throughout the movie, lucy kept insisting on “going home” which i thought meant killing himself, while jake was finding one distraction after another to stall this. it’s like his mind was fighting with himself to stay alive.
badguys89 holy wow. I didn’t think of it like that. Now that you mention that. Her rants were actually his own thoughts. When she said I thinking of ending things he meant himself. It’s a double meaning where it sounds like she wanted to break up with him but really he wanted to kill him self
Octavio Duran yeah exactly! i first thought it meant just breaking up. but everytime “she” had that thought she would say she’s thinking of ending things but then go on to say how nice of a guy jake is. that was also jake fighting with his mind
Holy moly. This makes so much sense. And remember the scene when they were arguing about how every creature just want to stay alive? Perhaps, Lucy, is the honest part of him.
Patrick Cuenco you’re right. That makes sense too. I’m assuming he had a mental break where he might have took on these personalities in his head after years of just him living his life the way he never thought would happen.
omg me too lol when they got to the car part my fam was so fed up lol they could have easily cut a lot of that part out so it didn’t feel like 5 hours long
The girl with the rashes on her arms from the joint she said she was worried for him in the future , now i can relate to jake wanting to be loved heild but when it comes to our footsteps we cant seem to look it in the eye or we push away while it gets replayed like a record . its very hard describing how your past could be the dimmest but yet the brightest part of our life
Also, the reason his parents kept changing ages from young to old and back again was because Jake was imaging bringing this dream girl “Lucy” home to meet his parents. While he imagined doing this he wondered what part of his life that they’d meet so he struggled to put her in a specific timeline in which he was meeting his parents.
Yes! When Jake's mother started talking about how he had no friends,it embarrassed him and he changed his parents to their older selves and him taking care of her mother is the only thing that he was proud of.
I don't think he was trying to do that. I think he's just living all the ages with her he just wanted her in every frame of his life tho he knows that his life is fully sucked that it even not happening happily with all of them together. They screwd it all the time.
I believe another aspect tying into the theme of death is watching your parents age. When anyone else looks at my dad they see a frail old man and when they look at my mom they see a tombstone, but I remember him when they were both young and full of life... Perhaps the most heartbreaking aspect of those aging scenes is not just seeing them as very old people all of a sudden, but seeing how their somewhat abrasive personalities have considerably mellowed out. Losing the 'spunk' that made them who they are is equally as jarring as losing their mental and physical faculties.
i think the parents kept changing ages because jake was imagining “lucy” throughout different times in his life, but they never aged as the parents aged because, as jake says “youth is ideal”
The one part about that that confused me though was when his parents were much younger and Jake was a baby or toddler... why did he imagine that he would be bringing this girl home when he was so young?
Thats what reading the book was like. Waiting for something terrifying to happen on the next page and it never did, and you realize the whole book was the terrifying thing.
Maybe Kaufman was attempting to share that that's just what it feels like to live anxiously, awaiting a danger that only exists in your suspicions, never allowing you to relax and enjoy.
I cried when the old janitor Jake was talking in person with Lucy inside the school...it was heartbreaking to see how lonely he was and how the only conversation he had that long day was with an imaginary girl who didn’t remember his younger self...and when she hugged him it felt like my heart broke a tiny bit. So sad that there are people so alone and isolated....this was the saddest movie
Juan Guerra - I moved out of the home I grew up in back in 1984 when I was just 12, and even still when any part of my dreams are set "at home" it’s always in that house that I haven’t set foot in for over 35 years...
Atul Mishra - Someone on the internet who cares. You’ve put a little sad smile on my face. It wasn’t just me - the whole family moved out and we moved to a house with a back garden in a slightly nicer neighbourhood that was a lot closer to the school I was attending. As it was I was walking through miles of dangerous areas every day and my parents were terrified that I’d get beaten up. I wasn’t so worried because I was getting plenty of that (and much worse) off my older "brother", and it turned out that there was something very strange about the house we moved to - we saw a lot of very trivial but quite impossible things there. Perhaps the strangest thing was that my parents came to within a hair’s-breadth of splitting up, which in itself particular odd, but everyone I could find out about who’d lived there before us had broken up, and everyone who lived there after us has divorced or broken up (including a newlywed couple and a husband and wife who’d been happily married for nearly sixty years). As soon as we finally moved again my parents’ relationship became better than ever and just continued to grow and grow. I’ve kept my eye on that house ever since.
Right before people die of hypothermia, their veins expand and cause them to feel hot, causing them to strip. I think this happened to jake since he was kinda freaking out while taking off each piece of clothing.
Thank you for explaining this. I'm trying to remember which (of many) famous writers was found on the train tracks naked, dead from hypothermia. Thank you for finally letting me understand why people with hypothermia undress/are found dead naked. So tragic.
definitely an uncomfortable, depressing, and confusing film to take in, but this video really clears up a lot of things i had questions about. really wanting to read the book now!
he actually looks at him at the nobel price scene which i interpret as his father not being able to be proud of him unless he is successful in his live which he never became
This film was incredibly disorienting and unsettling. It made me feel emotionally exhausted by the end. I wanted to stop watching it but I couldn't for some reason.
Yes! That confused me because I'd already assumed this whole thing is a real mindf... It was soon clear one of them wasn't real but since most things are told from the lens of Lucy I was surprised to realize she was the figment of reality. Her finding his true identity is like Jake reminding himself he doesn't have the life he wanted in his fantasy. From the moment they entered the car, I noticed how much alike the actors look, the childhood photo just verified my suspicions
Honestly, I equal parts hated and loved the movie, kept asking myself 'why am I still watching this?' yet couldnt turn it off. At the end it felt like I had gone on a beautiful wild ride but also that I had wasted 2 hours of my life. Never been so conflicted about a film before.
One thing is bothering me: The father creeped me out from the very beginning because he keeps on staring at Lucy. Then we get the discussion about Baby, it's cold outside. And when the janitor is watching Jake and Lucy kissing in the car, Jake freaks out and screams about knowing what a pervert looks like. Lucy calls something along the lines of: He's not a monster. At least he never hit you. Does this hint at Jake being molested by his father as a child?
That's very possible. The father also creepily talks about how a child's bed can't be used for sex after lucy checks on jakes old bedroom. The imagery of the pig being eaten by the family could symbolize molestation as well.
such an interesting film. to me, the constant changing of the woman's name, of the color of her sweater, of her job and profession, unsettling continuity between scenes (especially at the farmhouse)... it felt like how it feels when I come up with stories. I, too, constantly change names and character backgrounds and hair colors and random shit like from scene to scene. "what color was her sweater? i don't remember. blue? I don't like that name I'm gonna change it to luisa. wasn't there a dog?" sometimes I base scenes on personal experiences. sometimes I spend hours in my daydream world. just like the janitor. it's escapism but even in our escape, we can't help but be defined our experiences, which is why the janitor, sad man that he is, thinks of his life and can hardly think beyond his own little world. jake, "lucy", mother, father... they were all characters in the janitor's daydream. it was an escape. maybe a millionth time. maybe one last time
It's true, actually, that when we are recollecting an experience we're always spicing up the details, clarifying fuzzy motivations, and tying up loose ends.
I think the title and repeating line “I’m thinking of ending things” is a huge clue as well. It’s another example of Jake’s underlying thoughts from his real life and depression bleeding into his imagination. It’s him contemplating suicide, ending his relationship with himself.
Also the speech he gives when receiving the Nobel prize is the exact speech John Nash gives in the movie a beautiful mind which is about a brilliant mathematicians struggling with schizophrenia
I will end up like Jake... just tired. Im trying not to "end things" but I am spending year after year just trying to survive instead of living. I should have ended it long ago.
True we need hope. But in jakes case he was completely confused and got devoured by his dreams. Most of us are 20% in our heads. I think as long as we are balanced imagination can be a cure and hope for mankind
The hole time during the move I thought who did he kill. Only to find out he was a caring compassionate old man who wanted to be loved 🥺 I'm going to go cry now
@@eclipseezera6822 That's the issue with society. Remember that You and Nightstalker is lingering around in people thoughts right now. The sort of audience dont want humans, people want monsters so it gives them a thrill ride of existence. People believe more fiction then reality itself. Dont believe me? It's obvious that people are scard of ghosts and make shit up that's not even there.
The fact that the film is mainly driven by the perspective of 'Lucy' made it all the more complicated to understand. We continue to follow a character who isn't even supposed to be seen as a real person, which proves the film's perspective is mirroring Jake's mind. He is driven and consumed by a woman he is imagining a reality with, which completely reflects Kaufman's decision to have 'Lucy' narrate and lead the narrative. Jake's mind is led by 'Lucy' and so does the film.
Notice that everytime Lucy tells him that she wants to end things, that he instantly overtalks her with another thing from his past? As said people chose the easy way knowing that the end will always be the same and that they just postpone it. Even tho he has no sense in life anymore and know how it will end, he keeps on repressing whats about to happen.
This movie hit me really hard. I'm very introverted and suffer with anxiety and low self esteem so I've been scared to put myself out there. I've missed so many opportunities because of it. So watching Jake's story really resonated with me. I don't want to live a life full of regret 😭
I know that feeling. Just when I was going to law school, I developed panic disorder and feel so frustrated with my life because I can't control my anxiety.
