Somewhere in our lives, we have all wanted to find silence, even in the midst of a noisy crowd, or yearned to enjoy solitude when an excited group of friends has made us feel suffocated. Starring Daisy Ridley, Dave Merheje, and Marcia DeBonis and directed by Rachel Lambert, Sometimes I Think About Dying is a slice-of-life film that talks about relishing silence and solitude among a group of people in a very subtle way. The film revolves around Fran Larsen, who likes to think about death, but after meeting a new coworker in her office, she struggles to communicate with him about her likes and desires. Apart from the beautiful visuals, another attraction of this film is its complicated character work. Daisy Ridley gives one of those standout performances that slowly starts to grow on you as the film progresses.
Spoilers Ahead
Plot Synopsis: What Happens In The Film?
Sometimes I Think About Dying opened with the protagonist of the story, Fran Larsen, coming to her office and sitting at her desk to completely drown herself in work, but before that, she looked out the window from her cubicle and found a crane slowly moving up and down. While she lost herself in her thoughts of hanging herself with the crane, her imagination was interrupted by her boss, who handed her a farewell card for their retiring colleague, Carol. Carol, an elderly and gregarious woman, was going to retire, and before that, she’d called her colleagues to give them her calculator and staplers, which would no longer be of any use to her. Fran, in the meantime, was so introverted and lost in her own world that she couldn’t bring herself to take anything from her, and neither did she have a conversation with Carol. She couldn’t even sign her own name on the farewell card, while her other colleagues left heartfelt messages with their names on them.
Carol couldn’t hold back her tears during her farewell gathering and told everyone how badly she’d miss them, but she was happy with the fact that after retirement she’d be able to enjoy her vacation on the cruise with her husband. Fran didn’t have any close friends in her office, but she loved to work there because the work environment was so nice and so were the people working in it. Even though Fran was one of a kind, less talkative, and introverted to some extent, no one in her office judged her or talked behind her back about her. Even though the workplace was quite noisy and people around Fran were always engaged in conversations, she somehow felt at ease in the place. Even in the midst of the crowd, she sometimes thought about death, as if it could be the only thing she could excel at.
One day, after Carol was gone, a new employee from Seattle, Robert Naser, joined the company and was introduced to the rest of the coworkers in the office. During the introduction session, every employee introduced themselves by mentioning their favorite foods, but apart from foods, when Robert mentioned that he liked movies and “uncomfortable silence,” a rare smile appeared on Fran’s face. She started liking him, but she was too shy to approach him. However, there was no doubt that Robert, who preferred uncomfortable silences, would be attracted to Fran, so under the pretext of talking about some work, Robert emailed Fran, and they began to chat.
Why Didn’t Fran Like To Talk About Herself?
Fran Larsen is as human as any other employee in the office; her constant desires to hang herself or intrusive thoughts about being found dead in a forest don’t set her apart from others; instead, it makes her more human, she deals with her pain just like everyone else, but while others love to distract themselves from those intrusive thoughts with the help of their humor, Fran chose to dig deep into that and sometimes loved to dwell in those thoughts. It’s her thing, and no matter whoever came into her life, she didn’t want to change.
We don’t get a glimpse of her family or her personal life, but we know that she grew up in this neighborhood and had a family who might have lived away from her, as we saw her alone in her apartment. She spent most of her time cooking, eating cakes, and thinking about unfortunate scenarios in her head while lying on the bed. It might be so frustrating to be alone, but it seemed like she found peace in it. However, even though she liked solitude, she wanted to make friends who’d understand her uniqueness and just let her be who she was. Robert, on the other hand, was an outgoing person who was twice divorced and still looking for a meaningful partnership because he still wanted to be loved and give his love to someone who’d deserve it. While Robert wanted to take Fran out for a movie, he came to know that she was not quite into movies, so he took her out to dinner and found that she liked the pie at least. However, Robert wanted to know more about the mysterious Fran, and she wanted to know about him too, but even though Robert was quite open about his life and his likes and dislikes, Fran struggled to open up to him. Whenever Robert wanted to ask her about something, perhaps it made Fran feel that someone was trying to invade her private life that she had always kept secret. She told him about her love for cooking and chose not to talk about her obsession with death. However, on one weekend, at one of Robert’s friends’ house parties, where Fran was also invited, we saw a sudden shift in her behavior. They decided to play a dramatic version of the Hide and Seek game that involved a murder and finding out who did it, and when it was Fran’s turn to play the dead, she brought her own imagination and creativity to it. To quote Sylvia Plath, “Dying is an art,” and Fran Larsen did it “exceptionally well,” almost shocking Robert, who had never seen this side of her character.
How Did Fran Hurt Robert?
On their way back home, Robert admired Fran for her creative portrayal of death and demanded to know more about her, expressing his curiosity, but it irritated Fran once again. She didn’t want to talk about herself, so in order to stop the conversation, some hurtful words came from her mouth. She told him that she found him exhausting, which might be the reason why his marriages didn’t work out. It deeply hurt Robert, who had begun to like Fran, but now he was confused and insulted. So he asked her to leave, and he realized that she might not like him. However, Fran, after she returned home, cried her heart out, realizing that she had made a mistake. After an all-night crying session, she fell asleep on the floor without even changing her outside clothes, and the next morning, when she woke up, she decided to start afresh.
Did Robert Forgive Fran?
Fran walked into a restaurant to buy some donuts for her office colleagues, but she was shocked to find Carol sitting in a corner in the cafe. She met Carol, who was quite excited and happy to see her. However, as Fran asked her about her cruise vacation, Carol said that, unfortunately, it didn’t happen because her husband had a stroke. Fran sat down, intending to comfort Carol as she was going through a dire time, but it seemed like Carol had been able to make peace with the fact that she had no control over life. She was just sad that after everything she had planned, it all went away in a minute when she found herself in the conflict between life and death. Carol’s words sparked a realization in Fran’s mind, as she realized that death might feel liberating, but life also had so many things to offer her. Friendships, connections, and the smiles on her colleagues’ faces might be something that she could also enjoy, apart from thinking about dying all the time. Fran was quite literally addicted to these painful thoughts, but now she didn’t want to lose herself and the valuable things around her because of these thoughts that kept troubling her. So she decided to take a stand for herself, and after bidding goodbye to Carol, she reached her office. She gave her coworkers a box full of donuts, and it brought smiles to their faces.
During Sometimes I Think About Dying‘s ending, a lonesome Fran became the heart of the office, who loved those donuts as if they all needed a pinch of sweetness in this mundane and busy schedule of life. Fran was happy, but she wanted to lift the burden off her chest by apologizing to Robert. She cornered him and said she was sorry for those hurtful words she spoke to him the other night. She told him how she didn’t want to be known because, deep in her heart, she had hidden some thoughts that might not be as pleasing as other normal human desires or obsessions. Fran simply didn’t want Robert or anyone to get affected by her thoughts, so she didn’t want to disclose them to others, but as she realized she could lose all the precious connections in her life while trying to hide those feelings, she decided to speak about them to Robert. She told him about her fascination with hanging herself with the crane, while tears fell from her eyes. Robert, who really didn’t know her yet, could feel that all of Fran wanted someone just to understand her the way she was. So instead of further questioning or analyzing her problems, he just gave her a hug, which might have been what she needed all this time. Sometimes I Think About Dying concluded with Fran finding some solace in Robert’s arms, as she was probably freed from her self-destructive thoughts for a while.
