I cannot presume to grasp what the smorgasbord of surreal incidents which happen on a road trip during a snowy blizzard with Jake (Jesse Plemons) and Lucy (Jessie Buckley) to visit Jake’s parents. These two have been dating only 6 or 7 weeks, but they seem to have a compatibility that makes their relationship seem longer at first. Only Lucy’s internal musings present a different reality in her mind, which Jake occasionally seems to be picking up on. Jake keeps bringing up books from which he quotes chapter and verse. He is also obsessed with the play, “Oklahoma”. He knows all of the music and can sing all the songs. Their conversation ranges widely and they dissect and debate the merits of the John Casavettes film, “Woman Under the Influence” and Lucy repeats from memory the Pauline Kael review using another voice. Then she recites a poem which she has just come up with – fully developed and fairly bleak. We are asked to believe that Lucy is a poet, a physicist, and a waitress. The couple are heading into a rural area, “very farmy” as Jake says. Lucy notes how many barns there are and how alike they all look. She is underwhelmed. She is wryly funny.

Before they arrive Jake prepares Lucy for some irregularities in their reception. When they finally reach home he delays the meeting with the parents by taking Lucy on a tour of the barns which used to house livestock when this was a working farm. He gives some disturbing explanations of what happened to the animals, which hangs in the air. His casual attitude is expressed as “Animals live in the present. Humans cannot. So they invented hope.”

Once the parents finally appear, things get really unsettling as the father (David Thewlis) and mother (Toni Colette) behave in slightly schizophrenic ways. As the visit lingers on, the parents seem to age shift effortlessly between very old and vibrantly youthful. When Lucy sees Jake’s book-filled room, she realizes where Jake has accumulated all of the knowledge he is constantly putting forth. Included in the room is the compendium of Pauline Kael’s reviews. She notes the book containing the poem which she had claimed as her own. Significance? Hard to know.

At some point we have a flashback of a theatrical performance starring Jake dressed as an old man receiving an award for a performance in “Oklahoma.” As things get stranger and more awkward, the snow is becoming a blizzard and Lucy really needs to get home, even as Jake keeps delaying. When they finally hit the road, things get even stranger. There is a quirky stop at a roadside ice cream joint, loaded with ominousness, by Jakes peculiar behavior and the whispered plea by the server to “Help me”. What to make of it? Your guess.

The final and most bizarre incident takes place in Jake’s old high school with only the old janitor inside. When Jake goes inside and does not come back, Lucy goes in and finds the janitor but not Jake. Then a couple dressed as Jake and Lucy, who are ballet dancers perform a beautiful extended pas de deux down the halls of the school. Jake is nowhere to be found. The snow continues to fall blanketing everything. The film ends with complete uncertainty. This is pure Charley Kaufman. There is so much food for thought that you could be chewing for days. The performances are fascinating and compelling. (Available on Netflix)