Same. I feel like people in the movie are “just trying too hard to be deep”. Then random incoherent stuff happened in the movie which didn’t make sense at all overall
Marie RocketsThe movie felt so forced to be a Psychological twisted mind provoking when it was really truly all over the place and was trying to fit TOO many messages
I think you guys have the complete wrong idea. Nothing was random. The ballet sequence at the end was not random, it was the acting out of a young man (trying to) fall in love with a woman, but is instead “killed” by his reality. Who he really is. A sad janitor, too afraid to pursue love. All displayed in a form fond of Jake, musically. The whole story is, in fact, based upon this. It’s a what-if daydream. “What if I’d really approached that girl (or any girl)?” A fantasy world where he’s no longer alone, where his parents can be proud of him for something. But he can’t help but shake his belief that he‘s a rotting pig. And at the end, he has a mental breakdown, and presumably commits suicide by hypothermia sitting in his car. It is absolutely a deep story. And it was not hastily thrown together. Give any detail you guys were confused about and I bet I could tell you its significance or find an explanation.
@@nic..1 That's your opinion. I noticed the details, the callbacks of each scenes, but I found the movie pointless. If you never read the book, that story they're trying to portray in the movie. It is not easily understandable. Nothing in the movie was easily understandable. One of the things I hate about this movie is that most people who like it has this attitude that you're somehow intellectually inferior, and a lazy thinker because you didn't see the point of the movie. The premise was about a woman meeting his bf's parent's for the first time. When I watched it, I kept waiting for the thing that puts it all together, but it never did. It's just a lot of incoherent thoughts, and cringeworthy scenes. The only thing I liked about the movie was the awkward dinner scene, then I started hating all of it after that. I didn't find any of the characters likable, and I wasn't heavily invested in any of them except maybe a little for the woman who was just trying to get home. But as it turns out, she's not even real. I'm muting this because it's a miss for me. Nothing will change my mind or give me back the 2 hours I spent watching it
A few weeks ago when I watched the trailer for the first time was so curious about it so I searched what the book was about, and saw that at the end you find out that the girl and the guy are in fact one, and they are the janitor who kills himself. Then I started watching the movie and the first 5 minutes in which the girl talks about ending things with jake, I found out that she could be as well talking about suicide, and "ending things" means dying. It is as if there were two parts of himself, and one just doesnt want to live anymore (Lucy).The other is still hopeful (Jake)
Yenno... I believe you’re correct. Another example is towards the end of the movie. I forgot what exactly was said, Jake begins crying a bit and is talking about God having a plan, silver linings in clouds and there being a person for everyone and Lucy can’t help but mockingly disagree with any of those statements.
@@thisiskitta i read the book twice. The first time i thought she was going to commit suicide. The second time around I noticed that on the surface level its about her ending the relationship but knowing what happened in the end I knew it could also mean suicide. Love that the author has this level of ambiguity not only in the title but in the book as a whole
I usually can’t sit through a 2 hour movie, especially one like this which really isn’t relatively exciting. Not to mention, the first hour and a half were literally about 4 scenes. And yet, trying to figure out what this movie was really about, trying to notice every little detail, kept me 100% interested. I plan to watch it again now that I’ve researched all it’s about. Good movie.
Dank The Gank definition of allusion: “an expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference.”
I can see from the comments that a lot of people related to it too. Some said it hit too close. Others said this is probably how their life will be etc . How ironic and sadly beautiful is that. People relating to it and commenting on a TH-cam content about a movie of a man who creates an elaborate fantasy based on the contents he consumed. Deeply meta
I think we all secretly dream of a life we could have had in some way or another. When I'm in my shower, I daydream about how I would act as an actress or a singer. It's incredibly ridiculous but human
You know the whole time I was watching the film, I was got caught into thinking it was about Lucy being trapped in a relationship and the idea of being trapped and getting old, but that didn't explain half of the story. This makes total sense, I feel almost cheated by Kaufman for making me think it was about her as she was the main protagonist.
Yeah i thought the same too. I thought Lucy was in mental assylum and she was imagning things when she went to that building and talk to janitor. Damn that was a really good twist in the end❤
Me too. I thought she was envisioning all of these different possibilities to see if it's worth continuing her life or really ending it all. At some point I even wondered if Jake was real, but never her. 😂
It made so much sense watching the movie with the true explanation in mind. Even the bits where characters constantly interrupt each other at points feels like how you're mind instantly responds to itself. I really love this movie.
I actually interpreted Jake's parents as representations of his own mental decline and slip into dementia. The way he reacted to his mother at the dinner table with embarrassment and frustration felt like him disparaging himself for not remembering things clearly. It makes more sense that they were actual representations of his memories and feelings towards them.
I love this film with all my heart. It’s too real to me. Jake is me in the future if I don’t stop obsessing over the most trivial things and regretting every aspect of my life. Watching this film was really cathartic.
Y E S. took the words right out of my mouthm except the difference is, before i watched mother i actually read the meaning first, so it was way more understandable.
@@nadsoos2212 i hadn't read about it. But the way people were coming in and the they killed her baby so the i figured its a metaphor for earth how we just take from it but never give back and love it
This movie is depressing af man. And I loved every minute of it. I think the message is about missed opportunities and never getting to accomplish your dreams
I haven't read all comments here, but... Hasn't anyone else noticed the dog's ashes on Jake's book shelf? Also, when "Lucy" asked Jake about his dog, and he couldn't say anything about it when suddenly BOOM! There it was, just as if Jake could finally remember how his dog looked like. And the reason for it to be shaking non-stop is that he'd seen this scene so many times in the past that he couldn't recall another moment with it, except for the dog shaking the snow off of his fur!
I feel like it's a Jake trying to reconcile the present happening while he lives in the (fantasy) past. Sort of like his brain trying to make reality break through
I think its about infragments of time bcs after jake said maybe the parents put the swings first and then settles the moving, lucy said what an odd sequence of time. Its a foreshadow of how the parents are portrayed throughout all ages
Movie was all over the place but the acting and dialogue were excellent. I didnt understand much and felt like quitting the movie but it kept pullling me back in.
blue is a recurring motif in the movie such as his slippers, the colour of the young woman's clothes on their way home, the lockers, the fade to blue scene at the end, and many more but i don't get what for lol
I like to think that the pigs and the maggots represent the hidden damages that depression can inflict. How it's so common for everyone to overlook someone's fatal struggle until their body is found where there soul isn't.
I think this movie is meant to convey what dementia is like, due to the fact that there is no linear timeline, several flashbacks, and even a character who doesn’t exist and serves as sort of a hallucination
Yes, this is exactly my take on this movie. I feel like Jake himself was suffering from the initial stages of Alzheimer’s. The confusion, the different timelines, the fact that he was still able to hold onto musical memories but couldn’t place faces and names. I feel like the young girl, she was called that as well as Lucia, Lucy, Ames short for Amy was a mesh of past girlfriends or Jake was trying remember her fully but couldn’t.
I didn't feel uncomfortable or anything of the such. It was an interesting/neat movie that reminded me of an M Night Shyamalan movie meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Watching this video I'm just now finding out that they share writers. I was just trying to piece things together...a tad more literally then metaphorically. I just kept wanting the girl (whose name kept changing) to ask what the fuck is going on with the parents shifting age and such.
Her analytical dissection of "A Woman Under The Influence" is Pauline Kael, the giant book Jake has in his room. She does put you to shame, but don't worry, she put everyone to shame.
At one point while watching this movie I thought I related to Lucy, but it was really Jake who I truly saw myself in. Any person who has experienced such lonely and sadness to the point of mentally reconstructing how your life could have, should have been probably felt the same unsettling nostalgia that I felt, while watching this. Definitely my current favorite movie.
There’s a very confusing and misleading aspect the film has to me. The fact that it establishes the premise that you’re in the girls point of view, and that shes struggling in breaking up with him when in reality it’s about what is in his head. I don’t get the emphasis the film puts on her subjectivity and on materializing her stream of consciousness, if she doesn’t really have one and only exists in his mind. There’s that long car trip scene in the beginning where you perceive the awkwardness of their interactions through her point of view and how uncaptivated she is by him, and there’s this sort of stylistic realism to that scene that just really seems inconsistent to me if the film actually wants to create a surrealistic anti-plot without cause and effect. This really puzzles me: why the title of the film, why the focus on making her seem like the central character of the film and making her struggle believable, why set that goal and that premise only to never pick that up again. I think even though it has some interesting ideas, good acting moments and some aesthetic qualities, this movie is overall kind of a mess in its construction, structure and progression and it kind of fails to produce its own coherence, even if that coherence is supposed to ambiguous. The film could be more clear on its ambiguity. I think David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive successfully does exactly what this film tries to do, in terms of creating this sort of surrealistic painting about a main character’s failed dreams and failed life journey
You have to keep in mind that this is based on the book “I’m thinking of ending things” which is about what goes through the head of someone on the verge of committing suicide. Lucy constantly referencing “I’m thinking of ending things” is simply Jakes thoughts of suicide in the present.
