Why does it seem like Jake can hear Lucy’s thoughts?
In the opening sequence of the movie, Jake and Lucy endure an interminable drive up to his parents’ house, while Lucy continues to contemplate leaving him. On several occasions, Jake glances over to Lucy during her voiceover, sometimes interrupting it. Is he telepathic? The answer is actually quite simple. At the end of Reid’s novel, it’s revealed that Jake and his unnamed girlfriend are the same person — the lonely high school janitor, who invented her as his fantasy. Think “Psycho” meets “Fight Club.”
It doesn’t take long for “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” to imply as much. When Lucy, an aspiring poet, shares one of her verses at the dinner table, it’s actually a sampling from “Rotten Perfect Mouth,” a collection of writings by real-life poet Eva H.D. Later in the movie, it’s not even clear if Lucy’s name is Lucy. (He calls her “Ames.” Amy?) Jake has built her out of the books, movies, and passing encounters that have shaped his isolated worldview.
So Lucy’s the main character and she also doesn’t exist?
Well…yes and no. The most sophisticated gamble of the movie is that Kaufman has taken this device and turned it into an open question: Can a fantasy exist on its own terms?
“She is a device, but I wanted her to be able to separate herself from that,” Kaufman said. “I didn’t want it to be a twist. I felt like that would not work in a movie at this point in history. When you make a movie, everything that’s sort of ambiguous becomes concrete. You’ve got people playing these things. You can see them.”
Needless to say, Buckley turns in a rich, haunting performance as a woman grappling with the uncertainty surrounding her. “To my mind, it would have been a misuse of any actress not to give them something to play that was real,” Kaufman said. “Because of the device that the book uses, it wasn’t required, and I needed it to be there.”
Fine, but that still doesn’t mean she’s a real person.
Right. But she has a definite representative power as Jake comes to terms with the impossibility of his delusion. At one point, he asks Lucy if she’s read Anna Kavan’s 1967 novel “Ice,” which takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland (not unlike the dreary outdoors that surround the movie’s two big car rides). The protagonist of “Ice” spends most of the book pursuing an unnamed woman while wrestling with the complicated nature of his attraction.
In “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” the character endures that same struggle when the fantasy fights back. It’s a storytelling gamble unique to the art of cinema: Within the “world” of “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” — one controlled by Kaufman as well as his protagonist — Lucy exists. “I needed her to have agency for it to work as a dramatic piece,” Kaufman said. “I really liked the idea that even within his fantasy, he cannot have what he wants. He’s going to imagine this thing, but then he’s going to also imagine how it won’t work, how she’s going to bored with him, how she’s going to not think he’s smart enough or interesting enough.”
Eventually, Jake stops trying to solve his problems by inventing new people, and instead focuses on himself. “In keeping with the idea of giving her some agency, I didn’t want her to be responsible for his ending,” Kaufman said.
At one point, the janitor watches the final scene of a cheesy romance that’s directed by Robert Zemeckis. The abrupt end credit is hilarious. But why Zemeckis?
The janitor is often a passive character in the high school, absorbing faces and circumstances from the sidelines. However, one scene finds him sitting in an empty room, eating lunch and watching a movie on television. It’s the final minutes of a cheesy romance set in a diner, and the credits come up just long enough for one name to appear: “Directed By Robert Zemeckis.”
Why did Kaufman decide to toss in a reference to the director of “The Polar Express”? Kaufman has been telling interviewers that it happened at random, when his assistant director suggested it after perusing a list of director names online. Zemeckis wasn’t even in Kaufman’s original version of the script.
“Sometimes things are funny because they’re funny, and I feel like it’s possible that Zemeckis could have made this movie, even if it’s unlikely,” Kaufman said. At the same time, there’s a touch of irony to the choice. “I don’t think Zemeckis ever has or ever would make a movie like this,” Kaufman said. “It’s more like a Nancy Meyers movie. He wasn’t a model for it. His stuff is generally more high-concept, but it’s possible, so the joke resonates somehow.” He asked the director for permission to include the reference, and Zemeckis is thanked in the credits.
So it was just a random choice?
Yeah, that story sounds almost too neat for its own good, doesn’t it? After all, Zemeckis is one of the biggest commercial directors of the past 30 years, and Kaufman’s work is defiantly non-commercial. On top of that, Kaufman did at one point almost work with Zemeckis while adapting the young adult novel “Chaos Walking” way back in 2012. The project has gone through many writers since then, though Kaufman still has a credit on the Doug Liman-directed version set for release from Lionsgate next year. But Zemeckis was initially interested in taking it on.
“What happened with Robert Zemeckis was that I wrote a first draft of ‘Chaos Walking,’ and then I guess he read it and was interested in directing it,” Kaufman said. Lionsgate set them up. “It was a really nice meeting,” Kaufman said. “I had never met him before, but we had a really nice chat and came up with some solutions to some issues and that was the end of it. Then I didn’t end up moving forward with it, and neither did he.”
Alright, back to that cringe-inducing dinner. Why do the parents keep changing?
Over the course of a very creepy evening, Jake’s parents undergo a series of dramatic physical changes, from young to old and back again. Jake is basically living through the many stages of his parents’ lives, a process that has complicated the idea of bringing his new girlfriend home. Where does he place her in that timeline? He can’t find the perfect moment, because it doesn’t exist. As much as he wants to stay in the house with her, they eventually leave, at her insistence.
So begins another long car ride. And…was that a Pauline Kael impersonation?
While at Jake’s house, Lucy wanders into his childhood bedroom. It’s strewn with piles of movies, books, and other material. One volume stands out: “For Keeps: 30 Years at the Movies,” a 1996 selection of former New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael’s reviews (the book, now out of print, draws from several earlier collections). Once back on the road, Lucy and Jake engage in a loooooong, meandering discussion that bursts with highbrow references, from Guy Debord’s “Society as Spectacle” to Goethe’s theory of color and a David Foster Wallace essay from the collection “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.”
All of these fragments point to complicated ideas related to Jake’s obsessions, but none receive more screen time than a Pauline Kael review — her 1974 takedown of John Cassavetes’ “Woman Under the Influence.” (Strangely, that review is not included in “For Keeps.”)
Debating the film and its Gena Rowlands performance, Lucy basically transforms into Kael, repeating the review verbatim with a spot-on impersonation. “I’ve always liked her, and grew up with her and reading her, and thinking that she was smarter than I am,” said Kaufman, echoing the sentiment of many readers over the years. Jake seems to be one of them: After Lucy finishes her monologue about the movie, which he liked, he’s left speechless.
“That goes toward the idea of Jake not being able to have anything that he wants,” Kaufman said. “He had this opinion about that movie, and then failed. It’s an experience I’ve had — the idea that you like something, and then you read something by somebody that you really admire, and you feel like an idiot for liking that thing.” (Also notable: Kaufman’s recent novel, “Antkind,” is about the plight of a film critic.)
What’s up with Tulsey Town Ice Cream?
Eventually, the car ride is interrupted by a stop at Tusley Town Ice Cream, an invented small-town ice cream chain inexplicably open in the middle of a debilitating snowstorm. On the way over, Jesse and Lucy recall the jingle for the ice cream shop commercials. The pair stop there briefly and Lucy has a cryptic interaction with three women behind the takeout counter. Two of them are giggly and flirtatious, while a third seems terrified.
According to Kaufman, they’re all references to women that Jake has seen before. “Then there was this idea that there were many generations of high-school kids who worked there that he had interacted with over the years and had his problems with,” Kaufman said. “It’s a dreamy stop into his psyche, into his past.”
In the book, the couple actually stop at a Dairy Queen. “We weren’t able to get the rights to use that, so I changed it,” Kaufman said. “But I think it worked out better, because it’s more mysterious, and because it’s more local.”
Let’s talk about that dance sequence.
After they park at the high school, Jake runs inside, angry that the janitor is watching from afar. When Lucy goes after him, she has a warm encounter with the janitor in which he sends her on his way — suggesting that the character has finally accepted that he must part ways with his fantasy. Elaborating on this idea, Lucy and Jake then spot each other in a hallway, where they’re replaced by a pair of ballet dancers wearing the same clothes. Over the next several minutes, they engage in a lively piece of choreography patterned after a similar moment in the musical “Oklahoma!”
Earlier in the movie, the janitor passes a school recital of the play, which includes an extensive “dream ballet” sequence that finds the farm girl Laurey at the center of a brawl between two suitors, Curly McLain and Jud Fry. That sequence ends with Curly’s death; here, it’s the Jake stand-in who goes down, suggesting that Jake has accepted the impossibility of his love.
“There’s a few things in ‘Oklahoma!’ that felt like they were really kind of thematically parallel to the story that we were telling,” Kaufman said. As for the dream sequence: “I was always intrigued by it, because it’s so creepy, and I liked the idea of the doppelgänger aspect in it.” In other words, Jake has been pretending he’s someone else, and uses the narrative framework of “Oklahoma!” to eliminate that delusion.
