I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS is challenging, elusive, indulgent, alienating – a Charlie Kaufman film, in short. Like pretty much all of his work, reality is brought into question minute by minute, nobody ends up playing exactly the same character they were at the beginning and some may never have been there in the first place. If that last sentence doesn’t make sense then I’m only trying to replicate what the film does. Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons play a couple visiting parents in the country as a snowstorm closes in. After we meet the strange parents (Toni Collette and David Thewlis) even stranger things begin to happen to the passage of time, characters’ identities and backstories and reality itself. Don’t even get me started on the school janitor. Don’t be surprised by ballet interludes or the quoting of an entire Pauline Kael review. It won’t be for everyone, in fact it’s probably not for many, but it is unique, mesmerising and awkwardly amusing. SSP