I think that we see everything through the point of view of the fictional character of Lucy, because it talks about the low self esteem that he had in all his life that even in his own imagination he can't be the protagonist, it also talks about the importance of fiction, he says and the end “this wont even exist without you” for me he is talking to idealism, he says that “fiction itself (that is what Lucy represents for the viewer) is more important than life”
Hey, this is actually one my favorite things he does in this film. The film deals a lot with the theme of "control." One of the big questions throughout the film is "Who is in control?" She talks about feeling infected by an idea in the beginning of the movie and throughout the car ride she talks about how ideas are like viruses that take over your mind and turn you into them. He is in control, literally driving the car. His mom even refers to him as a control freak and she, the "Lucy" character is begging him to leave throughout the film and consistently says she's uncomfortable and something is wrong. He never listens to her. There is an internal war going on inside of him. One part of him is resigned to death, the Jake version of him. The other side of him, depicted as Lucy is fighting for control, wants to live and resents being trapped with this suicidal jerk. You can see that when they get to the farm and his reaction to the frozen sheep is indifference and she is horrified and wants to know what's going to happen to them. Another important scene is when they get to the school and he sings "Baby its cold outside" and she angrily explains its about rape and compares it to their situation. She wants to leave and he's trapping her. He feels betrayed by himself, by this force inside of him that continues to make decisions that are self harming, staying at the desolate cold farm with cold parents in the dangerous cold snow. I think the biggest thing this film addresses is the idea of "How we came to be the way we are." Is it our parents fault? Is it the books we read and the films we watch that infect our brain? Is it the spectacle of society? Is it the trauma we experience in childhood? Who and what is driving the car?
I agree, the film itself acknowledges that this is a hallow vantage point yet decides to make it ours? Ambiguity does not lead to the stark contrast and reality of a misspent life. The stark calculation that you no longer contribute and have value is one that warrants consideration as that emotion is far too common. This does not address this at all, in anyway remotely. That is due to narrative choices that were deliberate and well thought out. Our muddied perspectives as viewers has zero relation to the grayness of life and is a disservice to this topic. I was wholly disappointed by this and found it as pretentious and vapid as the girls serving ice cream. This is like adaption without the writer inserting himself to admit he tackled a film about flowers and found nothing that deserves a film then your just left with a generic story that no matter how interestingly written or acted has fuck all to do with orchids.
When he apologized for Jimmy's smell I originally thought it was because he knew he was dead but now I'm thinking it could've been more of him apologizing to the illusion of Lucy for his own insecurities in himself projected on to his dog and "Lucy's" brushing off of this with "he's a dog" may have been his own justification and banter within his head. Similar to when Lucy notes good things about Jake such as "I mean, he's a nice guy" interjecting her negative thoughts. The dog scene could've been a parallel to that in a way. That's just my interpretation I'm interested in hearing other theories.
When I saw the director for the movie I already knew that I was in for a dream reality nightmare, then I saw what it was based on and couldnt be more excited, and now I can say this is a total masterpiece, loved every second of it
I feel so proud that whatever theories I had are the exact theories that are correct and btw person asking about the swings in front of the old house it's exactly what it is, jake wanted children but the dream sits prettily in front of an old dead life.
Right at the beginning when we first see the young woman in the street catching snow on her tongue old Jake is watching her from an upstairs window, it cuts back to the woman (continuous), then back to the room that old Jake was in, but it’s now young Jake (continuous), then we cut back to the young woman (continuous) and young Jake immediately, impossibly, pulls up in his car.
Watching this film is like a dull, sudden pain gnawing at your gut. You're left wondering when and how it started and when its going to end... hopefully, before you have to do something absolutely necessary.
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This is the closest correct explanation of this video I've watched 2 other videos and this was
This movie captures dreams so perfectly, the jumping through time, things changing and evolving. It's amazing how the director captures the idea of a lonely janitor who regrets his meaningless life and dreams about his girlfriend who approves of him and all his achievements. Lucy said it herself, Jake needs someone to approve of him and she too needs to be approved by others hence why she's a painter, a poet, a physicist and all these impressive things. The Oscar wilde quote they gave about how people's thoughts are just others opinions and how we aren't actually ourselves, we take our own personality from others and from social media and this is exactly what Jake does. He regrets his life so creates this fantasy in his own head, it's constantly changing because of what he sees on tv or reads in books and we have all been there. We have all had a dream and then another time had the same dream again but have it altered slightly because of what's in the news or a movie we saw.
This movie gave me the feels... it was like listening to the most depressive inter dialogue and believing it is actually yours 😅 confusing af too, this video helped a lot
It was so uncomfortably personal. I've never watched a movie that has managed to elicit that kind of reaction from me, on that basis it's a triumph of cinematic excellence.
I'm so thankful for this interpretation. I didn't dislike the film by any means, but I feel like I wasn't able to engage with it fully due to not having a solid interpretation of my own. I gathered the janitor was somehow Jake, and the idea of him and the young woman being the same person cropped up in my mind because of the photograph, but I never got much further than that.
Once you see that the paintings and the poem are someone else's, it can become clear that she is just imaginary. If you noticed that, it gets easier to understand most of the plot
Also when she wondered about what it's like to be a sheep doing nothing but eating shiting,sleeping,like Jake and the frozen lamps felt like overshadowing his death and when she said she should end things because she waited so long for things to get better,I think what he meant by that was to end his life and stop holding on a hope that things might change and age is just a number.
Same here, just in every way. It gave me the same feeling of innate "wrongness" or like the world has snapped into trajectory and you’ve woken up in a world that has been stripped of meaning. Everything is hollow, music sounds tinny and off, every action is deliberate, like lines read from an instruction manual. Thoughts are daydreams, you lose yourself in them while feeling the futility of them, crushing you with the sense of tedium. Hope feels like a juvenile concept, happiness as unreachable as trying to believe in Santa Claus after catching your parents putting "his" gifts under the tree. You’re too tired to think, but you can’t stop. Scene after scene, conversation after conversation with yourself in disguise. Nothing is new, everything an echo. Sometimes it feels like nostalgia and somehow that feels like every breath fails to bring you oxygen. If you’re dying, you can only mourn yourself so long, before it all seems predestined too. Every hope gets shattered, every memory wronged by time, every fantasy renders reality unbearable in comparison. Or something, I haven’t given it much thought...
Yess I found the ruthlessness of the drawn out scenes made it feel less like a movie and more like a daydream. There was hardly any chemistry between the characters too, which really made it hard to watch. The only scene that felt safe was the last one imo
Honestly, I could only understand a little of how much this movie has, I felt confused at times and at other times the intention seemed very obvious. I like it because even if we don't know what we are seeing it really makes you feel scared, uncomfortable, sad and anxious, which feels similar to how I feel during an anxiety attack or depression, and I guess that was the intention.
No lie, I was gonna quit watching this movie after 30 minutes because I felt really offended. Ultimately though, the movie is pretty sympathetic towards it introverted character, even if it does suggest that suicide was his only shot at peace.
Interesting take. I interpreted the ballet and the rendition of "Lonely Room" as Jake realizing that he is, in fact, Jud. He has been the creepy old man and the villain in many women's lives. He accepts the noble prize in a scene that mirrors the end of A Beautiful Mind, and everyone wearing mounds of stage make-up is him seeing it for what it is: a fantasy. He was influenced by Hollywood romances to understand that persistence is what women want, but perhaps his time at the high school in modern times has given him the perspective of these women more clearly. He hears Lucy say that it was easier to just say yes. The women he has had relationships with (Lucy, Aimes etc...) only dated him briefly out of pity or fear, then ended things.
@@donnymurdo Not like in a this movie sucks in a way but like it does a good job in playing with your emotions and thoughts like as if you're the one who's actually experiencing the delusions and mental breakdown that the character is having.
That was the weirdiest movie I have ever seen. I was waiting for some ending but I couldn't understand this movie. Well, now I'm here and it's the same as my life. But I'm happy.
it's weird how the girl, which obviously was just a fantasy, had a shape of her own, she had her own opinions, her own thoughts, thoughts that sometimes were clearly different than Jake's thoughts and opinions, and the part at the basement where she started realizing that she doesn't exist made her more real, it's like this fantasy went beyond the janitor's head and started slowly coming to life, and the way she kept insisting on going back to her house and him always thinking it's his farm house tells alot about how she's having her own shape and him refusing to beleive that.
The whole time i was watching this i felt as if he stalked this girl from his past and eventually killed her because she married someone else and never noticed him throughout. Bothered by his guilt, he eventually takes his life because of it. I based this off of her stating that this creepy guy was watching her and how she hoped her boyfriend would show up. Driven to madness for not being seen by his literal muse, he snaps. To me this is made clear when the young version of himself as the janitor grabing her and killing the boyfriend. A murder he got away with but cant rid himself of the guilt. Playing scenario's in his head of what could have been. Ultimately he cannot live with the torment of his past and his deep loneliness, he ends his life. The fact he's a janitor and chooses to work at a school further enforces that he enjoys being around young girls. It is also worth mentioning that he exhibits alot of psychopathic tendency. Especially the way he watches people's love interactions. Although u feel sorry for him, thats what i got from it. But its interesting how someone else see's this movie. Which his take is probably correct
This film is the personification of my end-of-existence thoughts when I'm high. Literally--the entire vibe and sequence of this film mirrored my high state of mind having an existential crisis episode (minus the Devilman Crybaby ending). It's okay. Everything will be okay.