And then there’s the talking animated pig.n
Actually, that’s another pretty straightforward one. In his car, the janitor seems to have an attack of some sort, and possibly dies. Like Charles Foster Kane whispering “Rosebud” from his bed, janitor-Jake sees tidbits from his youth in the windshield, including the animated “Tulsey Town Ice Cream” ad referenced earlier. These give way to an animated pig with maggots on its stomach — a grim encounter that Jake recounts to Lucy earlier in the movie, while giving her a tour of the farm. The affable animal walks Jake back to his final moment of introspection.
Something about the innocence of the pig and its horrific underbelly traumatized Jake early in life. In his old age, he has come to terms with this fundamental imbalance in his universe.
In the last scene, everyone’s old. But it looks kind of…fake.
Onstage to accept an award in the movie’s final scene, Jake stands against a backdrop of the “Oklahoma!” set, wearing obvious stage makeup to look like an old man. But he’s not alone. It’s a packed house, and everyone in the room — including his parents and Lucy — are wearing the same makeup. Originally, Kaufman included a tidbit to explain this inclusion.
“There was a scene where the janitor found a makeup book in the bathroom as he was cleaning up, because somebody had clearly been putting their makeup on in this boys or girls room,” Kaufman said. The device allows Jake to bring everyone in his head to age along with him, while reminding us of the artifice in play. “All of the people who were in the audience, with the exception of the characters from the movie, are the extras who played high school kids in the rest of the movie,” Kaufman said. “So they’re all young people wearing old-age makeup.”
Is that…the closing speech from “A Beautiful Mind”?
Yup. When Jake accepts his prize, he recites the sentimental Nobel Prize speech delivered by economist John Nash (Russell Crowe) at the end of Ron Howard’s Oscar winner. In fact, the entire sequence has been built to resemble the conclusion of the 2001 movie.
Earlier in “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” a DVD of “A Beautiful Mind” is glimpsed in Jake’s room, so it stands to reason that Jake found much relatable about the story of a brilliant man who struggles with paranoid schizophrenia and has trouble sorting out the reality surrounding him. Kaufman was wary of spelling that out, though.
“That’s one that I’m not as comfortable talking about because it does get to the meat of what the movie I made is about,” he said, but then elaborated anyway. “This movie is dealing with somebody’s experience of absorbing things that they see and how they become part of his psyche,” he said. “So this was in some ways how this person might have fantasized it out.”
Of course, there may be more to this: End credits claim that the speech was lifted with permission of the studio, but Kaufman played no role in that. Unlike Zemeckis, he didn’t ask for Howard’s blessing. “I have certainly never spoken to Ron Howard in my life,” Kaufman said. “I’m assuming they got permission.”
Considering that “A Beautiful Mind” was one of the cheesier Oscar winners of the previous decade (and it won the same year that “Adaptation” came out), it’s no huge leap to see the inclusion as a huge cinematic eyeroll about the misleading nature of storytelling that clouds the true nature of solipsistic struggles, something Kaufman has explored throughout his filmography. “A Beautiful Mind” puts a happy ending on that subject; in “I’m Thinking of Ending of Things,” the struggle never ends.
And then Jake sings…
Yep, more of “Oklahoma!” Sitting down on a set that looks like a reproduction of his childhood bedroom, he delivers a melancholic rendition of “Lonely Room,” in which Jud declares his intention of marrying Laurey. The song includes the telling line, “Get me a woman to call my own.” Dream on, Jud — and Jake, it seems. “The character of Jud seemed to be comparable in some ways to Jake,” Kaufman said. Sitting on a set built from the fragments that define his life, Jake has become the star of his own story and simultaneously confined by it.
And that’s it! Right?
Not quite. That final image of the janitor’s snow-encrusted car essentially suggests that janitor-Jake died there in the dead of night. It’s a beautiful, tragic capper to a story about one man confronting the failures of his life as it leaves his body. Kaufman hopes that people keep watching through the credits, which list many of the references throughout the movie. “There’s actually a lot of stuff in the end credits that’s important to me,” Kaufman said. “It’s an intentional thing, the way it plays out.”
Exhausted? Fine, but the riddles of the movie all serve a purpose. Ultimately, Kaufman doesn’t think that “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” hides much from its audience. “The way I was presenting it was that you would probably figure it out,” he said. “This is what the character is going through. You either get it or you don’t.”
