I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS
Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET
MOVIE PREMIERE: The title of Charlie Kaufman’s new movie, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, comes from the quietly spoken first line of narration, emanating from the character of the young woman played by Jessie Buckley. She’s agreed to go on a trip with her new boyfriend Jake, played by Jesse Plemons, to introduce her to his parents, played by David Thewlis and Toni Collette. It’s a powerhouse cast – Buckley is a standout in the upcoming season of FX’s Fargo, and was a star of HBO’s Chernobyl, while Collette played many dynamic roles in Showtime’s The United States of Tara and Thewlis was unforgettable in the most recent season of Fargo as villainous V.M. Varga. And speaking of TV’s Fargo – Plemons co-starred in an earlier season of Fargo, as a small-town butcher. And Plemons, I’d like to take a moment to point out, has to be one of this new generation’s actors with the very best, most impressive resumes, racking up appearances in one amazing production after another. Since co-starring as Landry in Jason Katims’ TV series Friday Night Lights, he’s been prominently featured in Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad and El Camino, a season of Noah Hawley’s Fargo, the amazing “U.S.S. Callister” episode of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror – and now he’s co-starring in a moody and mercurial new movie written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, whose famously unusual and intricate screenplays include Anomalisa; Synecdoche, New York; Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; Confessions of a Dangerous Mind; Adaptation; and Being John Malkovich. The more of those you’ve seen, the more original you know his work is.