The drive to the farmhosue is deciding that life has no inherent meaning or is in itself worth living. The time at the farmhouse is Jake looking back on his life and trying to find something else to blame or a way things could have tuned out that didn't lead to where he is now in life, what alternative path could he have taken and now he feels unable to take another. Is there a way "she" would ever stay with him, a way family life could work out. The drive away from the house to the school is Jake deciding he is not worth living. The time at the icream parlour is about finding ways to cope in the present. Compassion and empathy for those who he sees suffering and possibly kinship in suffering. But I think those he wants to help either are too like him and wouldn't take the the help properly or Jake has developed too much social anxiety to even begin. (I think this is the only way he could really have avoided suicide, if this could have played out successfully, but it all feels too late and Jake believes it is) He ultimately feels its hopeless. The other method explored at the ice cream parlour is pleasure seeking, but just like ice cream this doesn't last and is ultimately too manufactured, sweet and can leave a horrible messy residue both inside yourself and could spill out. For me their are clear ilussions to perversion, masturbation, thoughts of justifying rape scenarios. But I don't believe Jake acted on them. He displays a strong hatred of the cups and wants to get rid of them, not let them hang around, let them spill out and be found. I think part of what "drove" him to suicide is he couldn't bare these thoughts. The time in the school is unavoidable uncomfortable confrontation that his fantasy and alter-ego is nothing but fantasy ,it has become so split from who he mostly is and his life situation, the clash is too great, that side of him loses, its no longer sustainable but was once the place of a beautiful naive hope.
Good analysis, but I think the ice cream part is more about prostitution? For any lonely men that ever hired escorts, the description matches perfectly what it feels like to pay to have sex
His Nobel prize was the speech from A Beautiful Mind, part of his film collection. I was picking up schizophrenia/psychosis vibes. His DVD collection had many movies about snapped minds, personalities hidden within. Also, during the movie analysis scene (I think). I could hear a second voice speaking her same words, ever so slightly out of synch. It was subtle. Loved this film!
The fact that an older director portrays the possibility of lonliness makes it so real it almost seems inevitable for those of us single in our 30s and 40s
I loved the nutcrackeresque portrayal of how he wished his love life had been! I think the decline into more cartoony and theatrical elements really shows him being swallowed by his escapism and attachment to youth, especially since all of this takes place within his high school.
throughout the movie, lucy kept insisting on “going home” which i thought meant killing himself, while jake was finding one distraction after another to stall this. it’s like his mind was fighting with himself to stay alive.
Thats a really good point
badguys89 holy wow. I didn’t think of it like that. Now that you mention that. Her rants were actually his own thoughts. When she said I thinking of ending things he meant himself. It’s a double meaning where it sounds like she wanted to break up with him but really he wanted to kill him self
Octavio Duran yeah exactly! i first thought it meant just breaking up. but everytime “she” had that thought she would say she’s thinking of ending things but then go on to say how nice of a guy jake is. that was also jake fighting with his mind
Holy moly. This makes so much sense. And remember the scene when they were arguing about how every creature just want to stay alive? Perhaps, Lucy, is the honest part of him.
Patrick Cuenco you’re right. That makes sense too. I’m assuming he had a mental break where he might have took on these personalities in his head after years of just him living his life the way he never thought would happen.
I suggested this movie for family movie night.... I’m not allowed to pick the movie anymore lol
me too. hahah
I did the exact same thing!
Same !!!!!😭
Lol I’m not allowed to pick movies for family night since I suggested “the shape of water” 😳😆
omg me too lol when they got to the car part my fam was so fed up lol they could have easily cut a lot of that part out so it didn’t feel like 5 hours long
the whole movie just felt like a jump scare that never happened so you have this suspended anxiety in your stomach the entire time. and after lol
YES, my inner emotions triggered me. Lol
Perfect explanation.
@@ali-zg2lj this sounded wrong bro
My exact feeling throughout this whole movie
YESS
The whole movie felt like a weird and depressing dream.
Kaufman summed up
Very true..I was sad but not sure what about exactly!!!
It can be anyone's life. We must appreciate what we have rather than thinking about fantasies that could be our life
Mikael Andersson exactly
@@Doreenabbanja Loneliness I guess. And the memories never comes back. This is what this film reminded me .
I feel like the part when she’s at the school and looks at all those cups is how many times he imagined this scenario
YES
Wow. I was wondering about that. Brilliant point.
or all the suicide attempts he might've had
DUDE YES
The girl with the rashes on her arms from the joint she said she was worried for him in the future , now i can relate to jake wanting to be loved heild but when it comes to our footsteps we cant seem to look it in the eye or we push away while it gets replayed like a record . its very hard describing how your past could be the dimmest but yet the brightest part of our life
Also, the reason his parents kept changing ages from young to old and back again was because Jake was imaging bringing this dream girl “Lucy” home to meet his parents. While he imagined doing this he wondered what part of his life that they’d meet so he struggled to put her in a specific timeline in which he was meeting his parents.
Yes! When Jake's mother started talking about how he had no friends,it embarrassed him and he changed his parents to their older selves and him taking care of her mother is the only thing that he was proud of.
I don't think he was trying to do that. I think he's just living all the ages with her he just wanted her in every frame of his life tho he knows that his life is fully sucked that it even not happening happily with all of them together. They screwd it all the time.
I believe another aspect tying into the theme of death is watching your parents age. When anyone else looks at my dad they see a frail old man and when they look at my mom they see a tombstone, but I remember him when they were both young and full of life... Perhaps the most heartbreaking aspect of those aging scenes is not just seeing them as very old people all of a sudden, but seeing how their somewhat abrasive personalities have considerably mellowed out. Losing the 'spunk' that made them who they are is equally as jarring as losing their mental and physical faculties.
i think the parents kept changing ages because jake was imagining “lucy” throughout different times in his life, but they never aged as the parents aged because, as jake says “youth is ideal”
The one part about that that confused me though was when his parents were much younger and Jake was a baby or toddler... why did he imagine that he would be bringing this girl home when he was so young?
The movie felt like purgatory, I just wanted to change scene. Honestly was uncomfortable the whole time
Girl same. It really grinds my gears.
That’s too bad, absolutely genius
@@lostmarxbro you mean genus 😳
Same, I didn't finish it
ALQASSEM NAZAL wow... sucks to be you I guess. The films amazing
I was scared throughout the film because I felt like something horrifying might pop out. All in all, it was unnerving, perplexing, and kinda sad.
Lawtrina Kerkula what
@Lawtrina Kerkula thats an odd thing to post on a TH-cam comment section.
Thats what reading the book was like. Waiting for something terrifying to happen on the next page and it never did, and you realize the whole book was the terrifying thing.
Maybe Kaufman was attempting to share that that's just what it feels like to live anxiously, awaiting a danger that only exists in your suspicions, never allowing you to relax and enjoy.
It's like life
I cried when the old janitor Jake was talking in person with Lucy inside the school...it was heartbreaking to see how lonely he was and how the only conversation he had that long day was with an imaginary girl who didn’t remember his younger self...and when she hugged him it felt like my heart broke a tiny bit. So sad that there are people so alone and isolated....this was the saddest movie
same
@@dreamyhazydaisy3560 Forreal, i wanted to hug him the entire time he was shown on screen :(
Yes I love that scene
I cried when I saw the dance bc it was like representative of the entire film & the beautiful hope the janitor had being crushed.
Yes same here
- I just wanna go home
- To the farmhouse?
So nostalgic. No matter how old, "home" will always be the place where you grew up.
Juan Guerra - I moved out of the home I grew up in back in 1984 when I was just 12, and even still when any part of my dreams are set "at home" it’s always in that house that I haven’t set foot in for over 35 years...
@@BlueGrenadeTom This movie is so moving. So much universality in its themes.
@@BlueGrenadeTom why are you not going home
Atul Mishra - Someone on the internet who cares. You’ve put a little sad smile on my face.
It wasn’t just me - the whole family moved out and we moved to a house with a back garden in a slightly nicer neighbourhood that was a lot closer to the school I was attending. As it was I was walking through miles of dangerous areas every day and my parents were terrified that I’d get beaten up. I wasn’t so worried because I was getting plenty of that (and much worse) off my older "brother", and it turned out that there was something very strange about the house we moved to - we saw a lot of very trivial but quite impossible things there. Perhaps the strangest thing was that my parents came to within a hair’s-breadth of splitting up, which in itself particular odd, but everyone I could find out about who’d lived there before us had broken up, and everyone who lived there after us has divorced or broken up (including a newlywed couple and a husband and wife who’d been happily married for nearly sixty years). As soon as we finally moved again my parents’ relationship became better than ever and just continued to grow and grow.
I’ve kept my eye on that house ever since.
@@BlueGrenadeTom it's kind of you to reply as I felt compelled to know the reason of your exile
Good to know about you , stay blessed ☺️
Right before people die of hypothermia, their veins expand and cause them to feel hot, causing them to strip. I think this happened to jake since he was kinda freaking out while taking off each piece of clothing.
Also, when we see the close up of Jake's hand, his veins are expanding
Paradoxical undressing
Wow, I did not notice that until now
Thank you for explaining this. I'm trying to remember which (of many) famous writers was found on the train tracks naked, dead from hypothermia. Thank you for finally letting me understand why people with hypothermia undress/are found dead naked. So tragic.
I just felt the dude was on some hardcore mushrooms or acid lol Jk Jk
definitely an uncomfortable, depressing, and confusing film to take in, but this video really clears up a lot of things i had questions about. really wanting to read the book now!
me too!
I just started reading the book, and its a lot clearer immediately. (although from what i understand the book has a slightly different ending)
The book is less complex
I read the book before watching the movie and I preferred it, also it wasnt as difficult to understand
The book is absolutely amazing aGHH
I got mine for only $15.99 at my local bookstore if you're worried about the price
this movie actually made me kinda sick like spirit wise but the thing is that i could't turn it off, it pulled me in so deep
Dude same. Felt witchcrafty. Lol
Yes !!