Coming home is terrible nwhether the dogs lick your face or not nwhether you have a wife nor just a wife-shaped loneliness waiting for younComing home is terrible lonely nso that you think of the oppressive barometric pressure nback with you have just come from with fondness nbecause everything's worse once you're home nYou think of the vermin clingling to the grass stalks nlong hours on the road，roadside assistance and ice creams nand the peculiar shapes of certain clouds nand silence with longing，because you did not want to return nComing home is njust awful nAnd the home-style silence and clouds ncontribute to nothing but the general malaise nClouds,such as they are,are in fud suspect nand made from a different material than those you left behind nYou youself were cut from a different cloudy cloth, nreturned,remaindered nill-met by moonlight nunhappy to be back,slack in all the wrong spots,nseamy suit of clothes,dishrag-ratty,wornnYou return home,nmoon-landed,foreignnThe Earth's gravitation pullnan effort now redoubledndragging your shoelaces loosenand your shouldersnetching deeper the stanza of worry on your foreheadnYou return home deepenedna parched well linked to tomorrownby a frail strand ofnanywaynYou sigh into the onslaught of identical daysnone might as well,at a timenWellnanyway，you’re backnThe sun goes up and down like a tired whorenThe weather immobile like a broken limb while you just keep getting oldernNothing moves,but the shifting tides of salt in your bodynYour vision blearsnYou carry your weather with younthe big,blue whale,a skeletal darknessnYou come backnwith X-ray visionnyour eyes have become a hungernYou come home with your mutant giftsnto a house of bonenEverything you see nownAll of itnbonenn参考译文：n回家很可怕n无论狗狗是否舔你的脸n无论家中等待你的是一个妻子n还是妻子形状的孤独n回家孤独得可怕n以至于在你回想起你刚刚离开的n那个充满沉重气压的地方时 也带着一些喜欢n因为一旦回家后 一切会更糟n你竟带着渴望地去想 附着在稻草杆上的害虫n路上长时间的路程 道路救援和冰激凌n还有某些云朵特别的形状n和寂静 因为你不想回家n回家是...n就是可怕n而家庭生活的沉默和乌云n仅仅只会徒增普遍的不适感n这样的云其实很可疑 n他们的构造物，不同于你留下来的那些物质n你自己是从另一块 多云般的布上裁剪而出n被归还，被剩下 n月光下不幸相会n不乐意回归 不该松垮的地方会都松垮n满是线头的布服 抹布般的邋遢 破烂不堪n你回到家里n像是抵达月球的外星人n地球的引力拉扯n现在力量加倍n拉扯松弛了你的鞋带n还有你的肩膀n将你额头上担忧之诗节刻的更深n你回到家里 更为深沉n一口连接至明天的干涸之井n通过一缕虚弱的n如此这般n日复一日 毫无变化 你长长叹气n有时人也会这样n好吧n总之，你回来了n太阳像个疲倦的妓女一样起了又落n天气犹如折断的肢体一样毫无起伏n一切都是静止的 除了你体内潮起潮落般的盐分n你的视线朦胧n你不为外界气象所影响n巨大的蓝鲸 骸骨般的黑暗n你回来了 n带着X光的视线n你的眼睛已成为一种饥饿n你带着变异天赋 来到家中n来到一个骨头之家n现在你看到的一切n所有一切n都是骨头nnnnn
——《你无须在时间中继续前行，或许》
本文首发于2020年9月12日公众号【陀螺电影】，此版相较原文略有更新和改动。
前言
美国著名编剧、导演查理·考夫曼（Charlie Kaufman）上周五在网飞上线了他的新片《我想结束这一切》。这部改编自加拿大作家伊安·雷德（Iain Reid）同名小说的作品，被考夫曼认为是他最后一次执导电影。
考夫曼在1999年完成《成为约翰·马尔科维奇》的剧本之后，凭借天马行空，桀骜不驯的想象力在好莱坞一举成名。
而后接连创作的《人性》（2001），《改编剧本》（2002），《暖暖内含光》（2004）都继承了他一贯的风格——精巧的设定，繁复的构思，“语不惊人死不休”的脑洞。
2008年亲自执导的电影《纽约提喻法》更是登峰造极，在戏剧和电影中创造了一个同现实一样庞杂的世界。
考夫曼不为常人所预测的剧情走向，和情感厚度，让他二十多年来在剧作趋向保守扁平的好莱坞成为一股持续的清流。
正因如此，我在为他作评前便考虑另辟蹊径，以一种不同于寻常影评，甚至反影评的方式切入考夫曼的内心。他高度戏剧化、碎片化的创作正像剧中人所说，是一场“细节无数…稍纵即逝的盛大演出”。一旦沉迷于对每个细节一一解读，我们将失去考夫曼贯彻故事始终，浑然一体的忧郁；
而如果妄想三言两语就提炼他的精髓的话，则会因为失却了迷人瞬间的点缀，陷入堆砌文字的老生常谈。
这次为考夫曼量身定做的尝试，试着在二者之间找到平衡，首当其冲的不是重构，不是估价，也不是分解，而是以文字重现他的知觉场，用意象的暧昧和宽广，来临摹考夫曼刁钻又狂放的灵魂。
《我想结束这一切》
I'm Thinking of Ending Things
导演: 查理·考夫曼
编剧: 查理·考夫曼 / 伊恩·里德
主演: 杰西·普莱蒙 / 杰西·巴克利 / 托妮·科莱特 / 大卫·休里斯 / 盖伊·博伊德
类型: 剧情
制片国家/地区: 美国
语言: 英语
上映日期: 2020-08-28(美国点映) / 2020-09-04(美国)
片长: 134分钟n 编辑/冷狗
排版/小浣熊
荧幕回到那一片纯澈的雪地时，端坐其上的是疏朗的天空，和一尊汽车形状的静默。早晨的日光是如此的详和与寂寥，明朗中现出一丝死神雁过留痕的阴影。
群鸟的啼啭从瑟缩寒枝上回荡到乡野的空气间。
落雪的黄昏如果像人之将死一般黯淡，雪后初晴就仿佛定格了音容笑貌的逝者，一扇开向永恒阳光的眼睛。
这是考夫曼新作《我想结束这一切》的最后一个画面。也是我在很长一段时间以来，第一次在一部电影结束后，依旧愿意心无杂念地凝视、静坐、噤声、屏息。
希望自己的生命交融在这幅清朗的雪景中，随着死亡一般邈远的风景在思绪里伸展，不顾尽头。
疲倦感，我们最熟悉的老朋友，从《筋疲力尽》开始，影史就似乎同它形影不离，在考夫曼的手中它再一次显出日久弥新的况味。
这次，它附着在车窗上，猪圈里，满载的语音信箱，又或者哭笑之间的沉寂时分：好像被裹挟在风雪中，一夜之间为世界的每个角落铺上了奇形怪状的孤独。
故事开始在一个冬之将至的傍晚，杰克带着女友回家和父母见面。
在一路白莹莹的原野上，他们谈论消逝的记忆，女友颓唐的诗行，和失去了存活欲的生命。
走进杰克儿时的农庄，女友却好像踏入了时间和身份的迷宫。她丢失了名字，丢失了历史和未来，在餐桌上被尴尬地追问。她在房间里见到罹患阿尔茨海默病的杰克父亲，阴阳怪气的母亲，装满同一件黑色制服的洗衣机，神出鬼没的狗。
好不容易驶上回家的路，大雪依旧肆虐，杰克变得焦躁易怒，沉默寡言。他们在决定从陶西甜品店买了两杯冰淇淋之后，走上一条通向杰克中学的小路。在这个空空如也的偌大校园里，女友发现一个垂垂老矣的清道夫，才意识到整个自己和杰克的故事——只是这个老人临终前孤独的回忆。
如果我们还记得起上一个冬天时世界发生了什么，我们又都是怎么熬过的，这个故事便不再像听上去地那样自言自语，遥不可及。疫情和寒流一同在窗外肆虐的时分，我们蜷居在公寓里，捂着温热又残缺的肢体，操着陌生的乡音和邦人试探奄奄一息的未来。
天色白中透病，好像每个人的枕上也按捺着一场经年的大雪。教堂和舞厅一起空了，我们关上门扉，收起裙摆，小小的房间就是一条举步维艰的雪路，霜冻结满了双手，通向地球停转时分。
同样的寒冷证明着故事和我们发生在和同一个时空。还有多少温热的心脏，或者萌芽的未来让我们自发地攥紧手中的热情？
邻里日复一日地维持相爱和劳作的表象，几分是出于真情，几分是出于惯性，又要彼此相瞒到几时？
如果生命只是童年的延续，习惯的照旧，或者信息过载的容器，那我们和一句名人名言，一具被谎言寄生的行尸走肉，一只被预先设定好生命程序的昆虫又有何不同？这些行走的陈词滥调在剧作家的心中被不厌其烦地重复，正因生活中它们是周而复始的鸡肋。
言语和肢体并不相通，情人在某些瞬间只觉得彼此吵闹。
杰克为下车喝一杯咖啡，“墨索里尼的火车”和女友打岔，在荒唐的反覆里消磨感情的韧性。
我们这才认清，尴尬和琐碎已经像蚂蚁一样，爬满了生活的脚踝，甩不干净，一旦放任不管又瘙痒难耐。
女友在车上望着杰克的嘴唇，他似乎在提出某种邀约，但他的声音如同隔着树洞一般模糊，神情像陌生人一样焦虑又冷淡。
这样的瞬间稍纵即逝，但却像透过了坚实的伪装，瞥见了每段亲密关系的真相：
肌肤，甚至血缘相亲的我们，平日委曲求全，下意识却仍然是彼此的刺猬。
在农庄惬意的火炉旁，桌上的烤火腿来自农场被蛆虫啃掉了下半截的猪；老派落后的父母在女友面前吹嘘儿子的“事迹”，回到厨房之后大声拌嘴，杰克为他们不加节制的唐突感到羞耻；
女友一会儿被唤作露西，再一阵子叫做路易莎·露西亚，在看似无尽的芳名间迁徙；无独有偶，她的身份也跟着场景的变换，在神经学，绘画，量子物理，老年学和电影赏析之间游弋。
一夜里，她在时间的长河里出没无常，看见杰克的双亲过去，未来和死后的模样：她交横跋扈，他游手好闲，她强颜欢笑，他神智昏沉，她苟延残喘，他孑然一身。
