‘I’m Thinking of Ending Things’ Trailer: Charlie Kaufman Invites You to Meet the Parents

Charlie Kaufman is back with I’m Thinking of Ending Things, a creepy story of a young woman who takes a trip to meet her boyfriend’s parents. Sounds harmless enough, right? Well…just wait. The film is an adaptation of the haunting Iain Reid novel of the same name, and features Jessie Buckley, Jesse Plemons, Toni Collette, and David Thewlis. The first trailer for the film just arrived, and you can check it out below.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things Trailer

In I’m Thinking of Ending Things, “Despite second thoughts about their relationship, a young woman (Jessie Buckley) takes a road trip with her new boyfriend (Jesse Plemons) to his family farm. Trapped at the farm during a snowstorm with Jake’s mother (Toni Collette) and father (David Thewlis), the young woman begins to question the nature of everything she knew or understood about her boyfriend, herself, and the world.”

I read the book that inspired this film and really enjoyed it. That said, I’m curious to see how it translates to the screen. It’s a very internalized book, and what works on the page might not work so well on the screen. Then again, Charlie Kaufman is known for making crazy ideas work well, so I have faith in what he’s put together here. “The dreaminess of the novel is what I responded to most,” Kaufman said in press notes for the movie. “It felt like it existed in some sort of slightly irrational realm. Once I started writing, there were things in the book that I wanted to explore and understand more. I wanted to give the woman character a sense of existence, an agency, that almost by definition she doesn’t have in the book. And I wanted to make the story more complicated in terms of human interaction.”

That makes sense since we learn almost nothing about the lead female character in the book – she doesn’t even have a name. The novel’s writer had his doubts about an adaptation, too. “When the book first came out, my literary agent was in touch with a film agent,” Iain Reid said. “Deep down, I didn’t expect anything to come of it. It’s a fairly philosophical, personal literary story, and seemed to me a challenge to adapt to film.”

However, after talking with Kaufman, Reid said: “We got along right away and had similar interests in film, music and literature. From then on, I knew there was no one else I would want to adapt this story to film. It would be Charlie or nobody.”

I’m Thinking of Ending Things hits Netflix on September 4.