Sometimes I Think about Dying is a very beautiful and impactful romance drama staring Daisy Ridley as an office worker called Fran, who is very shut off from life, avoiding human interaction and often pictures herself as if she had perished.
A new employee at her job, Dave Merheje as Robert, starts to bring her into the world more as she develops feelings for him. The backdrop to this melancholic lens on this lonely character is the symbolism of the small and forgotten town drenched in a lot of gray and muted colours.
Daisy Ridley is just excellent here as a person who is quite mysterious, avoids social interaction and is very quiet. We don’t hear her speak for a good 20 minutes into this and through all that time she perfectly conveys her character’s feelings through body language, facial expressions and brevity with others.
Until then, we’re seeing life from her viewpoint. There are plenty of fixed camera shots of repetitive and mundane things happening and uninteresting conversations and what was at least to me, the horrors of an office job. Director Rachel Lambert is very methodical with the mise-en-scene and what the camera lingers on.
This is a very quiet and subdued movie that finds the beauty in the ordinary and the humour in the awkward ‘getting to know someone’ phase between Daisy Ridley as Fran and Dave Merheje as Robert. Once Robert enters Fran’s life, you can really see how desperately she wants to let him in and that struggle in adjusting to this new relationship.
This very human story is why I was so engaged with this movie from beginning to end and its focus on the importance of both mental health and human connection. I just related strongly with Ridley’s character and mesmerised by her sensitive approach to the role.
My only nitpick with it was that the death daydreams didn’t last very long and I wanted to see what other ways and places she could imagine her end. However, everything else was just perfect for me - the performances, the themes and it’s quietness all really resonate very strongly.
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