Charlie Kaufman remains among one of the most creative minds working in Hollywood today. In the past two decades, he has cemented his place among the finest of scriptwriters, possibly of all time. Collaborating with Spike Jonze for Adaptation and Inside John Malkovich, Kaufman shot into popular culture consciousness with his ground-breaking script for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a haunting exploration of love and memory. Kaufman would go on to direct two feature films- Synecdoche, New York feauturing a career best performance by the inimitable Philip Seymour Hoffman, and the visually gorgeous stop motion animated Anomalisa— both of which failed to shatter the box office, but ended up being cult classics, critically discussed in academia. After a long hiatus, Kaufman returned, to produce, what in my opinion, are two of the most ingenious works of art to come out this year- Antkind and I’m Thinking of Ending Things.
Kaufman is fascinated with the Self and the world that is filtered through it— and almost all of his works are brilliant deconstructions and dissections of the human mind. Obsessed with the cracked echo chamber of human consciousness, again and again, his movies ask: Are we even real to one another, or do each of us project our innermost desires and anxieties outward, turning the faces and feelings of lovers, colleagues and family members into mirrors of our own narcissism?
The plot of his debut novel Antkind— a schizophrenic metafictional journey exploring art, cinema, and the human condition— is difficult to express in words. “B. Rosenberger Rosenberg, the bitter, unsuccessful film critic at the center of the book, rants his way through 720 pages of Job-like trials and misadventures that include breakups, lost gigs, having to move into a New York City apartment too small to accommodate a bed and then having to take on a roommate to afford it, being supplanted by an unctuously prosperous doppelgänger, an apocalyptic conflagration, being trapped in a cave with 40,000 animatronic replicas of “President Trunk” that can fly and shoot lasers out of their eyes, sexual congress with a mountain, and a tragically thwarted friendship with a lonely, intelligent ant named Calcium from 1 million years in the future”, writes critic Laura Miller, and that somewhat summarizes what the book is about.
Hilariously obscure references to cinema, coupled with cynical dry wit, and a brutal takedown of liberal performative woke-ness, makes Antkind a fascinating yet somewhat convoluted read. Picture and imagine a lovechild of Borges, Kafka and Pynchon with a dash of Douglas Adams scattered here and there— that's Antkind for you.
Kaufman’s latest work I’m Thinking of Ending Things, premiered on Netflix on the fourth of September. Just like every movie of his, the reactions and reviews were polarising, and not without any good reason. Adapted from the novel of the same name by author Iain Reid, this might be Kaufman’s least accessible work but it also just might be his very best.
In my opinion, nobody has been fascinated with the male psyche as much as Kaufman. He probes into the minds of his characters, reaping through their layers of ego and insecurities, as one becomes a part of them, real and complete in all their faults and insecurities. Kaufman’s heroes are all too human and relatable, trying to escape from the depths of their loneliness but held back by their narcissism and sociopathic quirks.
Of late, the term ‘mindfuck’ has become quite fashionable with the rising popularity of Tv shows like Dark and directors like Christopher Nolan. Any open-ended tale with a non-linear timeline is bound to find a place in clickbaity lists like ‘Top 10 Mindfuck Movies of 2020.’ Kaufman has also not been spared from this label, and his latest work might be his most complicated movie till date.
In I’m Thinking of Ending Things as far as we can guess, we are in the head of a woman named Lucy (portrayed by the phenomenal Jessie Buckley), who is taking a road trip with her boyfriend, Jake (Jesse Plemons). “You can’t fake a thought,” Lucy muses to herself, and one of her thoughts is summed up in the movie’s title. She and Jake haven’t been dating that long, and she doesn’t see much of a future for them. As the couple makes their way through a snowstorm toward the farm where Jake’s parents live, little inconsistencies pop up, mostly about Lucy’s interests and background. One minute, she says she has no interest in poetry, while the next she is reciting a heart-rending lyric she claims to have written herself.. Her peacoat is pink, until it is blue. Her name might not even be Lucy.
Reaching the house of Jake’s parents, the mood of the film turns darker and more surreal. (Word of advice: a dinner with Toni Collette, who plays the part of Jake’s mother, is not the best of ideas given Hereditary and Knives Out.)So go and watch and rewatch and rewatch I’m Thinking of Ending Things, and then pickup a copy of Antkind and immerse yourself in the staggering genius (or is it genus) of the mind that is Charlie Kaufman’s.
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