I’m Thinking Of Ending Things: Who The Caller On The Phone Is

WARNING: Spoilers for I’m Thinking of Ending Things.

In I’m Thinking of Ending Things, a young female character receives mysterious phone calls, so who’s on the other end? The Netflix film initially plays out like a quirky relationship drama, but then evolves into a surrealist character study about love, loss, and regret. Written and directed by the eclectic filmmaker Charlie Kaufman, I’m Thinking of Ending Things is based on Iain Reid’s 2016 eponymous novel.

Starring Jesse Plemons and Jessie Buckley, I’m Thinking of Ending Things’ titular concept stems from insecurities faced by a couple during the early stages of their relationship. On a snowy evening, Jake (Plemons) drives girlfriend Lucy (Buckley) to his parents’ home for a first meeting, only something feels off from the start. Jake can seemingly hear Lucy’s inner dialogue, and then behaves oddly when arriving at the country destination; he refuses to enter his former home right away, and instead gives Lucy a property tour while explaining the deaths of various sheep and pigs. When the couple finally joins “Mother” (Toni Collette) and “Father” (David Thewlis) for dinner, Lucy comes to realize that Jake most likely had a difficult childhood. But what troubles her the most are incoming phone calls that she doesn’t respond to.

Within the first 10 minutes of I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Lucy receives a call from someone named “Lucy.” Shortly after, Jake references an early 19th century poem by English writer William Wordsworth entitled “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.” Jake then informs his girlfriend Lucy that Wordsworth once wrote a series of poems for a woman named Lucy, whom he describes as a “beautiful, idealized woman who dies young.” Later, during the family dinner, Lucy notices that she has several missed calls from “Lucy” and now “Louisa.” After the family dinner, she spots a photo that appears to be herself as a child, and the face then changes to a younger version of Jake during a second glance. Seconds later, Lucy receives a phone call from “Yvonne.” From this point forward, it’s heavily implied in I’m Thinking of Ending Things that Lucy is a figment of Jake’s imagination, and that the older janitor (Gus Boyd) – who frequently appears in side sequences – has dreamed up the entire narrative while reflecting about his life. The mysterious calls are messages from the janitor to his subconscious.

The cryptic phone calls in I’m Thinking of Ending Things thematically link to the opening minutes. During voiceover narration, Lucy states that “It feels like I’ve known Jake longer than I have.” The character stands on a city sidewalk and looks to the sky as snow falls, and then feels drawn to something in the second or third level of a nearby building. The aforementioned janitor looks down at Lucy and mutters to himself: “The assumptions are right. I can feel my fear growing. Now is the time for the answer. Just one question.” Seconds later, Plemons’ Jake shows up, and the narrative properly begins, or so it seems. With this early passing moment in I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Kaufman establishes the premise for the cryptic phone calls, evidenced by the fact that the mid-movie voicemail from “Yvonne” includes a line from the opening: “There’s only one question to answer.”

By the 70-minute mark in I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Buckley’s character receives a voicemail from “Louisa” that reinforces the janitor connection. A man’s voice states that “There’s only one question to resolve. I’m scared. I feel a little crazy. I’m not lucid. The assumptions are right. I can feel my fear growing. Now is the time for the answer. Just one question, one question to answer.” In this moment, Buckley’s character has just ventured off into the basement of Jake’s family home and spots various landscape paintings, along with janitor clothing in the washer. The implications are clear to the audience, but not so much to Buckley’s character. Lucy is a mental projection of Jake’s imagination.

So, what do the phone calls really mean? The answer may lie in Buckley’s dialogue right after the last phone call. On the way back “home,” the woman known as Lucy theorizes, via voice narration, that “People like to think of themselves as points moving through time. But I think it’s probably the opposite. We’re stationary, and time passes through us, blowing like cold wind, stealing our heat, leaving us chapped and frozen.” Given that I’m Thinking of Ending Things ends with the janitor freezing to death, it seems that his messaging to various subconscious creations is symbolic of life’s obstacles. For Lucy, there’s weirdly still a bit of hope in her strange, subconscious existence, but she’s at the mercy of something bigger—in this case, Jake’s free will to end things.

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Q.V. Hough
(1893 Articles Published)

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Q.V. Hough is a senior writer at Screen Rant. He’s also the founding editor at Vague Visages, and has contributed to RogerEbert.com and Fandor.

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