Sometimes I Think About Dying, which premiered Thursday at the Sundance Film Festival, is fairly typical of a lot of the dramas that play the festival. It's not bad, but frequent Sundance attendees will recognize most of the tropes and aesthetics.
After Carol (Marcia DeBonis) retires, Robert (Dave Merheje) joins the company. Helping Robert with order numbers leads to a movie date and opportunities for Fran and Robert to get to know each other after work.
Fran breaks up the routine of office work and small talk with some surreal visions. These range from a snake in the office and bugs crawling over her body to Fran lying lifeless in other scenarios.
The film leaves Fran's thoughts ambiguous. Is she suicidal or just morbid? Ultimately it can mean whatever the audience wants it to mean, which makes the film a Rorschach test for viewers but also doesn't commit to a theme.
Fran is an opportunity for Ridley to portray a more grounded character than the sorts of heroes or glamor icons she's played in Hollywood blockbusters. However, Fran seems so dispassionate, she becomes more of an artificial construction of cinema, as effective as Ridley may be.True, real-life emotional and mental issues do not manifest in necessarily cinematic ways. However, if the film does not offer a strong perspective, it won't help viewers outside of those conditions relate.
Robert is sincerely interested in meeting his colleagues and perhaps connecting with Fran. He is talkative enough for the both of them, which only emphasizes how Fran struggles to respond.
Fran genuinely likes her job but doesn't expand on why. It seems like it could just make sense to her and doesn't require deep thought, but leaves her with little to discuss with Robert.
The closer they get, the awkwardness is sweet. A kiss seems like a mild struggle but it's sincere.
It's a sign Fran and Robert have escalated from small talk but aren't going too far. The subject of love seems to rile her up, relative to Fran's usual unexpressive state, so Robert backs off.
Eventually, Robert gets frustrated with Fran and Fran becomes hurtful. The film shows that even these mild interactions can become fraught, -though it stops short of exploring what actually does provoke Fran's terse responses.
A viewer could try to diagnose Fran, but the film isn't interested in qualifying her behavior. It just presents it, which is accepting of her simple interests but not especially profound.
Fran sits at home in the dark or she and Robert sit in his car at night. The office is generically lit from above, and even a restaurant and house party Fran and Robert attend are only minimally lit.
At least the film presents a few artistic time-lapse shots with lighting shifts while Fran lies in one spot.
Ridley and Merheje are compelling enough to make it easy to watch Sometimes I Think About Dying for 90 minutes. But unless one relates strongly to either character, it is unlikely the film will stand out in memory once it's over.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001 and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
