Sometimes I Think About Dying is one of those titles you want to shout back at – what? Only sometimes? It is co-produced by, and stars, Daisy Ridley from the Star Wars franchise who, in going from a blockbuster to an interesting independent film, is taking the opposite of the usual career trajectory. Perhaps you can only fight the Dark Lords of the Sith for so long? But it has paid off, as this is an understated little gem.
It is directed by Rachel Lambert and written by Stefanie Abel Horowitz, Katy Wright-Mead and Kevin Armento. It’s hard to say what it is exactly. A dour, deadpan romantic comedy probably gets nearest. Ridley stars as the thirtysomething Fran. Fran works in a small office in a small coastal town in Oregon and she is drab. Drab hair, drab clothes, often brown, which is always a bad sign, I don’t know why. (I like brown, personally.) It made me think. Now that we are super-sensitive about which actors play which roles – and that black-face and gay-face and Jew-face and so on are verboten – what about plain-face? When beautiful women pretend they are not. Are non-beautiful actors ever asked to play beautiful parts just to make it fair? The thought just occurred to me, that’s all. (But while we’re on the subject…Charlize Theron should probably be awarded a lifetime achievement in plain-face. See: Monster, Tully.)
Back to Fran, who lives a solitary life, avoids eye contact, rarely says a word, thinks agonisingly hard about what to write in someone’s retirement card before she comes up with: ‘Happy retirement. Fran.’ She keeps to her little office cubicle – she does something involving spreadsheets – as her co-workers chat and life happens around her. Then a new employee arrives: Robert (Dave Merheje). Their boss – a David Brent character – gathers them round the table and asks them to introduce themselves and their favourite foods: ‘I am Gary. Spaghetti.’
Robert seems determined to connect with Fran even though she introduced herself with: ‘Fran. Cottage cheese.’ He asks her to the movies. To her surprise, she accepts. Robert is a film fan. He loves the one they’ve just seen. ‘Did you?’ he asks her. ‘No,’ she says. They continue to have short, awkward exchanges. ‘I like your sweater,’ he will tell her. ‘I like your pants,’ she will reply. ‘I just ironed them,’ he will reveal. Will she unfurl? Will she ever stop thinking about dying?
This is the thing with Fran. She, yes, sometimes thinks about dying. She has daydreams, and intrusive thoughts, imagining herself dead in various situations. She may imagine herself dead in a pastoral forest; or it’s after a Viking funeral and she sees her lifeless body arranged like a tableau, as do we. I got the feeling that it wasn’t because she wished to be dead but because she doesn’t yet know how to live.
The film does a lot with little. No character has a substantial back story. Is Fran’s place chintzy and old-fashioned because it once belonged to her parents? We never know and don’t ever feel we need to. The naturalistic writing and directing means everyone arrives fully formed and believable.
Ridley is excellent: subtle, restrained, compelling and always true to Fran, who does change, but not in a way that seems like a betrayal of who we met at the outset. Crucially, she allows you to feel for a character who, in other hands, might have appeared plain cold or closed down. As a new Star Wars film is currently in the works, Ridley is back to that. It seems a pity – but hey-ho. I guess those Dark Lords aren’t going to destroy themselves.
Should beautiful actors be allowed to play those with plain faces?
8
0
18.04.2024
Sometimes I Think About Dying is one of those titles you want to shout back at – what? Only sometimes? It is co-produced by, and stars, Daisy Ridley from the Star Wars franchise who, in going from a blockbuster to an interesting independent film, is taking the opposite of the usual career trajectory. Perhaps you can only fight the Dark Lords of the Sith for so long? But it has paid off, as this is an understated little gem.
It is directed by Rachel Lambert and written by Stefanie Abel Horowitz, Katy Wright-Mead and Kevin Armento. It’s hard to say what it is exactly. A dour, deadpan romantic comedy probably gets nearest. Ridley stars as the thirtysomething Fran. Fran works in a small office in a small coastal town in Oregon and she is drab. Drab hair, drab clothes, often brown, which is always a bad sign, I don’t know why. (I like brown, personally.) It made me think. Now that we are........
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