loses his wonted control, and while this film is at times heftier than the others, it's occasionally lazy or confused. But I wouldn't complain like this if I didn't like and respect it at the end of the day. It wouldn't have disappointed me so, otherwise.

Magnolia

9/1/20

It's been at least five years. Of old it was stiff competition for first or second place all-time. There was something unfamiliar this time... a distance from the characters. Why did I find such a grotesque population beautiful? Yet I understand it -- with some distance. No one in this movie feels like part of my life the way Caden, Hazel, Joel and Clementine do. No one is worth even a moment's foolish envy. Yet I understand it.

There are still lessons here -- mainly cut through the shit and seek gold. Like Claudia at dinner, like Earl's regrets, Donnie losing inhibition, and the priest from Synecdoche. More than anything these movies challenged me to seek gold and scorn the rest. Even this time I quaked at Earl's soliloquy.

Would that they'd chosen another musical engine than Aimee Mann! These songs' real estate in the film is precious, and squandered by angsty melodrama. The songs are not that bad but fall tragically short of the building grandeur their backdrop suggests. It's amazing I loved this movie so much, with these songs in such crucial positions.

But the piece is still phenomenal. I believe I wrote before it's a powerhouse. There's so much to love amidst so much to hate, and through it all so much to wonder. It's hideous with enough redemption, and each rough character has a moment of perfection. The filmmaking is brilliant. The world is achingly beautiful. I love the great movie -- it is a part of me.