女友在杰克的房间看见一本陌生的诗集，上面赫然印着自己的诗，一架子量子物理的专著，一本保琳凯尔的电影评论，又在地下室发现为自己的风景画实际上全是布莱克洛克（Ralph Albert Blakelock）所作：她从前认为亲口说出的“话语”始终只是对他人的移植。
屋外的雪下得更紧了，似乎没有寒冷会因为一个家庭的湮灭而稍作叹息。女友指着杰克墙上的一张照片，他们同时发现画框中的孩子都是自己。
电光火石的刹那，我们参透了之前每一步踉跄，每一次错岔，每一只松动的螺丝，每一个偏移的印象，都源自于一位被遗落的老人日益疏松的记忆。他不知道该将女友放在时间线的何处，赐予她什么身份，因为她实际上从未存在，只是他从读过的书，看过的电影和回忆中拼凑出来的假面。
他在冬天重新光临尘世的这天，傍晚起身，换上清道夫的制服，望向家中的一切，舞台上青春水银泻地的姑娘，眼中满是回忆的尸体。
在他临终前的幻象里，世界幻化成了一对恋情正浓的男女，和他们眼中一幅幅流动的奇观。他看见生命中所剩的每一个角色，被安插在各不相识的四处，随时被忧虑和恐惧牵动，掉进时间的冰窟。
他用一顿黄灯红火下的农场晚餐和自己的房屋告别，走上风霜交加的再下一程。停顿，见自己艳羡的美好躯体最后一面。她们是演出音乐剧的少女，只懂得对他指指点点地讪笑。直到另一个长着疹子，脸圆嘟嘟的女孩子向他伸出了手，她是学校里被排斥的学生。
她对老人说：“你没有必要继续在时间中前行，你可以在这里留下。” 咽下的言外之意好像在说“早已被时间风干的躯体，丢了也罢。是时候闭上眼睛了，和我们一样化作回忆吧”。
这个掌握了每一项杰克曾经尝试学习，渴望的技能的女友，其实是清洁工梦里被理想化的对象，而杰克也是他在这个妄想里投射（美化）的自己。女友在妄想里对他父母的乖僻，他的出身，他的掉书袋和不近人情，他“腐烂的脚趾”百依百顺，毫无怨言，正是对他在现实中孤独终老命运的补偿。
可以想象，现实中好吃甜食的他大腹便便，眼高手低，一肚半吊子的知识却干着门房的活计，父亲缺乏教养，母亲唐突莽撞，无脑吹捧儿子，双亲还时常吵架（餐后渗入客厅的背景音，老人在车厢内的闪回）。老人无休止地做着美好恋情的梦，所以冰淇淋杯一个接一个地堆满了垃圾箱。
究竟什么时候，什么时候这一切可以结束？一段没有意义，没有终点的爱情？以及被这段感情所提喻的，带着“深刻的，难以言说的，无可修复的错误”的人生？
而不是在永恒濒死的循环里重复着买冰桶-吃不下-成杯丢掉的无能怪圈？或许这便是那个一直在电话里萦绕的声音想问的唯一一个问题。
文艺复兴的人类带着新鲜的猛劲，从中世纪的集体蒙昧中款步走来，他带血的喉咙里也只有一个问题，然而却是另一个：
“生存还是毁灭？”
四百年后的人类失去了全部的朝气，全部和死神搏命的激情，一口黑色的静脉血只希望生命放开他的衣领的时刻早一些，更早一些。
我们可以把这个古怪，晦涩，褪色和尴尬的世界当做空巢老人颓丧的发明——轻松的结论既合乎考夫曼苦心铺排的伏笔，也方便我们像看完一本志怪小说一样，在电影结束之后将这个细思恐极的故事抛之脑后。
可是…或许还有另一种可能？我们为什么不可以把这一整个拥有自己“物理”定律的世界，看做考夫曼对真实生活的又一个提喻？或许不是老年人记忆消退，事物之间才失去了分野，而是主宰这个世界的健全人太标榜清醒，太喜好在各自间划清莫须有的界限？
即使在我们身上，“记忆”也喜欢猝不及防地开起玩笑，我们想起《一一》中的NJ，他回到家，绕了一大圈，却一时忘记了自己是来找什么的。或许“记忆”本就是一个布满讹误和空隙的马蜂窝？
考夫曼恰恰在采访中透露，他希望赐予这个被幻想出的世界具有真实和独立性。与其把这层叙事看作彻底的虚构，莫如看作蛛丝马迹勾连的平行宇宙。正因如此，女友才一路想着“我想结束这一切”，杰克也在和谐的表象下显出消极的老态：现实中清洁工的自卑在无形挤压着梦境的边缘，直到女友和真实的清洁工在走廊中碰面，他们拥抱，洒泪，离别。这象征着他接受了这一幻象的不可能性，于是随后“杰克”的形象在音乐剧中被“清道夫”亲手消灭。
佐杜罗夫斯基在谈及未完成的《沙丘》说，“人之所以活下去，是为了给自己创造灵魂。” 在没有灵魂的人类身上，姓名可以无规则地滑动（女主从始至终没有确切的名字），身份可以被无时限地复制，“我”和任何人都成了双向互通的角色。我们看似满载各自的怨言，但又都是大同小异的空心人。
大段尴尬又言不由衷的对话正是对这些被“文本化”的空心人直接的描画，他们口中的话语显然不值得我们相信，从他们下摆的嘴唇，面肌不自觉的抽动和阴郁的眼神中，我们读出甚至连他们自己都不再相信“话语”是出自自己之口。正像我们不可以相信《改编剧本》中后一半的类型叙事是真实一样，电影中被剧场化，功能化的人物首先是一种对真实生活的理念折射，沾染讽喻色彩的行为艺术。
对于考夫曼，客体即是主体自证存在的幻觉，而主体又是从客体反弹回来的另一重幻觉，像《纽约提喻法》中以导演为模型原尺寸复制的城市，其终极目的便是图解自我、他人和时间之间边界的虚无。
“凑近了看，世间万物都一个样，你，我，所有想法，满是蛆虫的猪，都一个样。”清洁工被孤独压垮了，但也终于和自己衰老的现实妥协。他脱光了衣服，追着幻想中的猪走出了车门。世界上是上亿个同样疲倦和自私的生命，同样地被不合时宜的他人刺痛，同样地没有灵魂却仍然不能彼此拥抱，同样地成为他人的燃料和自我的废墟，同样地身为自己，却远在自身之外。电影的表层文本关于一个因为自卑陷入妄想的老人，而内层机制则是老人的普世性。
因此，考夫曼的迷宫并不是用来“烧脑”的（即便理清楚也无助于观众接近情节发生的根本动因），而是一种基于普世性的悲观和自察，产生的人格模糊体验。只有在对这种体验的认同下，我们才会意识到荒谬的事件群不仅是等待解释的噱头，而更是横亘在生活深处，人际暗面的真实肌理。
考夫曼使生活恢复这种肌理的方式，是赐予他的角色“自为的时间性”，即他的人物不再“静止于时间中，如风拂过树叶”，而是掌握且超脱了“时间”本身，因此“女友”看见人们过去，未来，死后的模样，也看见了所有生物相同的基因，相同的困境。
考夫曼贡献了后新冠时代第一部浓缩了这个日渐寒冷的世界，和身在其中，每个心灵日渐紧缩的人类的电影。我们的心中是一场大雪，窗外又何尝不是呢？2020年向我们展示了世界停滞的可能，这或许只是一次更大危机的冰山一角，国际关系重新紧绷，消费市场一再萎缩，全球化为稳固内循环做好了后手，预备关上家门的不只是恐惧病毒的我们。
考夫曼是否有意指涉这个时代？可能电影的无力感与2020年的相遇只是一语成谶，但不可否认的是，从踏上公路的出行，到埋没在雪中的车，这是一个“寒冷日渐逼近”的过程，及至海报上穿着拖鞋，坐在家中的木椅上，却浑身被雪掩埋僵直的女主，更是对“窗外-屋中”这层心理分野的僭越。不再有一层防线来区别窗外和屋中，即便我们不认同自己是紧缩的个体，私人的安全地带也终将被时代的寒冰所侵蚀，又或许，我们中的每一份消极和不安，最终都集聚成预示灾劫降临的风雨云？
在双面圆满的痛楚中，考夫曼徘徊在语言的边界上，词语像松动的螺丝，被返还了无限的自由，趋近于诗歌，意识和梦境的滑动。
从这层意义上，考夫曼或许是《八部半》永恒的临摹者，他的每一部剧本都有着费里尼式千变万化的底色。而如果《八部半》结束在一场对“我”的庆典的话，《我想结束这一切》则是终结于一次颠覆，一场自我的葬礼。
葬礼上有数不清和“我”一样老去的观众，正像费里尼的舞台上有每一个“我”熟悉的面孔，“我”徒劳地宣扬“爱”，感激他们构成了今天的我，但“我”苦涩的笑瞒不过内心：就是这段颁奖词本身，都是从《美丽心灵》照搬来的，它的DVD正像包含《骨狗》的诗集一样躺在“我”的书房里。紧接着的音乐剧来自《俄克拉荷马》，延续我毫无新意的一生。“我”希望台下鼓掌的群众陪同我一样老去，可是他们的老态只是倍显虚假的妆容。他们看似众多，却只是一个个分裂的自己。
“我始终是自己的赝品。” 活着是如此，然而可能连选择去死，都仍然是对许多自杀的传奇故事们拙劣的模仿？我在被人类曾经无数次踏过，如今已然泥泞不堪的大路上兜兜转转，连死亡都等不到第一次原创。
而考夫曼的电影，又何尝不相似呢？讲述一个精神分裂症患者和自身幻觉搏斗，它像《美丽心灵》；两场苍茫雪海中的行车，像电影中提到的小说《冰》；一个因找寻不到自身所爱而苦恼的屌丝，又像音乐剧《俄克拉荷马》。
荧幕回到那一片纯澈的雪地时，端坐其上的是疏朗的天空，和一尊汽车形状的静默。我埋葬了自己，接下来是如天空般永恒的缄默。
转载导演Charlie Kaufman对电影情节的解读，涉及剧透。
看了一篇对导演Charlie Kaufman关于这部电影的专访，想转一下文章里关于电影情节的Q&A部分。原文9月4日发表于IndieWire.com, 作者Eric Kohn, @erickohn。以下问答涉及剧透。
Why does it seem like Jake can hear Lucy’s thoughts?
In the opening sequence of the movie, Jake and Lucy endure an interminable drive up to his parents’ house, while Lucy continues to contemplate leaving him. On several occasions, Jake glances over to Lucy during her voiceover, sometimes interrupting it. Is he telepathic? The answer is actually quite simple. At the end of Reid’s novel, it’s revealed that Jake and his unnamed girlfriend are the same person — the lonely high school janitor, who invented her as his fantasy. Think “Psycho” meets “Fight Club.”
It doesn’t take long for “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” to imply as much. When Lucy, an aspiring poet, shares one of her verses at the dinner table, it’s actually a sampling from “Rotten Perfect Mouth,” a collection of writings by real-life poet Eva H.D. Later in the movie, it’s not even clear if Lucy’s name is Lucy. (He calls her “Ames.” Amy?) Jake has built her out of the books, movies, and passing encounters that have shaped his isolated worldview.
So Lucy’s the main character and she also doesn’t exist?
Well…yes and no. The most sophisticated gamble of the movie is that Kaufman has taken this device and turned it into an open question: Can a fantasy exist on its own terms?
