Me and my buddy Melissa's movie this week was 2020's "I'm thinking of ending things", the most existentially surreal movie we have seen to date. It clocks in a bit long at a little over two hours and you can feel that at times, but it held up and kept us interested and off balance the whole way. It came off kinda like a college educated horror movie with a lot of literary and cultural references that only a smarty pants would catch. It definitely had a "look at how smart and clever I am" vibe to it, but hey, the writer and director are definitely smarter and cleverer than I am. I ain't living the high life and moving and shaking in Hollywood. I knew it was gonna be a pretty arty film when I saw the title all written in lower case, always a sure sign. But it worked as a psychological horror film, was spooky, and was still a very good movie. The acting and filming technique was superb all the way around and contained enough sly and subtle humor to put it firmly into the black comedy genre. It would never be mistaken for a Marvel Universe flick, which were infecting Hollywood like the COVID that year.

It was a very confusing film to try and make any sense of. It was based on a novel of the same name, and evidently the film deviated from the book a bit. Luckily both the writer and director let us decide what it all represented. They both said to just let it wash over you and not think about it too much. I am good at that. I dug a little deeper and did come up with a few pretentious movie reviewers who explained it for us dumb folk. Several suggested seeing the film more than once to pick up all the clues to its meaning. Real life is way too short to see any movie twice, unless it is a Sergio Leone spaghetti western. Still highly recommended if you have nothing better to do some evening.