Daisy Ridley's character, Fran, is the silent enigma at the heart of the enthralling film, "Sometimes I Think About Dying". For the first 22 minutes, she utters no word, her first introduction being a stark yet amusing declaration of her liking for cottage cheese, given at an office meeting where everyone is asked to share their favorite food. We have noticed her consumption of it, yet apart from this quirk, little else is understood about her.
The exhilarating ambiguity of the character is a nod to Ernst Lubitsch's tenet, reminding the audience to enjoy the task of solving a mystery, as appreciated by legendary filmmaker Billy Wilder. Directed by Rachel Lambert, the film encompasses this principle superbly.
The seemingly mundane life of Fran unfolds in a small Pacific Northwest town where she works in an office amidst the monotonous prattle of her colleagues. However, her existence is far from ordinary; she battles with constant visions of her own death. Shaken by these thoughts, there is a dark humor added to her life with the arrival of a new co-worker, the charming extrovert Robert, portrayed by Dave Merheje.
Their relationship is stranded between the surreal and the mundane, with Fran continuously sandwiched between literal interpretations of life, her suicidal fantasizing, and her growing warmth for Robert. The course of this storyline remains rather unpredictable.
While the plot may invite clichés about an awkward, lonely girl, both Ridley and Lambert ensure Fran's character veers off the beaten track. They imbue Fran's life with a sense of an abstract reality, skillfully balancing the edges of ordinary and surreal.
Merheje's character adds an intriguing element of mystery as he is drawn to the reserved Fran. As audience members, we are left longing for one more act to satiate our curiosity, but the film embraces its ambiguous nature, ending with a sense that the story is not yet wholly told.
The unfinished feel of the narrative is perhaps rooted in its origin. Co-created by Stefanie Abel Horowitz, Kevin Armento, and Katy Wright-Mead, "Sometimes I Think About Dying" has evolved from a 2013 play, 'Killers' by Armento, to a 2019 acclaimed short film directed by Horowitz before being delivered as this haunting long version. Its exclusivity to the death-wish aspect as the focal narrative leaves the audience pondering over the unsolved mystery, mirroring Fran's own disjointed reality.