“She is a device, but I wanted her to be able to separate herself from that,” Kaufman said. “I didn’t want it to be a twist. I felt like that would not work in a movie at this point in history. When you make a movie, everything that’s sort of ambiguous becomes concrete. You’ve got people playing these things. You can see them.”
Needless to say, Buckley turns in a rich, haunting performance as a woman grappling with the uncertainty surrounding her. “To my mind, it would have been a misuse of any actress not to give them something to play that was real,” Kaufman said. “Because of the device that the book uses, it wasn’t required, and I needed it to be there.”
Fine, but that still doesn’t mean she’s a real person.
Right. But she has a definite representative power as Jake comes to terms with the impossibility of his delusion. At one point, he asks Lucy if she’s read Anna Kavan’s 1967 novel “Ice,” which takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland (not unlike the dreary outdoors that surround the movie’s two big car rides). The protagonist of “Ice” spends most of the book pursuing an unnamed woman while wrestling with the complicated nature of his attraction.
In “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” the character endures that same struggle when the fantasy fights back. It’s a storytelling gamble unique to the art of cinema: Within the “world” of “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” — one controlled by Kaufman as well as his protagonist — Lucy exists. “I needed her to have agency for it to work as a dramatic piece,” Kaufman said. “I really liked the idea that even within his fantasy, he cannot have what he wants. He’s going to imagine this thing, but then he’s going to also imagine how it won’t work, how she’s going to bored with him, how she’s going to not think he’s smart enough or interesting enough.”
Eventually, Jake stops trying to solve his problems by inventing new people, and instead focuses on himself. “In keeping with the idea of giving her some agency, I didn’t want her to be responsible for his ending,” Kaufman said.
At one point, the janitor watches the final scene of a cheesy romance that’s directed by Robert Zemeckis. The abrupt end credit is hilarious. But why Zemeckis?
The janitor is often a passive character in the high school, absorbing faces and circumstances from the sidelines. However, one scene finds him sitting in an empty room, eating lunch and watching a movie on television. It’s the final minutes of a cheesy romance set in a diner, and the credits come up just long enough for one name to appear: “Directed By Robert Zemeckis.”
Why did Kaufman decide to toss in a reference to the director of “The Polar Express”? Kaufman has been telling interviewers that it happened at random, when his assistant director suggested it after perusing a list of director names online. Zemeckis wasn’t even in Kaufman’s original version of the script.
“Sometimes things are funny because they’re funny, and I feel like it’s possible that Zemeckis could have made this movie, even if it’s unlikely,” Kaufman said. At the same time, there’s a touch of irony to the choice. “I don’t think Zemeckis ever has or ever would make a movie like this,” Kaufman said. “It’s more like a Nancy Meyers movie. He wasn’t a model for it. His stuff is generally more high-concept, but it’s possible, so the joke resonates somehow.” He asked the director for permission to include the reference, and Zemeckis is thanked in the credits.
So it was just a random choice?
Yeah, that story sounds almost too neat for its own good, doesn’t it? After all, Zemeckis is one of the biggest commercial directors of the past 30 years, and Kaufman’s work is defiantly non-commercial. On top of that, Kaufman did at one point almost work with Zemeckis while adapting the young adult novel “Chaos Walking” way back in 2012. The project has gone through many writers since then, though Kaufman still has a credit on the Doug Liman-directed version set for release from Lionsgate next year. But Zemeckis was initially interested in taking it on.
“What happened with Robert Zemeckis was that I wrote a first draft of ‘Chaos Walking,’ and then I guess he read it and was interested in directing it,” Kaufman said. Lionsgate set them up. “It was a really nice meeting,” Kaufman said. “I had never met him before, but we had a really nice chat and came up with some solutions to some issues and that was the end of it. Then I didn’t end up moving forward with it, and neither did he.”
Alright, back to that cringe-inducing dinner. Why do the parents keep changing?
Over the course of a very creepy evening, Jake’s parents undergo a series of dramatic physical changes, from young to old and back again. Jake is basically living through the many stages of his parents’ lives, a process that has complicated the idea of bringing his new girlfriend home. Where does he place her in that timeline? He can’t find the perfect moment, because it doesn’t exist. As much as he wants to stay in the house with her, they eventually leave, at her insistence.
So begins another long car ride. And…was that a Pauline Kael impersonation?
While at Jake’s house, Lucy wanders into his childhood bedroom. It’s strewn with piles of movies, books, and other material. One volume stands out: “For Keeps: 30 Years at the Movies,” a 1996 selection of former New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael’s reviews (the book, now out of print, draws from several earlier collections). Once back on the road, Lucy and Jake engage in a loooooong, meandering discussion that bursts with highbrow references, from Guy Debord’s “Society as Spectacle” to Goethe’s theory of color and a David Foster Wallace essay from the collection “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.”
All of these fragments point to complicated ideas related to Jake’s obsessions, but none receive more screen time than a Pauline Kael review — her 1974 takedown of John Cassavetes’ “Woman Under the Influence.” (Strangely, that review is not included in “For Keeps.”)
Debating the film and its Gena Rowlands performance, Lucy basically transforms into Kael, repeating the review verbatim with a spot-on impersonation. “I’ve always liked her, and grew up with her and reading her, and thinking that she was smarter than I am,” said Kaufman, echoing the sentiment of many readers over the years. Jake seems to be one of them: After Lucy finishes her monologue about the movie, which he liked, he’s left speechless.
“That goes toward the idea of Jake not being able to have anything that he wants,” Kaufman said. “He had this opinion about that movie, and then failed. It’s an experience I’ve had — the idea that you like something, and then you read something by somebody that you really admire, and you feel like an idiot for liking that thing.” (Also notable: Kaufman’s recent novel, “Antkind,” is about the plight of a film critic.)
What’s up with Tulsey Town Ice Cream?
Eventually, the car ride is interrupted by a stop at Tusley Town Ice Cream, an invented small-town ice cream chain inexplicably open in the middle of a debilitating snowstorm. On the way over, Jesse and Lucy recall the jingle for the ice cream shop commercials. The pair stop there briefly and Lucy has a cryptic interaction with three women behind the takeout counter. Two of them are giggly and flirtatious, while a third seems terrified.
According to Kaufman, they’re all references to women that Jake has seen before. “Then there was this idea that there were many generations of high-school kids who worked there that he had interacted with over the years and had his problems with,” Kaufman said. “It’s a dreamy stop into his psyche, into his past.”
In the book, the couple actually stop at a Dairy Queen. “We weren’t able to get the rights to use that, so I changed it,” Kaufman said. “But I think it worked out better, because it’s more mysterious, and because it’s more local.”
Let’s talk about that dance sequence.
After they park at the high school, Jake runs inside, angry that the janitor is watching from afar. When Lucy goes after him, she has a warm encounter with the janitor in which he sends her on his way — suggesting that the character has finally accepted that he must part ways with his fantasy. Elaborating on this idea, Lucy and Jake then spot each other in a hallway, where they’re replaced by a pair of ballet dancers wearing the same clothes. Over the next several minutes, they engage in a lively piece of choreography patterned after a similar moment in the musical “Oklahoma!”
Earlier in the movie, the janitor passes a school recital of the play, which includes an extensive “dream ballet” sequence that finds the farm girl Laurey at the center of a brawl between two suitors, Curly McLain and Jud Fry. That sequence ends with Curly’s death; here, it’s the Jake stand-in who goes down, suggesting that Jake has accepted the impossibility of his love.
“There’s a few things in ‘Oklahoma!’ that felt like they were really kind of thematically parallel to the story that we were telling,” Kaufman said. As for the dream sequence: “I was always intrigued by it, because it’s so creepy, and I liked the idea of the doppelgänger aspect in it.” In other words, Jake has been pretending he’s someone else, and uses the narrative framework of “Oklahoma!” to eliminate that delusion.
And then there’s the talking animated pig.n
Actually, that’s another pretty straightforward one. In his car, the janitor seems to have an attack of some sort, and possibly dies. Like Charles Foster Kane whispering “Rosebud” from his bed, janitor-Jake sees tidbits from his youth in the windshield, including the animated “Tulsey Town Ice Cream” ad referenced earlier. These give way to an animated pig with maggots on its stomach — a grim encounter that Jake recounts to Lucy earlier in the movie, while giving her a tour of the farm. The affable animal walks Jake back to his final moment of introspection.
Something about the innocence of the pig and its horrific underbelly traumatized Jake early in life. In his old age, he has come to terms with this fundamental imbalance in his universe.
In the last scene, everyone’s old. But it looks kind of…fake.
Onstage to accept an award in the movie’s final scene, Jake stands against a backdrop of the “Oklahoma!” set, wearing obvious stage makeup to look like an old man. But he’s not alone. It’s a packed house, and everyone in the room — including his parents and Lucy — are wearing the same makeup. Originally, Kaufman included a tidbit to explain this inclusion.
