Film Review – Sometimes I Think About Dying (2023)
In a capitalist society, our routines are drilled into us practically from birth. Wake up, go to work, come home, eat, go to bed, rinse and repeat. It’s a routine that Fran (Daisy Ridley) has become bogged down by, as she dutifully goes to her office job and works on spreadsheets, barely saying a word to anyone. In between the stretches of boredom, she imagines what it would be like if she were dead. Fran pictures her own corpse under various dark circumstances, namely in an empty forest as ants crawl over her lifeless body.
Fran isn’t suicidal per se, but as the banality of life has left her feeling dead on the inside, she reckons she might as well be dead for real. But change occurs with the arrival of a new co-worker, Robert (Dave Merheje). He is boisterous and easy-going whereas Fran is quiet and awkward. Without trying to, Fran makes Robert laugh, which leaves him attracted to her. That attraction becomes a date, but Fran’s cynical outlook on life threatens to undo any potential change to the routine she has become bleakly accustomed to.
Rachel Lambert directs Sometimes I Think About Dying with a tender comion that seeps into the craft of her collective team. The 4:3 aspect ratio that the film is captured in creates a boxed-in feeling of entrapment, just as Fran feels unable to escape the structure of crushing boredom and loneliness that informs her entire life. All the while, the cinematography actively avoids intimacy, preferring to shoot either from a distance or from angles that obscure the full extent of Fran’s experiences, such as shots from over her shoulder or from the other end of the room. The physical distance reflects Fran’s disconnect, but that distance is gradually lessened as Fran comes to embrace the film’s thematic lessons on openness and connection. Even the establishing shots that showcase the everyday city life around Fran is painted with strokes of sadness.
Daisy Ridley has had an inspiring career so far, particularly her integral role in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, of which she and her character were a consistent highlight. Her performance here is remarkable in how hauntingly subdued it is. Fran occupies the margins of her own life, only speaking when she has to, and keeping an airtight lid on her feelings or opinions. Yet Ridley’s acting captures the resigned depression that simmers underneath the veil of seeming indifference or rudeness. The cutaways to Fran’s fantasised deaths revel in the morbidness of her boredom, but Ridley’s acting layers the darkly comic nature of the storytelling with identifiable despair. Fran’s face gives little away, but the emptiness behind her eyes tells us everything. Ridley acts well opposite the kinetic joviality of Merheje’s performance, whose character is both a foil to and a solution for Fran if she can only break away from the jadedness that has consumed her life.
That little is known about Fran outside of her concealed emotions sounds like a flaw, but it strengthens the emotional resonance of the story. It ultimately doesn’t matter where she came from or what her history is, because it is in the isolation that she has become sadly used to that the film’s power comes from. Life rarely goes the way we want, but it is through reconciliation and finding the joys in between the dissatisfaction that true happiness can be found. It is the lesson that Fran struggles with as she navigates muted colour palettes and withdrawn visuals, the increasing closeness of the direction and brightening of the visuals confronting her cynicism just as Robert and his optimism do. It is a rom-com in which accepting love, be it from another or of yourself, is the radical principle.
Sometimes I Think About Dying can at times feel a little hollow narratively speaking, likely a symptom of translating its short film source material into a feature-length movie. Its resolution is a tad rushed, and one crucial scene, involving a recently retired co-worker, relies on Fran teetering on the edge of iveness. But where it occasionally stumbles, the film makes up for its stellar characterisation, creative filmmaking, and abundance of empathy at its core. Its unorthodoxly funny and playful despondent, but its terrific performances, sensitive direction, and emotional lessons ultimately serve as sources of hope. If nothing else, it’s lovely to see Daisy Ridley in a leading role again.
★★★★
This review is a repost of our original review link
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