Sometimes I Think About Dying

“Those thinking about dying are worried about living”

Rachel Lambert said those words (or something close to those words, paraphrasing) to those of us lucky, or maybe, given the number of empty seats in the audience on the night, committed, enough to seeing this film. It’s not one that’s going to get a massive theatrical release and, it’s probably not one that will escape the glow of Sundance delight. But the audience it will find will hopefully see the gem that shines from within. The positively glowing aura of a performance from Daisy Ridley that elevates this above the murky waters of preceding festival darlings and critical obsessions, is one that sits with you for a long time afterwards – slowly knawing at your brain as it works it’s way in and becomes a constant companion.

Death is at the forefront of this story, as the title would seem to suggest. It’s not an unremarkable remark to make. The interesting thing about this story though is that it doesn’t seem to be interested in death itself, but rather the struggle of surviving in life. The story follow’s Ridley’s quiet, unassuming (and impressively American-accented) Fran as she goes about the habitual monotonies of life, from work to bed to work to bed to work, and on and on in a never-ending cycle. Her life lives on the fringes of the people around her, just clinging to the possibility of being a part of other people’s lives but never fully taking the plunge. She doesn’t sing along to a colleague’s retirement party, she doesn’t share more than three words at a team meeting, and is almost actively avoiding her neighbours. She is a ghost in a town that lacks anything to haunt. And then comes new colleague Robert (Dave Merheje) who starts to try to dig a little deeper into her, to get to know the person with whom he sits not six feet away from.

Her reactions to him are what propel the narrative. He’s nerdy, nervous, and trying to find his place in a new town. Their conversations (admittedly that is stretching that word just about as far as it will possibly go) are almost his interviews of her, prying her for even just the smallest bits of information or answers that aren’t monosyllabic. Her responses to these are so minute that there are times where one wonders if she’s said anything at all. The silences are so big that cruise ships dotted across the background of the town, could fully turnaround and not hit an edge. But the humanity within them is intense. This isn’t a person incapable of feeling or conversing, but one who just hasn’t for so long that being that level of introverted is normal to her. One empathises with Robert’s frustrations that she won’t share anything with him but understands why she finds it so difficult to open up at all. We get to view life through her eyes and the world is bleak, displayed with frequent cut ins of different deaths to give us an insight into the inner monologue of Fran, each one distinctly contrasting the energy and brightness of the person with whom these thoughts are coming from.

With that having been said, this isn’t a perfect film. Whilst there are some very funny moments peppered throughout, the use of a cast dominated by comedians helps secure that, at times it does stretch out its jokes too far, losing the sense of what’s funny in the moment. And it displays a prophetic lack of interest in the players in the story other than our central two. But the film doesn’t dislike it’s main character, in fact it down right roots for her. It wants her to find herself, to find her place in the world and learn how to get to know people. Towards the end as she takes the big leap to bring donuts into the office in the morning, one can almost feel the screen cheering her on, proclaiming itself as her biggest fan and being overjoyed at this one small step into a much wider universe.

Lambert’s words are the mantra of this story. Fran is worried about living because she doesn’t know how to. She thinks about dying because the thought of braving the world around is far too much to bear and retreating into herself is a coping mechanism so all-encompassing that she doesn’t have to be concerned with the consequences. It’s very telling that this was made during the pandemic, one in a long line of projects we’ve gotten from filmmakers dealing with their way of processing that time. The bleak backdrop of the Pacific-North West, almost constantly blanketed by the fog from the ocean and the constant struggle of Fran to connect with people isn’t trying very hard to disguise it’s motives. And nor should it.

In a time when we are all having to come to terms with the idea of having lost two years and living through a moment when we would all have had to think about dying, this film plants itself as a beacon of hope. No, Fran is not a wholly changed person by the end, and no, she and Robert don’t end the film having rekindled a love affair. Lambert isn’t interested in such cliched endings. This film, like it’s lead star’s outstanding performance leaves a ship wide gap for us to take forwards. In the end, Fran is a little less afraid of living and she is thinking just a smidgen less of dying. And shouldn’t we all be?