“There was a scene where the janitor found a makeup book in the bathroom as he was cleaning up, because somebody had clearly been putting their makeup on in this boys or girls room,” Kaufman said. The device allows Jake to bring everyone in his head to age along with him, while reminding us of the artifice in play. “All of the people who were in the audience, with the exception of the characters from the movie, are the extras who played high school kids in the rest of the movie,” Kaufman said. “So they’re all young people wearing old-age makeup.”
Is that…the closing speech from “A Beautiful Mind”?
Yup. When Jake accepts his prize, he recites the sentimental Nobel Prize speech delivered by economist John Nash (Russell Crowe) at the end of Ron Howard’s Oscar winner. In fact, the entire sequence has been built to resemble the conclusion of the 2001 movie.
Earlier in “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” a DVD of “A Beautiful Mind” is glimpsed in Jake’s room, so it stands to reason that Jake found much relatable about the story of a brilliant man who struggles with paranoid schizophrenia and has trouble sorting out the reality surrounding him. Kaufman was wary of spelling that out, though.
“That’s one that I’m not as comfortable talking about because it does get to the meat of what the movie I made is about,” he said, but then elaborated anyway. “This movie is dealing with somebody’s experience of absorbing things that they see and how they become part of his psyche,” he said. “So this was in some ways how this person might have fantasized it out.”
Of course, there may be more to this: End credits claim that the speech was lifted with permission of the studio, but Kaufman played no role in that. Unlike Zemeckis, he didn’t ask for Howard’s blessing. “I have certainly never spoken to Ron Howard in my life,” Kaufman said. “I’m assuming they got permission.”
Considering that “A Beautiful Mind” was one of the cheesier Oscar winners of the previous decade (and it won the same year that “Adaptation” came out), it’s no huge leap to see the inclusion as a huge cinematic eyeroll about the misleading nature of storytelling that clouds the true nature of solipsistic struggles, something Kaufman has explored throughout his filmography. “A Beautiful Mind” puts a happy ending on that subject; in “I’m Thinking of Ending of Things,” the struggle never ends.
And then Jake sings…
Yep, more of “Oklahoma!” Sitting down on a set that looks like a reproduction of his childhood bedroom, he delivers a melancholic rendition of “Lonely Room,” in which Jud declares his intention of marrying Laurey. The song includes the telling line, “Get me a woman to call my own.” Dream on, Jud — and Jake, it seems. “The character of Jud seemed to be comparable in some ways to Jake,” Kaufman said. Sitting on a set built from the fragments that define his life, Jake has become the star of his own story and simultaneously confined by it.
And that’s it! Right?
Not quite. That final image of the janitor’s snow-encrusted car essentially suggests that janitor-Jake died there in the dead of night. It’s a beautiful, tragic capper to a story about one man confronting the failures of his life as it leaves his body. Kaufman hopes that people keep watching through the credits, which list many of the references throughout the movie. “There’s actually a lot of stuff in the end credits that’s important to me,” Kaufman said. “It’s an intentional thing, the way it plays out.”
Exhausted? Fine, but the riddles of the movie all serve a purpose. Ultimately, Kaufman doesn’t think that “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” hides much from its audience. “The way I was presenting it was that you would probably figure it out,” he said. “This is what the character is going through. You either get it or you don’t.”
全文链接：https://www.indiewire.com/2020/09/charlie-kaufman-explains-im-thinking-of-ending-things-1234584492/