I felt bored yet at the same time drained and tired after watching. I just stared in the ceiling for 6 hours thinking about this movie.
@@pyreworks5210 I had that exact feeling for over 2 days after watching Synecdoche New York
u sound like a millenial
Jake's father never looks at him in the eyes, not even once, the entire film.
I noticed that too. that hurt
woah.
and the icecream girls didn't look at her.
he actually looks at him at the nobel price scene which i interpret as his father not being able to be proud of him unless he is successful in his live which he never became
well they only had like five scenes together. they werent together the whole film
I clicked play without reading anything about it thinking it was going to be a quirky love story. Boy was I wrong
Sameeeee
Same 😂😂
Same! Lol
samee I probably should have watched the whole trailer instead of the first minute hahaha
Lexie Graham AHAHAA
This film was incredibly disorienting and unsettling. It made me feel emotionally exhausted by the end. I wanted to stop watching it but I couldn't for some reason.
I think it really captures a lot of what goes in the mind of someone with mental health struggles such as depression.
Rowan Six exactly.
Good feeling isn’t it?
Me too. It just felt OFF the whole time, and I kept wanting it to end, but it was in a way, magnetic. You had to complete it.
Did anyone else notice when Lucy is going through the washer in the basement she finds jakes janitor uniforms
I didn’t really put those two together, dang
Yes! That confused me because I'd already assumed this whole thing is a real mindf... It was soon clear one of them wasn't real but since most things are told from the lens of Lucy I was surprised to realize she was the figment of reality. Her finding his true identity is like Jake reminding himself he doesn't have the life he wanted in his fantasy.
From the moment they entered the car, I noticed how much alike the actors look, the childhood photo just verified my suspicions
Yes! So clever.
Yea. Everyone
And it looked like there were the dogs’ ashes in jakes childhood bedroom
Honestly, I equal parts hated and loved the movie, kept asking myself 'why am I still watching this?' yet couldnt turn it off. At the end it felt like I had gone on a beautiful wild ride but also that I had wasted 2 hours of my life. Never been so conflicted about a film before.
Me too, and i felt the same after watching midsommar
Yes I agree !
God yes this summed up how I felt, but this explanation really helped! I did think the movie was so interesting and I couldn’t stop watching it
same
Mission Accomplished.
How the dialogues overlap each other without any breathing room gave me anxiety
so true, and how sometimes "lucy" answers jake's questions even before he finished asking
One thing is bothering me: The father creeped me out from the very beginning because he keeps on staring at Lucy. Then we get the discussion about Baby, it's cold outside. And when the janitor is watching Jake and Lucy kissing in the car, Jake freaks out and screams about knowing what a pervert looks like. Lucy calls something along the lines of: He's not a monster. At least he never hit you. Does this hint at Jake being molested by his father as a child?
That's very possible. The father also creepily talks about how a child's bed can't be used for sex after lucy checks on jakes old bedroom. The imagery of the pig being eaten by the family could symbolize molestation as well.
Damn. Now I'm more depressed about the movie.
@@SwanTeeth and maybe thats why the father forgot about the pig or about the act he did on his son. but jakes memory kept it
also the dad never once looked at jake, i rewinded the scenes that had jake and his parents and the dad doesn’t look at him AT all
@@madurawijeratne8712 same
such an interesting film. to me, the constant changing of the woman's name, of the color of her sweater, of her job and profession, unsettling continuity between scenes (especially at the farmhouse)... it felt like how it feels when I come up with stories. I, too, constantly change names and character backgrounds and hair colors and random shit like from scene to scene. "what color was her sweater? i don't remember. blue? I don't like that name I'm gonna change it to luisa. wasn't there a dog?" sometimes I base scenes on personal experiences. sometimes I spend hours in my daydream world. just like the janitor. it's escapism but even in our escape, we can't help but be defined our experiences, which is why the janitor, sad man that he is, thinks of his life and can hardly think beyond his own little world. jake, "lucy", mother, father... they were all characters in the janitor's daydream. it was an escape. maybe a millionth time. maybe one last time
It's true, actually, that when we are recollecting an experience we're always spicing up the details, clarifying fuzzy motivations, and tying up loose ends.
Omg yes, it's amazing. The janator is the possible version of myslef in the future, if I had never stopped maladaptive daydreaming.
I absolutely love your comment, as its exactly what I'm feeling
@@kimayajadhav5566 maladaptive daydreaming squad ✌️
@@kimayajadhav5566 dude, literally same..
I think the title and repeating line “I’m thinking of ending things” is a huge clue as well. It’s another example of Jake’s underlying thoughts from his real life and depression bleeding into his imagination. It’s him contemplating suicide, ending his relationship with himself.
Also the speech he gives when receiving the Nobel prize is the exact speech John Nash gives in the movie a beautiful mind which is about a brilliant mathematicians struggling with schizophrenia
the movie a beautiful mind DVD is also in his bedroom, cool catch man
I watched a beautiful mind the other day for the first time and I was freaking out when I actually recognized the speech
also they mention schizophrenia on the ride away from the farmhouse. it’s clear that jake has some illnesses
Yes I immediately noticed that cus of the dvd
Also They Live shows up on the DVD collection as well as A Beautiful Mind. Both films about delusions
The sad thing is some of us are like Jake; we keep living a life of “what’s ifs” and “it’s my parents’/past’s fault why I’m like this”.
So true. We have to stop doing that.
Oh god it’s so true so many things “Lucy” aka jakes inner thoughts resonated with me n how life is going rn!
Same
I will end up like Jake...
just tired.
Im trying not to "end things" but I am spending year after year just trying to survive instead of living.
I should have ended it long ago.
True we need hope. But in jakes case he was completely confused and got devoured by his dreams. Most of us are 20% in our heads. I think as long as we are balanced imagination can be a cure and hope for mankind
The hole time during the move I thought who did he kill. Only to find out he was a caring compassionate old man who wanted to be loved 🥺 I'm going to go cry now
There’s a lot of theories in the comments that think he did! They’re super interesting and if you have time I’d recommend reading some!
Did U indeed have a cry?
@@donnymurdo 🥲 but do you
messykween a little, maybe.
@@eclipseezera6822 That's the issue with society. Remember that You and Nightstalker is lingering around in people thoughts right now. The sort of audience dont want humans, people want monsters so it gives them a thrill ride of existence. People believe more fiction then reality itself. Dont believe me? It's obvious that people are scard of ghosts and make shit up that's not even there.
Did any one catch that when young Jake changes the radio station, it cuts to an old man hand?
no didnt catch that . thanks!!!
Felt obvious, lucy even reacts to it
What do you think that means? Does old Jake and young Jake exist at the same time? Like when they are at the house is it young Jake or old Jake?
Laurel yup....sure did
Or when his mom was serving the dessert in that one scene and it looked old and moldy but in the next clip it was fresh and new.
I personally liked it, but found that it hit a little too close to home. It saddened me, but ah well...Life goes on.
I know right ?
or does it?
Its not so bad once you stop feeling sorry for yourself.
Yeah it was so depressing i as a person who struggled with depression and almost died from suicide can relate to this movie so much
Thats Kaufman for you
The fact that the film is mainly driven by the perspective of 'Lucy' made it all the more complicated to understand. We continue to follow a character who isn't even supposed to be seen as a real person, which proves the film's perspective is mirroring Jake's mind. He is driven and consumed by a woman he is imagining a reality with, which completely reflects Kaufman's decision to have 'Lucy' narrate and lead the narrative. Jake's mind is led by 'Lucy' and so does the film.
Even in his fantasies, he doesn't think he deserves to be the main character.
@@chuckles3116 In the words of Kendrick Lamar: never put the pussy on the pedestal
Notice that everytime Lucy tells him that she wants to end things, that he instantly overtalks her with another thing from his past? As said people chose the easy way knowing that the end will always be the same and that they just postpone it. Even tho he has no sense in life anymore and know how it will end, he keeps on repressing whats about to happen.
This movie hit me really hard. I'm very introverted and suffer with anxiety and low self esteem so I've been scared to put myself out there. I've missed so many opportunities because of it. So watching Jake's story really resonated with me. I don't want to live a life full of regret 😭
So how are you getting on?
I know that feeling. Just when I was going to law school, I developed panic disorder and feel so frustrated with my life because I can't control my anxiety.
@@pebbles92able take Popranolol for anxiety. consult your doctor
I thought your last 5 words were poignant. Most people want to live "a full life", but NOT "of regret."
@@pebbles92ablesame 😔
I was so confused throughout this whole movie
Same. I feel like people in the movie are “just trying too hard to be deep”. Then random incoherent stuff happened in the movie which didn’t make sense at all overall
Marie RocketsThe movie felt so forced to be a Psychological twisted mind provoking when it was really truly all over the place and was trying to fit TOO many messages
I think you guys have the complete wrong idea. Nothing was random. The ballet sequence at the end was not random, it was the acting out of a young man (trying to) fall in love with a woman, but is instead “killed” by his reality. Who he really is. A sad janitor, too afraid to pursue love. All displayed in a form fond of Jake, musically.
The whole story is, in fact, based upon this. It’s a what-if daydream. “What if I’d really approached that girl (or any girl)?”
