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I'm Thinking of Ending Things
I put off publishing my top ten films list this year by a little over a month. I’ve had a very strict deadline in years past of publishing this list on the anniversary of starting my website (December 20th). But this year has been like no other, at least that I’ve lived through. So, as I ended my sixth year of writing film criticism, because I was tired, and because I wanted to squeeze a few more films in before I made the list, I held off.
I’m glad I did…
Not since Darren Aronofsky’s mother! in 2017 has a movie so successfully and hauntingly evoked an oneiric state as Charlie Kaufman’s fever dream vision I’m Thinking of Ending Things. If I were a more clever writer, I might invent a Kaufmanesque conversation between the two filmmakers, in which Aronofsky calls to praise Kaufman’s idiosyncratic and disturbing new work of art. Since I’m not that clever, you’ll have to settle for a more standard review in which I praise Kaufman’s unique vision while also wrestling with a few of the picture’s shortcomings.