Coming home is terrible nwhether the dogs lick your face or not nwhether you have a wife nor just a wife-shaped loneliness waiting for younComing home is terrible lonely nso that you think of the oppressive barometric pressure nback with you have just come from with fondness nbecause everything's worse once you're home nYou think of the vermin clingling to the grass stalks nlong hours on the road，roadside assistance and ice creams nand the peculiar shapes of certain clouds nand silence with longing，because you did not want to return nComing home is njust awful nAnd the home-style silence and clouds ncontribute to nothing but the general malaise nClouds,such as they are,are in fud suspect nand made from a different material than those you left behind nYou youself were cut from a different cloudy cloth, nreturned,remaindered nill-met by moonlight nunhappy to be back,slack in all the wrong spots,nseamy suit of clothes,dishrag-ratty,wornnYou return home,nmoon-landed,foreignnThe Earth's gravitation pullnan effort now redoubledndragging your shoelaces loosenand your shouldersnetching deeper the stanza of worry on your foreheadnYou return home deepenedna parched well linked to tomorrownby a frail strand ofnanywaynYou sigh into the onslaught of identical daysnone might as well,at a timenWellnanyway，you’re backnThe sun goes up and down like a tired whorenThe weather immobile like a broken limb while you just keep getting oldernNothing moves,but the shifting tides of salt in your bodynYour vision blearsnYou carry your weather with younthe big,blue whale,a skeletal darknessnYou come backnwith X-ray visionnyour eyes have become a hungernYou come home with your mutant giftsnto a house of bonenEverything you see nownAll of itnbonenn参考译文：n回家很可怕n无论狗狗是否舔你的脸n无论家中等待你的是一个妻子n还是妻子形状的孤独n回家孤独得可怕n以至于在你回想起你刚刚离开的n那个充满沉重气压的地方时 也带着一些喜欢n因为一旦回家后 一切会更糟n你竟带着渴望地去想 附着在稻草杆上的害虫n路上长时间的路程 道路救援和冰激凌n还有某些云朵特别的形状n和寂静 因为你不想回家n回家是...n就是可怕n而家庭生活的沉默和乌云n仅仅只会徒增普遍的不适感n这样的云其实很可疑 n他们的构造物，不同于你留下来的那些物质n你自己是从另一块 多云般的布上裁剪而出n被归还，被剩下 n月光下不幸相会n不乐意回归 不该松垮的地方会都松垮n满是线头的布服 抹布般的邋遢 破烂不堪n你回到家里n像是抵达月球的外星人n地球的引力拉扯n现在力量加倍n拉扯松弛了你的鞋带n还有你的肩膀n将你额头上担忧之诗节刻的更深n你回到家里 更为深沉n一口连接至明天的干涸之井n通过一缕虚弱的n如此这般n日复一日 毫无变化 你长长叹气n有时人也会这样n好吧n总之，你回来了n太阳像个疲倦的妓女一样起了又落n天气犹如折断的肢体一样毫无起伏n一切都是静止的 除了你体内潮起潮落般的盐分n你的视线朦胧n你不为外界气象所影响n巨大的蓝鲸 骸骨般的黑暗n你回来了 n带着X光的视线n你的眼睛已成为一种饥饿n你带着变异天赋 来到家中n来到一个骨头之家n现在你看到的一切n所有一切n都是骨头nnnnn
在两段夹杂风雪的车程和一座贴满复古壁纸的农场房子之间，《我想结束这一切》上演的情节看上去并不复杂：穿毛衣的卷发女孩和刚在一起仅六周的男友杰克，一同去杰克的老家探望他的父母。但是，这个见家长故事可不是本·斯蒂勒对上罗伯特·德·尼罗，在开篇车窗玻璃内大段的对话过后，以到达杰克老家为节点，《我想结束这一切》开始变得诡异而失常：
绿草间落雪的车，过于摇摆的狗，女孩的毛衣颜色和首饰不断变化，杰克的父母在中老年态间来回穿越，而对话中，女孩的职业、名字和她与杰克相识的故事上演着互斥的版本。同时，一位老年清洁工的日常穿插在故事中，他仿佛隔着雪幕，窥视也渗透着杰克和女孩的这段旅程。
《我想结束这一切》，这部被大量掉书袋对话、令人费解的细节和似乎能被彼此听到的内心独白所占据的影片，确实有些晦涩。然而，虽然影片的信息量大到像雪花一样扑面而来糊观众一脸，《我想结束这一切》更像是一座出口既定的迷宫，而不是需要一块块拼凑的拼图。它路程固定、直指前方，而要走到终点，参与者可能需要找到两把重要的钥匙：卷发女主角和老清洁工的身份。
那么，这个带领我们进入故事、放开心声让我们聆听的女孩是谁？
影片一开始，坐在男友身旁的女孩把头靠在车窗上，心里想的却是“我要结束这一切”。这里的“一切”，似乎指向女孩与杰克的关系，写满未来已知的疲倦感。然而，当我们据此以为《我想结束这一切》聚焦亲密关系，以为查理·考夫曼终于跳出了“伤心老男人”的大脑，破天荒地选择了一位女性作为主角和研究对象，我们不过是中了他精妙而迷惑性极强的烟雾弹。
女孩的身份和作用，是理解《我想结束这一切》设定的关键。找到这把钥匙的时机，对于每个观众来说可能都不一样，但一旦发现，就会立刻明白故事的来路和去程。我可能是相当后知后觉且不细心的观众，于我而言，问题答案的提示，出现在杰克的童年房间中。那个堆满了书籍和影碟、摆着儿童床的小房间，像是杰克的大脑切片和记忆图腾，暗示了这个作为影片叙事视角的女孩，不过是杰克脑海中理想伴侣的化身，是想象和意淫的产物，而这段旅程、这个家，也都是杰克脑内虚构的戏码和娃娃屋。
杰克房间里的一切都和女孩紧密关联：女孩在来时的车上念出一首自称原创的《骨狗》，这首诗出现在了杰克床尾放的一本诗集中；杰克的书架上放着宝琳·凯尔的影评集，在回程时两人谈起《醉酒的女人》，女孩就抽着烟激情引用宝琳·凯尔对该片的评论；书架上有物理和绘画相关的书籍，女孩就一会儿自称物理学家，一会儿立马改口成画家。
站在这个节点再往回看，在这之前，对于女孩是想象产物的这一设定，《我想结束这一切》早给出了很多暗示：在开篇的车内戏中有很多两人对话重叠的部分，仿佛两位主角都知道对方要说什么，没等问题问完就可以立马接上；女孩的每一场内心独白，杰克都好像能听到一样，不断追问“你在想什么？”；而在杰克家，女孩把照片上的小杰克恍惚中误认成了童年的自己，也证明他们俩其实都是同一人，或者说，同时存在于同一个深深脑海里。
那么，女孩在这个幻想世界中有什么作用呢？
在杰克和女孩刚出发的时候，杰克提起了华兹华斯的《颂诗：忆童年而悟不朽》，称这首诗是写给一个叫露西的女孩，一个诗人眼中的理想情人。所以，杰克身边这个最开始叫露西、后来不断改名的女孩，其实也就是杰克心中最完美女孩的化身。
而杰克在幻想世界中，把这样一个完美对象带回家，有着三方面的作用。首先，女孩是杰克曾幻想成为但没成为的一切：杰克喜欢绘画、物理学、诗歌、电影，女孩就变身画家、物理学家，随口写诗，对电影高谈阔论；同时，女孩口中不断变换的初遇故事，让杰克在父母眼中聪明且浪漫，风趣幽默还大胆追爱。最重要的是，杰克希望女孩能看到自己照顾年迈父母这值得嘉奖的行为，他需要被看见，也需要被认可。
但是，完美对象总是一体两面的，女孩既然可以承载杰克所有对于浪漫和成功的不实幻想，就绝对也会成为杰克自我怀疑和不安感的终极化身。所以，女孩对于杰克只会模仿和引用的指责，和她贯穿全片的“我想结束这一切”的念头，都不是什么幻想之人自我意识的觉醒，而是构建这个幻想世界的杰克，在现实中对自己不配得的感觉越来越深。这种再也无法靠幻想盖过的思绪，转换了虚构的完美女孩，让她不断接到电话，而电话那头，是老清洁工充满恐惧和焦虑的声音。
不同于女孩身份的烟雾弹，老清洁工就是变老后的杰克，即幻想世界主人好像更好猜一些。从序幕中老清洁工与年轻杰克同时以背影出场开始，老清洁工与小情侣所处世界之间的关联一直很明显，就像是老清洁工的所见所感，渗透进潜意识，再渗透进幻想世界风雪的缝隙中。
老清洁工打扫时遇到的音乐剧彩排，变成小情侣车载电台中传出的《俄克拉荷马》选曲，他看到的电视剧情节则被直接借用成小情侣的浪漫故事；他车中散落的塔尔西冰淇淋包装，之后化身暴雪中不合逻辑存在的冰淇淋站，而清洁工制服也出现在杰克家的洗衣机中；在高中走廊上，他看到的漂亮金发妹和被排挤的少女，后来都幻化成冰淇淋站员工，而当幻想杰克接过冰淇淋，他和员工少女手上的，是同样的红疹。
最能证明老清洁工是幻想主体的，是在虚构的美好世界中仍不断闪现的对年龄和衰老的恐惧，像一点点遗漏的电磁辐射，让幻想世界变成恐怖电影。母亲的耳鸣、她随着年龄而消逝的幽默感，父亲的遗忘，杰克和女孩针对老年学的讨论，都暗示了这段想象的主人正在经历并时刻恐惧着衰老。杰克在去冰淇淋站前的一番话，更是显示出他根本不是观众眼前这个不到三十的小伙。他对于母亲溺爱的反思，对所有老生常谈的质疑和“总会遇到属于你的人”叙事的不信任，都证明这个杰克，早就是经历过沧桑和失去，在生命尽头无助回望的孤独老人。
这么看来，查理·考夫曼对于反转完全不感兴趣。从一开始，他就把两个关键问题的线索布满全片，而《我想结束这一切》，就这样变成了为每位观众私人订制的双向对话。观众在哪里拿到这两把钥匙都没有太大影响，因为一旦领会，就能马上理解之前走过的弯弯绕绕的路程，并且清醒地走向迷宫的出口，和早就注定的结局。
到这里，《我想结束这一切》的全貌终于显现：一位独身而病弱的老清洁工杰克，在脑海中构建出了一个理想化的幻想世界，在那里，他有一个实现了他所有愿望的完美女朋友，而他那孤单的自我，也被她看见、被聆听。