A fantasy world where he’s no longer alone, where his parents can be proud of him for something.
But he can’t help but shake his belief that he‘s a rotting pig. And at the end, he has a mental breakdown, and presumably commits suicide by hypothermia sitting in his car.
It is absolutely a deep story. And it was not hastily thrown together. Give any detail you guys were confused about and I bet I could tell you its significance or find an explanation.
@@nic..1 That's your opinion. I noticed the details, the callbacks of each scenes, but I found the movie pointless. If you never read the book, that story they're trying to portray in the movie. It is not easily understandable. Nothing in the movie was easily understandable. One of the things I hate about this movie is that most people who like it has this attitude that you're somehow intellectually inferior, and a lazy thinker because you didn't see the point of the movie. The premise was about a woman meeting his bf's parent's for the first time. When I watched it, I kept waiting for the thing that puts it all together, but it never did. It's just a lot of incoherent thoughts, and cringeworthy scenes. The only thing I liked about the movie was the awkward dinner scene, then I started hating all of it after that. I didn't find any of the characters likable, and I wasn't heavily invested in any of them except maybe a little for the woman who was just trying to get home. But as it turns out, she's not even real. I'm muting this because it's a miss for me. Nothing will change my mind or give me back the 2 hours I spent watching it
I got really mixed feelings about this movie. I kind of like it and I also thought it was kind of dumb.
A few weeks ago when I watched the trailer for the first time was so curious about it so I searched what the book was about, and saw that at the end you find out that the girl and the guy are in fact one, and they are the janitor who kills himself. Then I started watching the movie and the first 5 minutes in which the girl talks about ending things with jake, I found out that she could be as well talking about suicide, and "ending things" means dying. It is as if there were two parts of himself, and one just doesnt want to live anymore (Lucy).The other is still hopeful (Jake)
Best comment on this video👆
Damn good insight
Yenno... I believe you’re correct. Another example is towards the end of the movie. I forgot what exactly was said, Jake begins crying a bit and is talking about God having a plan, silver linings in clouds and there being a person for everyone and Lucy can’t help but mockingly disagree with any of those statements.
Never read the book but from the very first sentences it felt like she was speaking of suicide
@@thisiskitta i read the book twice. The first time i thought she was going to commit suicide. The second time around I noticed that on the surface level its about her ending the relationship but knowing what happened in the end I knew it could also mean suicide. Love that the author has this level of ambiguity not only in the title but in the book as a whole
Not gonna lie for a minute I thought jake was sacrificing women for youth😂
😂 LMAO me too. I was expecting some "skeleton key" s***
I definitely expected some supernatural explanation but I’m glad there wasn’t
Same!
What how LMAOOOO that's so funny and precious
I was thinking something similar of this sort 😂😭
You can see jimmy's ashes in his bedroom next to the books.
The dog had an ash tray as well. Meaning the dog is long gone. But the one thing that stayed in his memory was how the dog always spun to dry itself.
@@goe5 i never thought of it that way..
I watch almost everything with subtitles and when she speaks she is Young woman/woman and jake is jake i like this film
Latricia woahhh yea thats cool
Yeah I noticed that too!
Picked that up too
I usually can’t sit through a 2 hour movie, especially one like this which really isn’t relatively exciting.
Not to mention, the first hour and a half were literally about 4 scenes.
And yet, trying to figure out what this movie was really about, trying to notice every little detail, kept me 100% interested. I plan to watch it again now that I’ve researched all it’s about. Good movie.
yes that's exactly what I feel about this movie. some scenes were pointless but all in all it's a movie you will remember
Are you going to dip into some of Kaufman’s other work?
@@donnymurdo
Already have :), I really enjoyed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich.
Also a note: the ballet sequence is certainly an allusion to the “dream ballet” in Oklahoma.
illusion*
@@dankthegank1742 allusion is a word
@@sandeeproshan5103 allusion is also the *correct* word in this sentence. 🙏
Dank The Gank definition of allusion: “an expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference.”
@@dankthegank1742 *Nelson voice* haw-haw.
I can see from the comments that a lot of people related to it too. Some said it hit too close. Others said this is probably how their life will be etc . How ironic and sadly beautiful is that. People relating to it and commenting on a TH-cam content about a movie of a man who creates an elaborate fantasy based on the contents he consumed. Deeply meta
yep
I think we all secretly dream of a life we could have had in some way or another. When I'm in my shower, I daydream about how I would act as an actress or a singer. It's incredibly ridiculous but human
No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful. Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful.
@@-Sherri- You sound like Melody from Crashing lol
@@-Sherri- They Might Be Giants can be surprisingly deep.
You know the whole time I was watching the film, I was got caught into thinking it was about Lucy being trapped in a relationship and the idea of being trapped and getting old, but that didn't explain half of the story. This makes total sense, I feel almost cheated by Kaufman for making me think it was about her as she was the main protagonist.
Yeah i thought the same too. I thought Lucy was in mental assylum and she was imagning things when she went to that building and talk to janitor. Damn that was a really good twist in the end❤
Me too. I thought she was envisioning all of these different possibilities to see if it's worth continuing her life or really ending it all. At some point I even wondered if Jake was real, but never her. 😂
I spent like half the time thinking it was a horror movie
It is
I think it falls into psychological horror
@@celery8059 yeah but not like that, I thought the parents and the guy were going to do something to her
In many ways ordinary life if horrific. Kaufman really knows how to put the nails into your coffin.
It made so much sense watching the movie with the true explanation in mind. Even the bits where characters constantly interrupt each other at points feels like how you're mind instantly responds to itself. I really love this movie.
Jake's parents going back and forth in age was really creepy
Very unsettling.
toni colletes incredible acting just makes shit creepy dawg lmao.
At 1:35:00 (or 39m left in the movie) “Lucy” actually replaced by the actress in the movie that old Jake saw.
When I saw that I freaked out.
Wow 🤯
OMG I THOUGHT I WAS GOING CRAZY
same, i wonder why he was embarrassed at the ice cream polar
HOW DID I NOT NOTICE THAT
He also said more than 5 times ihave "chains" !!! Chains linking him with his family, his painful past and his miserable life.
I actually interpreted Jake's parents as representations of his own mental decline and slip into dementia. The way he reacted to his mother at the dinner table with embarrassment and frustration felt like him disparaging himself for not remembering things clearly.
It makes more sense that they were actual representations of his memories and feelings towards them.
I don't think it's dementia. At best, it's hypothermia as he dies.
I love this film with all my heart. It’s too real to me. Jake is me in the future if I don’t stop obsessing over the most trivial things and regretting every aspect of my life. Watching this film was really cathartic.
Grace Catan And your profile picture is a pig 😯🐷
I felt the same about it. Few things make me cry, but this movie did..
Hey, if the director gave you this clear vision - then - change something. It doesn't have to be your destiny. Change your future.
same, it was therapeutic for me
Glad to know I’m not the only one. HAHAHA
Kind of reminded me of Mother. Things just started getting weird out of nowhere lol
Mother made sense to me as Jennifer Lawrence represented earth hence mother. But this was just confusing
Me too!!!! To me, both films are trying too hard to have meaning and be abstract.
Y E S. took the words right out of my mouthm except the difference is, before i watched mother i actually read the meaning first, so it was way more understandable.
Yes, and a bit of Get Out. That’s what’s in my mind while watching.
@@nadsoos2212 i hadn't read about it. But the way people were coming in and the they killed her baby so the i figured its a metaphor for earth how we just take from it but never give back and love it
This movie is depressing af man. And I loved every minute of it. I think the message is about missed opportunities and never getting to accomplish your dreams
This movie has literally gave me chills
The dementia scene with the parents was really hard to watch for me.
I haven't read all comments here, but... Hasn't anyone else noticed the dog's ashes on Jake's book shelf? Also, when "Lucy" asked Jake about his dog, and he couldn't say anything about it when suddenly BOOM! There it was, just as if Jake could finally remember how his dog looked like. And the reason for it to be shaking non-stop is that he'd seen this scene so many times in the past that he couldn't recall another moment with it, except for the dog shaking the snow off of his fur!
Still confused about the swings
I feel like it's a Jake trying to reconcile the present happening while he lives in the (fantasy) past. Sort of like his brain trying to make reality break through
i think it was about the haunting possibility of having children he never got, an abandoned swing set on a ruined house of his life
@@BrokenEvil Intense. But I like it.
I think its about infragments of time bcs after jake said maybe the parents put the swings first and then settles the moving, lucy said what an odd sequence of time. Its a foreshadow of how the parents are portrayed throughout all ages
Movie was all over the place but the acting and dialogue were excellent. I didnt understand much and felt like quitting the movie but it kept pullling me back in.
blue is a recurring motif in the movie such as his slippers, the colour of the young woman's clothes on their way home, the lockers, the fade to blue scene at the end, and many more but i don't get what for lol
also the color of the ribbon on the medal that jake wears at the end
If I am not mistaken blue is also use as a color to signify mental illness
*English teachers have entered the chat*
the drapes were blue
I like to think that the pigs and the maggots represent the hidden damages that depression can inflict. How it's so common for everyone to overlook someone's fatal struggle until their body is found where there soul isn't.
