Review of Sometimes I Think About Dying – “A wonderful, subdued performance from Daisy Ridley”

When making a film about a depressed, disconnected character, it can be difficult not to make a depressing film that is difficult to connect with. Luckily, Rachel Lambert’s indie centers around a truly effective performance from Daisy Ridley, hinting at enough inner light to keep you watching even when things get a little dark.

Ridley plays Fran, an office worker in a coastal Oregon town who prides herself on her spreadsheet-toting teachers. She keeps her distance from her colleagues, barely speaks in the office, and hangs around the house like a ghost. Closely observed office scenes—the struggle to think of a heartfelt message for a co-worker’s farewell card, the endurance ice-breaking exercise of a meeting—contrast with the dreaminess of Fran’s death visions. As the title suggests, she dreams of her end.

When new guy Robert (Dave Merheje) joins the office, Fran makes him laugh and it seems to inspire her to have a little human interaction, something that clearly doesn’t come naturally. What follows is a preliminary courtship, too delicately staged to be seen. But the result is a strange film: although Lambert clearly wants to suggest that Fran has retreated from the world into her own, there is little to suggest that her inner life is particularly warm and welcoming. Her visions of death are strikingly stark but lonely; This is not someone who dreams of justifying some great injustice or dying in a heroic deed. She also doesn’t make art or the (stunning) landscapes of her seaside home, or do anything that you’d expect a lonely person to find joy and comfort in. She’s kind of an empty beige outfit.

The fact that both her dreams and her reality are desaturated and tinted blue also means that there is no visual contrast to Walter Mitty or Chicago; These dreams creep into everyday life without warning and are sometimes barely distinguishable from what one might call “real life.”

Lambert deserves some credit for not going down the cod psychology route to give some stock answer to Fran’s disconnect, and for suddenly abandoning subtlety to get to the grand finale. Instead, the ending focuses on Ridley’s remarkable performance in his favor. There are also some great moments from her co-stars, especially Marcia DeBonis as Carol, ready to retire, and a real sense of place. However, it’s possible to be too subtle on the big screen, and at times the film’s very restraint makes it feel as closed and forbidden as Fran herself.