同时，在幻想世界之外，杰克的渺小一生也被勾勒完全：他从小有很多的热爱，但毫无才智天赋；他向往爱情，但太过怯懦；他的父母时常吵架（即使在幻想的完美世界中吵架声都出现在背景中），他在学校也受尽排挤，母亲溺爱他，他却担心父亲像忘了农场里那只猪一样把他忘记。讽刺的是，他（疑似）最终把母亲遗弃在养老院，而得了阿尔兹海默症的父亲，也真的把他遗忘。
到了旅程的终点，那座在杰克的人生中完成了悲惨闭环的高中时，女孩和老清洁工这两把钥匙终于相遇。在一段满足考夫曼私心的歌舞片段后，老清洁工选择结束自己的生命，结束浪漫爱的幻想，结束指向原生家庭的追责，也结束无谓的理想和希望，跟着那只曾经最让他害怕的身下挂满蛆虫的猪，走向属于自己的颁奖礼。
对于老清洁工的选择有很多解读的方式。我个人的理解是，老清洁工脑海中构建的幻想世界和杰克与女孩的这趟旅程，不是老清洁工死前的走马灯，而是像心灵的呼吸机一样维持着老清洁工苟活，已经进行了很多年，循环了很多次。女孩觉得自己已经认识了杰克很久，和教学楼外满满一垃圾桶的冰淇淋杯，似乎都能证明这一点。但是，随着老清洁工的日渐衰老，随着他对自己的怀疑越来越深，也将自己的可悲人生剖析得越来越清楚，他的变化带动了幻想世界中的女孩，开始质疑，开始想逃脱。
所以，在这趟最终的旅程中，当女孩站到老清洁工面前，她终于回忆起了自己和杰克的真实故事。杰克对于女孩，不过是当初在酒吧盯着她看的变态，而女孩对于杰克，也不过是多年前没勇气要号码的一个心动对象。
在一排排储物柜前，老清洁工终于承认了自己的失败，也终于放弃了构建多年的白日梦。那场梦幻的芭蕾，本该是幻想故事的浪漫高潮，但这一次，老清洁工杀死了那个比年轻时的自己还帅气的幻想自我，解放了幻想世界中年轻的杰克和女孩。
杰克的故事是悲惨的。他有过很多热爱和理想，读过很多书，却仍然过不好这一生，只会用他人的语言表达思想、拙劣地模仿他人的生活，再用幻想粉饰太平。但是，《我想结束这一切》虽然是以杰克的自杀作为结尾，却显露出一丝悲观的上扬。
在通往死亡的道路上，杰克终于和自己最害怕的梦魇，那只长着蛆虫的猪和解。而在杰克死前的颁奖礼上，虽然他仍然偷用《美丽心灵》的演讲，再以《俄克拉荷马》里的一首歌结束表演，杰克却不再因为引用而自我指责，而是平和地让那些影响过自己的作品，成为自己永恒的一部分。甚至，杰克都不再对衰老感到恐惧，他以老年姿态，和同样化着老年妆的、他生命里重要的人一起，庆祝他庸碌而孤单的一生。
最后一幕，白雪之中空无一人，高中校外的树旁，杰克结束生命的那辆车被大雪掩埋，像洁白的棺椁。在这张定格的风景画里，虽然没有悲伤的人物，却精准地传达出了最为悲伤的情绪。一生都在模仿的杰克，最终用结束一切的方式，完成了他生命的第一次原创。
我觉得导演的意图是搭建一座时间与记忆的迷宫，那里有非线性的时间，有记忆的碎片，有强烈的感情，有无逻辑的徘徊，有难以名状的忧愁，有生而为人的无尽痛苦。本片并不是一盒拼图。如果观众试图把一切归位，一定要拼出一幅清楚有逻辑的图像，那估计会有点失望。但是，我恰好是一个看侦探小说长大的解谜狂，我对以因果关系解释一切有着异乎寻常的执着。所以我还是想在拼图方面做些努力，希望能给觉得此片很难理解的友邻提供点线索。
本片的主角其实是那个拖地的老头。他应该是一所高中的清洁工。Jake这个形象是他脑海中的自己——年轻时的他加上想象中的他的那么一个综合体。这解释了Jake对那所高中的描述：“130间教室，一个体育馆，两个更衣室，讲堂，10个洗手间，6个办公室，教师休息室，辅导员中心”。几乎只有学校的清洁工会这样描述学校，不是吗？学校对他而言是房间和房间的数目，是每天要巡视清洁的路线，而不是里面的人。这也说明主角是个孤僻的人。我们可以想象他在学校里很少和人交流，只是一直默默地打扫着所有房间，一天又一天，几十年如一日。
所有情节和对话都是主角脑中的想象。我们注意到对话中大量出现了文学、电影、艺术和科学的内容，可见主角是一个知识相当丰富的人。他可能受过良好教育却郁郁不得志，当了一辈子清洁工；或者他虽没受过太多教育，但热爱阅读、观影和欣赏艺术。不管怎么说，我相信他是一个性格内向、内心丰富、感情敏感、沉迷幻想的人。他没钱没地位，从来不被人看见。他这样沉默而压抑地过完了一生。
他在一个农场里长大。他的父母有些怪异、上不了台面。我想他有时是以父母为耻的。不管他成功与否，他毕竟是个比较聪明的人，他小时候得过奖；但他父母智力不高、总是不得体、讲错话。他大约有过带朋友或女友回家的经历，他的父母表现得很糟糕，令他很煎熬。父母也不理解他，他喜欢艺术，而父亲对艺术的无知评论令他窒息。他和父母不很亲近，至少智识上他们无法交流。但他是爱父母的，年老失智的父亲、病弱垂死的母亲令他痛苦，但他无能为力。这些都可能是他生命中真实的场景。他也记得父母给他的温暖：满桌的食物、总记得给他做他最爱的甜食，可是那些场景同时又是满满的尴尬和隔阂，他们也许从未通畅地表达过对对方的爱。在“回家吃饭”那段戏中，父母一会儿年轻一会衰老，因为那些是记忆的非线性组合。从主角的年龄看，他的父母应该早已去世了，他的记忆里确实有死去的母亲躺在床上的样子。
我想他是一个喜欢甜食的人，从他肥胖的身型便能猜出。他总是默默地窝在家里看书、看电影，同时吃着糖份极高的食品。他喜欢那个冰激凌的广告：这里没有烦恼，请你想吃多少就吃多少；第一口咬下去，就包治一切忧愁、让你喜笑颜开。他从小沉迷甜食，因为巨大的份量和毫无节制的糖分填满了他内心的寂寞和空虚。但是那种徒劳的填塞有时也让他感到恶心：在记忆的迷宫里，他买了两杯巨大的冰激淋，但终于觉得甜得恶心，吃不下去。他暴躁地想扔掉那些爱的替代品。Lucy打开垃圾箱，里面都是最大号的空冰激凌杯。那是无数个孤独的夜晚。我猜他无数次突然对自己狂怒，想戒掉恶习、想走出家门过更积极的生活。他对自己虚度的人生感到恶心。但当然他不会成功。Lucy提到：“你（Jake）的母亲冷而甜”；Jake说Lucy也是冷而甜。女人在他心中都是冷而甜。她们冷若冰霜地拒绝他，但她们看起来那么甜美。如果得到一个女人的爱，一定包治一切忧愁，他是这么想的。然而我猜他也许从未得到过女人的青睐。
Lucy可能是他从前某位女友的形象，或多位女友的混合体：鉴于她一会儿叫Lucy、一会叫Louisa或者 Lucia。我觉得更可能是一位女友，或者主要来自对一位女友得记忆：一来主角不像是有过许多女友的人；二来这几个名字过度相似，像是对同一人的模糊追忆。也可能Lucy完全是他想象出来的人，取材于电影（比如那个女主是餐馆侍应，男主突兀示爱的电影）。他对情爱十分自卑，这个想象或回忆中的女友同意与他交往只不过是因为不好意思拒绝，并且她时时刻刻都在打算与他分手。而他总在讨好她，试图用体贴得体的应对留住她。那种焦虑感始终存在。在回家吃饭那段戏里提到他遇到女友的方式：他想要她的号码，但太怕羞不敢开口。他应该有过那种经历：默默地看着某个女子，却不敢上前搭讪。他会幻想一些补偿性的情节：Lucy明白他想要电话号码，心里也默默地觉得他可爱，所以主动给他开口的机会。如果真能找到这样的女友带回家里，父母一定会给他鼓掌、为他高兴，但这种事情大约从未发生过；也可能确实发生过一两次，但女友很嫌弃他家或他父母，总是想赶紧离开，就像Lucy总想赶紧离开。是的，Lucy总想离开，她一再地催促他快走，她（或她们）那样嫌弃他、那样嫌弃他的家人——他的自尊受过多少这样的屠戮。他不可能不愤怒，他终于发了脾气，但最后仍是以向Lucy道歉告终。他是个明理的人，他知道那种基于性饥渴的愤怒是错误的，但这不代表他可以消除那种愤怒。Jake保持了绅士风度，因此获得了卑微地轻吻Lucy额头的资格；清洁工给了Lucy很多理解和包容，因此获得了一个无关情爱的拥抱。这已经是最好了，扮演理解、尊重女性的卑微好人，总能得到一点爱的残羹冷炙吧？更炽烈的爱情，那段超现实舞蹈中那种火热的、基于性吸引的爱情他不配得到。注意那段舞蹈中，从丑陋肥胖的Jake背后走出了一个更英挺帅气的理想版的他。与女子舞蹈的是那个理想版的他——肥胖版的他连上场的资格都没有，即使在他自己的想象中也没资格——“我不配”。如果模样生得好些，也许就会有爱情了吧？他肯定这样设想过、叹息过。同时他当然恨那些帅气有魅力的男人：舞蹈的最后，年老的清洁工（他自己）杀死了那个男人，试图强夺那个女人。他当然无数次有那种欲望，强奸那些看不上他的女人的欲望。买冰激凌的时候他说：她们都认识我，如果她们知道是我就不会过来服务了，所以你帮我买吧——他可能当过stalker，骚扰过女店员。但是女人最后都毫发无伤地逃走了。还是买大杯冰激凌吧——去买冰激凌总不会被拒绝，大杯冰激凌四块钱，想吃多少吃多少，包治一切烦恼。
他是个矛盾的人：
他轻盈又超脱，像那个写论文的女人，谈着文学和艺术，对生活早就看淡。他猥琐又卑微，像那个肥胖丑陋的家伙，癞蛤蟆想吃天鹅肉、去骚扰美丽的女人，不要脸。
他那样渴望被看见，所以他让老年清洁工对Lucy说：“我能看见你“，每个人都应该被看见。同时他又那样害怕被看见，所以他千方百计阻止Lucy进地下室，因为那个洗衣机里有清洁工的制服，一件又一件，像他每天枯燥重复的卑微人生。他不希望她看到那个有知识、有礼貌的男人（幻想中的他）背后，真实的他是一个衰老可悲的清洁工。他实在太自卑了，连在满足愿望的幻想中他给自己设计的形象也不怎么样。
他想结束这一切，如那个坚强独立的女人想离开男友，那是优雅决绝的，自杀是一种姿态；但他也知道其实自己是什么样子的，在别人眼中他是什么样子的：脱光衣服的肥胖衰老的身体，一大坨脂肪而已，一头浑身是蛆的猪而已。那头猪的事情大概是他童年的一个阴影的片段。他始终没有忘记那个片段，那个片段里有对死亡的恐惧，有对令人恶心的人类生存状态的厌恶，有对自己的厌弃——他是个敏感而热爱文学的人，他不会体会不到这一层。
在最后的想象中，他得了诺贝尔奖。他在致辞中说他的生活充满成就和意义；他毕竟是个聪明人，他小时候得过奖，如果做了正确的选择，也有可能过上那样的一生吧。这就像卖火柴的小女孩在冻死之前的幻觉里获得了自己想要的一切。然而那些该死的痛苦总是冲破潜意识的表层，连片刻甜美的幻觉也不让他享受。于是致辞之后他又唱起了光棍的悲歌：我想要一个女人，她美丽的长发拂过我的脸庞，她温暖的手臂环绕我的身体，她甜美的爱情治愈一切。
理想中的一切，不可能得到的一切，也许就在隧道那一侧的光亮中——在皑皑白雪里，终于可以结束一切，真轻盈、真好。可是有一天人们会挖开白雪，看到真实的结局——一个肥胖丑陋的老家伙，赤裸裸地死在车里——真恶心、太恶心了。