I think this movie is meant to convey what dementia is like, due to the fact that there is no linear timeline, several flashbacks, and even a character who doesn’t exist and serves as sort of a hallucination
That’s what me and my roommates thought the whole time while at the farmhouse and then it got so confusing when they were at the highschool
Yes, this is exactly my take on this movie. I feel like Jake himself was suffering from the initial stages of Alzheimer’s. The confusion, the different timelines, the fact that he was still able to hold onto musical memories but couldn’t place faces and names. I feel like the young girl, she was called that as well as Lucia, Lucy, Ames short for Amy was a mesh of past girlfriends or Jake was trying remember her fully but couldn’t.
And it conveyed it very well indeed. Unsettling.
I thought the same . Depression is kind of like dementia in that sense .
@@katianna7306 Say more.
This movie was just like googling through gore pictures of russian car crashes...you feel very uncomfortable but you can't stop looking
Exactly!
I didn't feel uncomfortable or anything of the such. It was an interesting/neat movie that reminded me of an M Night Shyamalan movie meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Watching this video I'm just now finding out that they share writers. I was just trying to piece things together...a tad more literally then metaphorically. I just kept wanting the girl (whose name kept changing) to ask what the fuck is going on with the parents shifting age and such.
Why would you google that?
@@mars06_ because of the tiny people who keep focking with my head?....maybe?
You’re insane
Her analytical dissection of "A Woman Under The Influence" is Pauline Kael, the giant book Jake has in his room. She does put you to shame, but don't worry, she put everyone to shame.
Exactly
Finally a movie for the entire family!
Lmao
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Daddy loves you very much 🙌
LOL! 6AM, on 2nd drink..............alone in my apt...........................Yes! Hahahaha!
At one point while watching this movie I thought I related to Lucy, but it was really Jake who I truly saw myself in. Any person who has experienced such lonely and sadness to the point of mentally reconstructing how your life could have, should have been probably felt the same unsettling nostalgia that I felt, while watching this. Definitely my current favorite movie.
I love how almost everything in this movie can be interpreted in many different ways
There’s a very confusing and misleading aspect the film has to me. The fact that it establishes the premise that you’re in the girls point of view, and that shes struggling in breaking up with him when in reality it’s about what is in his head. I don’t get the emphasis the film puts on her subjectivity and on materializing her stream of consciousness, if she doesn’t really have one and only exists in his mind. There’s that long car trip scene in the beginning where you perceive the awkwardness of their interactions through her point of view and how uncaptivated she is by him, and there’s this sort of stylistic realism to that scene that just really seems inconsistent to me if the film actually wants to create a surrealistic anti-plot without cause and effect. This really puzzles me: why the title of the film, why the focus on making her seem like the central character of the film and making her struggle believable, why set that goal and that premise only to never pick that up again. I think even though it has some interesting ideas, good acting moments and some aesthetic qualities, this movie is overall kind of a mess in its construction, structure and progression and it kind of fails to produce its own coherence, even if that coherence is supposed to ambiguous. The film could be more clear on its ambiguity.
I think David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive successfully does exactly what this film tries to do, in terms of creating this sort of surrealistic painting about a main character’s failed dreams and failed life journey
"i'm thinking of ending things." it's the janitor. he's depressed. he's contemplating suicide.
You have to keep in mind that this is based on the book “I’m thinking of ending things” which is about what goes through the head of someone on the verge of committing suicide. Lucy constantly referencing “I’m thinking of ending things” is simply Jakes thoughts of suicide in the present.
I think that we see everything through the point of view of the fictional character of Lucy, because it talks about the low self esteem that he had in all his life that even in his own imagination he can't be the protagonist, it also talks about the importance of fiction, he says and the end “this wont even exist without you” for me he is talking to idealism, he says that “fiction itself (that is what Lucy represents for the viewer) is more important than life”
Hey, this is actually one my favorite things he does in this film. The film deals a lot with the theme of "control." One of the big questions throughout the film is "Who is in control?" She talks about feeling infected by an idea in the beginning of the movie and throughout the car ride she talks about how ideas are like viruses that take over your mind and turn you into them. He is in control, literally driving the car. His mom even refers to him as a control freak and she, the "Lucy" character is begging him to leave throughout the film and consistently says she's uncomfortable and something is wrong. He never listens to her. There is an internal war going on inside of him. One part of him is resigned to death, the Jake version of him. The other side of him, depicted as Lucy is fighting for control, wants to live and resents being trapped with this suicidal jerk. You can see that when they get to the farm and his reaction to the frozen sheep is indifference and she is horrified and wants to know what's going to happen to them. Another important scene is when they get to the school and he sings "Baby its cold outside" and she angrily explains its about rape and compares it to their situation. She wants to leave and he's trapping her. He feels betrayed by himself, by this force inside of him that continues to make decisions that are self harming, staying at the desolate cold farm with cold parents in the dangerous cold snow. I think the biggest thing this film addresses is the idea of "How we came to be the way we are." Is it our parents fault? Is it the books we read and the films we watch that infect our brain? Is it the spectacle of society? Is it the trauma we experience in childhood? Who and what is driving the car?
I agree, the film itself acknowledges that this is a hallow vantage point yet decides to make it ours?
Ambiguity does not lead to the stark contrast and reality of a misspent life. The stark calculation that you no longer contribute and have value is one that warrants consideration as that emotion is far too common. This does not address this at all, in anyway remotely.
That is due to narrative choices that were deliberate and well thought out. Our muddied perspectives as viewers has zero relation to the grayness of life and is a disservice to this topic.
I was wholly disappointed by this and found it as pretentious and vapid as the girls serving ice cream.
This is like adaption without the writer inserting himself to admit he tackled a film about flowers and found nothing that deserves a film then your just left with a generic story that no matter how interestingly written or acted has fuck all to do with orchids.
The dog was freaky and I knew it was gonna be revealed to be dead as soon as I saw it lol
When he apologized for Jimmy's smell I originally thought it was because he knew he was dead but now I'm thinking it could've been more of him apologizing to the illusion of Lucy for his own insecurities in himself projected on to his dog and "Lucy's" brushing off of this with "he's a dog" may have been his own justification and banter within his head. Similar to when Lucy notes good things about Jake such as "I mean, he's a nice guy" interjecting her negative thoughts. The dog scene could've been a parallel to that in a way. That's just my interpretation I'm interested in hearing other theories.
When I saw the director for the movie I already knew that I was in for a dream reality nightmare, then I saw what it was based on and couldnt be more excited, and now I can say this is a total masterpiece, loved every second of it
I feel so proud that whatever theories I had are the exact theories that are correct and btw person asking about the swings in front of the old house it's exactly what it is, jake wanted children but the dream sits prettily in front of an old dead life.
Right at the beginning when we first see the young woman in the street catching snow on her tongue old Jake is watching her from an upstairs window, it cuts back to the woman (continuous), then back to the room that old Jake was in, but it’s now young Jake (continuous), then we cut back to the young woman (continuous) and young Jake immediately, impossibly, pulls up in his car.
Watching this film is like a dull, sudden pain gnawing at your gut. You're left wondering when and how it started and when its going to end... hopefully, before you have to do something absolutely necessary.
This is the closest correct explanation of this video I've watched 2 other videos and this was
This movie made me and my grandma so confused. But this is honestly pretty creative and unique, I want more stuff like it
Both Eterbal Sunshine and Being John Malcovich are on netflix now as well.
synecdoche new york is kaufman as well. similar to im thinking of ending things for sure.
So have you found more stuff like it? If so let us know. Mulholland Drive is probably worth a look as well as ‘gjh’s’ recomendations
@@donnymurdo
haven't really been watching TV as much as I used to but I'm definitely gonna take a look at these recommendations
miss twisted Was going to say have fun watching them but that doesn’t ‘t seem quite right. Enjoy the confusion, perhaps.
this movie made me so goddamn sad. Loneliness is one of my biggest fears in life
Hello, how are you today?
Same
This movie captures dreams so perfectly, the jumping through time, things changing and evolving. It's amazing how the director captures the idea of a lonely janitor who regrets his meaningless life and dreams about his girlfriend who approves of him and all his achievements. Lucy said it herself, Jake needs someone to approve of him and she too needs to be approved by others hence why she's a painter, a poet, a physicist and all these impressive things. The Oscar wilde quote they gave about how people's thoughts are just others opinions and how we aren't actually ourselves, we take our own personality from others and from social media and this is exactly what Jake does.
He regrets his life so creates this fantasy in his own head, it's constantly changing because of what he sees on tv or reads in books and we have all been there. We have all had a dream and then another time had the same dream again but have it altered slightly because of what's in the news or a movie we saw.
Movies like that were made for the viewers to have different experiences each time u see it. Like “Mother” for example.
This movie gave me the feels... it was like listening to the most depressive inter dialogue and believing it is actually yours 😅 confusing af too, this video helped a lot
this movie accually made me feel nauseouse, but i liked it nad also hated it
Yep
It was so uncomfortably personal. I've never watched a movie that has managed to elicit that kind of reaction from me, on that basis it's a triumph of cinematic excellence.
Good stuff huh! It’s good to feel that way now and again. Have you seen any of the other films?
I remembered that the waitress in the fake film he's watching appears in the car dialogues. The switch is really fast
THAT CAUGHT ME SO OFF GUARD. I was trying to.figure out the scene and bam new actress. My analysis went right out the window
I'm so thankful for this interpretation. I didn't dislike the film by any means, but I feel like I wasn't able to engage with it fully due to not having a solid interpretation of my own. I gathered the janitor was somehow Jake, and the idea of him and the young woman being the same person cropped up in my mind because of the photograph, but I never got much further than that.
