Life doesn't always make sense or turn out the way someone wants it to. I'm Thinking of Ending Things ending is ultimately a tragedy. He got too deep in his depression to get himself out of a dangerous situation - it's clear that he at least considered death as a way out. The movie subverted this by leading audiences to initially think it was about a breakup when that was all just another layer of Jake's fantasy life. He never had the life he desperately wanted, and he was likely thinking of ending things. The title of I'm Thinking of Ending Things has a darker second meaning - Jake is deeply depressed. He never made it out of his car and likely died there. The final shot of the movie sees Jake's car completely covered in snow. During this breakdown, he strips naked and imagines following one of his high school fantasies. He relives moments from his life - memories of his parents and various moments from when he was a child. He returns to his car and suffers a mental breakdown. In reality, Jake wraps up a cold, snowy night cleaning the school. Old Jake is so desperate for a sense of camaraderie and belonging that he even wishes to be the star of the musical at the high school where he works. In his real life as a janitor, the audience sees Jake on lunch break watching a romantic comedy in which the female lead is a waitress. He thinks about this young woman so much that moments from his day-to-day life influence the story he creates about her. Jake regrets that he never spoke to the young woman, so he imagines what life could've been like with her. He just watched her, and she recalls how unsettling that was. The young woman and old Jake have a confrontation at Jake's high school in the I'm Thinking of Ending Things ending, where she shares that Jake never approached her at the bar. As revealed in the I'm Thinking of Ending Things ending, he did see her from afar years ago at a bar, but he never mustered up the courage to talk to her. That's because she's technically a figment of his imagination. Jake refers to her by different names, he changes the story of how they met, her career constantly switches, and her childhood is even altered a bit. Throughout I'm Thinking of Ending Things, the young woman's backstory constantly changes. The young woman is not Jake's girlfriend, but rather a woman he admired years ago. Since he can't, I'm Thinking of Ending Things sees old Jake imagining life with his parents the way he wishes it could have been. Whether he wishes he had more time with them or could've had a do-over with the time they did share, he clearly thinks about whether there was something that he could have done differently in regard to their relationship. It's unclear when his parents passed in relation to where Jake is in the present timeline. The final sequence with his parents shows his mom at the end of her life and unable to care for herself, with his dad barely functioning. Jake's dad looks physically unwell, and his mom appears to be mentally unwell. Clues are scattered in the sequences where they're middle-aged the fact their health is starting to fail. While he and the young woman are visiting his parents, they are shown at different times in their lives - middle age, as younger adults, and then near the end of their lives. Jake's relationship with his parents may also run deeper than that.
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