About as far removed from her star-making turn in the Star Wars saga as she could be, Daisy Ridley headlines this soft and affecting black comedy-drama about an office worker’s drab life that begins to bloom.
★★★★✰
Quiet and unassuming, Fran (Ridley) is a young woman living in a coastal Oregon town whose life seems to revolve almost solely around her mind-numbingly dull day job. Surrounded by the recognisable sounds of inane workplace ‘banter’ and the noises of the dockyards, it’s little wonder her thoughts drift towards the macabre. Sometimes, she thinks about dying.
New colleague Robert (Dave Merheje)—perhaps intrigued by her apparent solitude—begins to dig a little deeper, and his initial overtures are met with a tentative warmth. They may not enjoy the same movies, but just watching them together is the first tentative step towards building a relationship. It’s a quiet nod to the small sacrifices we make in the search for companionship. Yet it’s not smooth sailing. It’s clear that Fran has internalised the notion that she’s just not that interesting, and finds Robert’s company exhausting at times.
And then there are those creeping thoughts. Not so much suicidal, but more what if? What if I were to just crash this car? Having grown up not far from where she now resides, Fran’s secluded upbringing amongst the Oregon wilderness is key to understanding her depression and isolation. A West-Coast Eden of sorts, Oregon has long been an icon of journey’s end; pioneers were drawn to its beauty and promise in the 1800s, the phrase ‘Oregon or Dead’ painted on their wagons. But the lingering effects of living at the end of the Pacific trail mean Fran’s journey never began. Her sadness feels more contemplative than desperate, calling to mind the burden of human consciousness in Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself. She seems fatigued by the intricacies of human interaction and the numbing 9-5, preferring to remain within herself. Living feels like a chore. Like Whitman, Fran seems to accept death at face value, but where the great American poet sees romance in the wilderness, Fran only sees death. And so her visions are marked by echoes of a wild finality as she finds herself hunted by a snake in the basement of an office or laying prostrate on the forest floor.
“All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look
out upon,
See, hear, and am silent.”
‘Leaves of Grass’ – Walt Whitman (1855)
Taking part in a murder mystery night hosted by one of Robert’s friends, Fran seems comfortable around the spectre of death, even if it is just a game. Her fantasies are just as performative, with cinematographer Dustin Lane capturing Ridley in carefully choreographed, magazine-ready poses. Death is not something to suffer, but something to be arranged. Dying is an art.
Yet sparks of life tend to interrupt. Robert’s love of the movies works as a reminder of a world writ large, and he seems far more capable of discovering the small ways in which the townsfolk deal with the mundanity of their lives. Fran appears surprised to find co-worker Garrett (Parvesh Cheena) at the aforementioned gathering, but Robert seems at ease, able to tune into Fran’s frequency and back again. He is less a lover, more a connector.
Ultimately though, Fran’s malaise speaks to a larger and more recognisable disaffection. Perhaps she is just another in a long tradition of poets and people for whom doubt, despair and then indifference are the results of extended periods of contemplation. When Fran finds her former co-worker Carol sat in a café instead of enjoying her retirement on the cruise she had booked, she discovers Carol’s husband has had a stroke. “Every day I get up and I see the day out there and I get my coffee and I sit here and I think, all right. All right. This is what I have right now… and no matter how much better whatever I imagine in my head is, it’s not as real as what I do have. So… it’s hard isn’t it? Being a person?” Carol’s words are an affecting observation;And for Fran, hearing them come from a person she’d previously dismissed, they act as a formative moment. Like Whitman before her, the spark of a newfound self-awareness marks a transition towards reintegration.
“…sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.”
‘Thanatopsis’ – William Cullen Bryant (1817)
The Verdict
What Sometimes I Think About Dying does so poetically is to turn the small and tender fragments of Fran’s journey into moments that feel monumental. Not all ‘life’s worth living’ moments come with fireworks and grandeur. Here they’re amusing, poignant whispers that really resonate. It is hard, being a person.
Words by Jeremy Arblaster
Sometimes I Think About Dying is in cinemas from Friday 19 April.
Support The Indiependent
We’re trying to raise £200 a month to help cover our operational costs. This includes our ‘Writer of the Month’ awards, where we recognise the amazing work produced by our contributor team. If you’ve enjoyed reading our site, we’d really appreciate it if you could donate to The Indiependent. Whether you can give £1 or £10, you’d be making a huge difference to our small team.