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‘Sometimes I Think About Dying’ review: Daisy Ridley fights loneliness | Sundance 2023

Daisy Ridley appears in a still from Sometimes I Think About Dying by Rachel Lambert, an official selection of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Dustin Lane

Sometimes I Think About Dying follows a socially awkward office worker finds her lonely days interrupted by a new co-worker who piques her interest—and interest in herself.

Sometimes I Think About Dying is an observational meditation on loneliness, connection and life that's surprisingly moving and life-affirming despite its pointed dry humor at the start. Daisy Ridley's performance as chronic wallflower Fran is frustrating, charming, and above all complex in its portrayal of introversion in a world built for extroverts.

Fran (Daisy Ridley) is a wallflower observing life going on around her but never participating in it. You might too if you worked from her drab office in a tiny waterside town in Oregon. As the hours tick on and she voyeuristically listens to her co-worker's mundane conversations—“look at that cruise ship!”—her mind slips away… to her death. The way Fran (Daisy Ridley) imagines her death comes in spurts of visions—her feet lifting off the ground as she watches a crane lift outside her office window, her body dumped in the woods. Sometimes I Think About Dying is a cheeky title, but refers to the very real—and shockingly relatable—phenomenon. One that is a part of the very lonely human experience.

The movie's portrayal of this loneliness is perhaps an extreme example, but not completely unrelatable. When Carol (Marcia Debonis), a beloved employee at Fran's company, Fran finds herself clinging to the edge of the party. She reads over Carol's farewell card filled with personal messages and inside jokes before writing, “Happy retirement, Fran.” However, it's not as if the people around her are shunning her. Fran simply doesn't know how to insert herself in the seemingly effortless whirl of socialization around her. That's until Robert (Dave Merheje) starts working there.

After a hilariously painful ice-breaking exercise where Fran sharply exclaims her love for cottage cheese, she does something life-changing. She makes Robert laugh over slack. “Cottage cheese is not a cheese. I googled it,” she says. His small chuckle over her non-joke piques her interest—gives her something to be interested in—especially considering she can't seem to become interested in herself.

Fran says maybe a handful of words in the movie's opening act, which makes it difficult to even empathize with her plight. It's almost frustrating to watch how sheepish she is. Even when she meets up with Robert for a movie and dinner after work, he drives the conversation. However, the brilliance of the screenplay by Kevin Armento, Stefanie Abel Horowitz, and Katy Wright-Mead is that it never vocalizes or outlines Fran's affliction. Instead, it allows us to unpack her for ourselves—perhaps by seeing ourselves in her or in Robert.

As the pair continue to hang out, we see that Fran's shyness isn't impenetrable as Robert gets her to say more than a few words at a time. Like Before Sunset if Jesse was a sweet divorcee and Celine was and introvert. The content of their conversations on the surface dredges some charm, though the subtext is where the richness—or lack thereof—of Fran's existence… well, exists. Her isolation is self-imposed. Like she's put herself into a mental prison as an act of protection. If no one gets to know her, you can't be rejected. The movie highlights how introverted people are often thrown into loneliness solely because they live in a world unsuited to their needs.

Sometimes I Think About Dying is a small movie. It deals in the moments between the moments of life. What it explores is what happens when you live a lowercase ‘L' life instead of a Life. Its most impressive feat, though, is its ability to make you understand how Fran's past has informed her present and perceived future. While the first act feels like a retread of the dry humor of Office Space, it's all in service of a story exploring what is the point of all this. This being life, work, love. Being human. In the emotional final minutes of the movie Fran encounters a character we've met who says, “whatever I imagine in my head is not as real as what I do have.” The thoughts she's referring to are those that are good or bad, positive or negative. It's a plea to live in the moment. Sometimes I Think About Dying says all that in few words.

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Hey! I'm Karl. You can find me on Twitter here. I'm also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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Karl Delossantos

Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.