Once you see that the paintings and the poem are someone else's, it can become clear that she is just imaginary. If you noticed that, it gets easier to understand most of the plot
Also when she wondered about what it's like to be a sheep doing nothing but eating shiting,sleeping,like Jake and the frozen lamps felt like overshadowing his death and when she said she should end things because she waited so long for things to get better,I think what he meant by that was to end his life and stop holding on a hope that things might change and age is just a number.
It was 2 and a half hours of every thought that person had.
This movie felt like my thoughts
Same here, just in every way. It gave me the same feeling of innate "wrongness" or like the world has snapped into trajectory and you’ve woken up in a world that has been stripped of meaning. Everything is hollow, music sounds tinny and off, every action is deliberate, like lines read from an instruction manual. Thoughts are daydreams, you lose yourself in them while feeling the futility of them, crushing you with the sense of tedium. Hope feels like a juvenile concept, happiness as unreachable as trying to believe in Santa Claus after catching your parents putting "his" gifts under the tree. You’re too tired to think, but you can’t stop. Scene after scene, conversation after conversation with yourself in disguise. Nothing is new, everything an echo. Sometimes it feels like nostalgia and somehow that feels like every breath fails to bring you oxygen. If you’re dying, you can only mourn yourself so long, before it all seems predestined too. Every hope gets shattered, every memory wronged by time, every fantasy renders reality unbearable in comparison.
Or something, I haven’t given it much thought...
Hmmm Ok :,) 💙
You are loved, you are courageous, stay strong 💪😌
Yess I found the ruthlessness of the drawn out scenes made it feel less like a movie and more like a daydream. There was hardly any chemistry between the characters too, which really made it hard to watch. The only scene that felt safe was the last one imo
Anybody else think you wasted 2 hours just to realize how eye opening it was at the end?
Honestly, I could only understand a little of how much this movie has, I felt confused at times and at other times the intention seemed very obvious.
I like it because even if we don't know what we are seeing it really makes you feel scared, uncomfortable, sad and anxious, which feels similar to how I feel during an anxiety attack or depression, and I guess that was the intention.
It’s good stuff isn’t it?
I loved the dialogue and the awkward scenes
Specially Toni Collett's laugh
Has anyone else noticed that his acceptance speech is a copy of the one John Nash made at the end of the movie "A Brilliant Mind"?
Damn didn’t realize that...even in his fantasy his boring
Do you mean the movie a beautiful mind? Because thats also one of the DVDs that's on his bookshelf! 9:29
Beautiful mind
Great catch!
I couldn’t place it, but I did recognize! Nice job!
Is this a personal attack on introverts?? :0
I felt that lol 😂
Noooo. Is
it? Naaaah. Or is it? OMGA!
Relatable lol
yes
No lie, I was gonna quit watching this movie after 30 minutes because I felt really offended. Ultimately though, the movie is pretty sympathetic towards it introverted character, even if it does suggest that suicide was his only shot at peace.
I never thought they were gonna leave his parents house. I was so relieved when they actually left.
Interesting take. I interpreted the ballet and the rendition of "Lonely Room" as Jake realizing that he is, in fact, Jud. He has been the creepy old man and the villain in many women's lives. He accepts the noble prize in a scene that mirrors the end of A Beautiful Mind, and everyone wearing mounds of stage make-up is him seeing it for what it is: a fantasy. He was influenced by Hollywood romances to understand that persistence is what women want, but perhaps his time at the high school in modern times has given him the perspective of these women more clearly. He hears Lucy say that it was easier to just say yes. The women he has had relationships with (Lucy, Aimes etc...) only dated him briefly out of pity or fear, then ended things.
Kaufman actually noted A Beautiful Mind as an inspiration, in part, for that scene.
He never dated the girl in film. She was just some girl he saw in a bar but couldn't work up the nerve to talk to. He didn't even know her name.
i feel like this movie was slowly making me go crazy
In a bad way or a good way?
@@donnymurdo Not like in a this movie sucks in a way but like it does a good job in playing with your emotions and thoughts like as if you're the one who's actually experiencing the delusions and mental breakdown that the character is having.
This movie makes u feel like u met all those people 40 yrs ago
That was the weirdiest movie I have ever seen.
I was waiting for some ending but I couldn't understand this movie.
Well, now I'm here and it's the same as my life. But I'm happy.
~weirdiest~
Weirdest so far. I think that Synecdoche, New York leaves you in more of a muddle of melancholy . Try it! (if you dare)
This is why Kaufman is one of my favourites directors one of the best movies of this year ,cant wait for his next project
it's weird how the girl, which obviously was just a fantasy, had a shape of her own, she had her own opinions, her own thoughts, thoughts that sometimes were clearly different than Jake's thoughts and opinions, and the part at the basement where she started realizing that she doesn't exist made her more real, it's like this fantasy went beyond the janitor's head and started slowly coming to life, and the way she kept insisting on going back to her house and him always thinking it's his farm house tells alot about how she's having her own shape and him refusing to beleive that.
The whole time i was watching this i felt as if he stalked this girl from his past and eventually killed her because she married someone else and never noticed him throughout. Bothered by his guilt, he eventually takes his life because of it. I based this off of her stating that this creepy guy was watching her and how she hoped her boyfriend would show up. Driven to madness for not being seen by his literal muse, he snaps. To me this is made clear when the young version of himself as the janitor grabing her and killing the boyfriend. A murder he got away with but cant rid himself of the guilt. Playing scenario's in his head of what could have been. Ultimately he cannot live with the torment of his past and his deep loneliness, he ends his life. The fact he's a janitor and chooses to work at a school further enforces that he enjoys being around young girls. It is also worth mentioning that he exhibits alot of psychopathic tendency. Especially the way he watches people's love interactions. Although u feel sorry for him, thats what i got from it. But its interesting how someone else see's this movie. Which his take is probably correct
I got the same vibe from those scenes, add on the detail about throwing away the "cups", they smell, they don´t feel right, let’s dump them, etc.
Interesting observation 🤔
HS this would explain the marks on the basement door and not being allowed to leave.....wtf
Damn, i forgot about that. Exactly
Got the same vibe I also think that’ she wasn’t his first victim.
This film is the personification of my end-of-existence thoughts when I'm high. Literally--the entire vibe and sequence of this film mirrored my high state of mind having an existential crisis episode (minus the Devilman Crybaby ending). It's okay. Everything will be okay.
right?? it was very similar to having a depressing high
Yes
Right. These are the thoughts I have when I’m up in the clouds!
The drive to the farmhosue is deciding that life has no inherent meaning or is in itself worth living.
The time at the farmhouse is Jake looking back on his life and trying to find something else to blame or a way things could have tuned out that didn't lead to where he is now in life, what alternative path could he have taken and now he feels unable to take another. Is there a way "she" would ever stay with him, a way family life could work out.
The drive away from the house to the school is Jake deciding he is not worth living.
The time at the icream parlour is about finding ways to cope in the present. Compassion and empathy for those who he sees suffering and possibly kinship in suffering. But I think those he wants to help either are too like him and wouldn't take the the help properly or Jake has developed too much social anxiety to even begin. (I think this is the only way he could really have avoided suicide, if this could have played out successfully, but it all feels too late and Jake believes it is) He ultimately feels its hopeless.
The other method explored at the ice cream parlour is pleasure seeking, but just like ice cream this doesn't last and is ultimately too manufactured, sweet and can leave a horrible messy residue both inside yourself and could spill out. For me their are clear ilussions to perversion, masturbation, thoughts of justifying rape scenarios. But I don't believe Jake acted on them. He displays a strong hatred of the cups and wants to get rid of them, not let them hang around, let them spill out and be found. I think part of what "drove" him to suicide is he couldn't bare these thoughts.
The time in the school is unavoidable uncomfortable confrontation that his fantasy and alter-ego is nothing but fantasy ,it has become so split from who he mostly is and his life situation, the clash is too great, that side of him loses, its no longer sustainable but was once the place of a beautiful naive hope.
Good analysis, but I think the ice cream part is more about prostitution? For any lonely men that ever hired escorts, the description matches perfectly what it feels like to pay to have sex
His Nobel prize was the speech from A Beautiful Mind, part of his film collection.
I was picking up schizophrenia/psychosis vibes. His DVD collection had many movies about snapped minds, personalities hidden within.
Also, during the movie analysis scene (I think). I could hear a second voice speaking her same words, ever so slightly out of synch. It was subtle.
Loved this film!
The fact that an older director portrays the possibility of lonliness makes it so real it almost seems inevitable for those of us single in our 30s and 40s
wait until you get to the 50s. it sucks!
I really didn't like the movie. Although I realize it was very well done and the acting was good. Thanks for your insightful review.
I couldn't even finish it 😖
But also understood its importance, weird
rachel I have this thing where if I start a movie I have to finish it…… 2 1/2 hours later🤦🏽♀️
I loved the nutcrackeresque portrayal of how he wished his love life had been! I think the decline into more cartoony and theatrical elements really shows him being swallowed by his escapism and attachment to youth, especially since all of this takes place within his high school.
Imagine how more depressing this would be if he lived in a Soviet apartment complex
This whole movie talks about broken dreams. And it lingers with me. The whole time I felt such tension.
Anyone else thought she was talking about killing herself in the trailers then I think the 2nd or 3rd time she said it...oh the relationship 😮