Much more imaginative than the bluntness of its title would lead you to believe, Sometimes I Think About Dying is a gentle, empathetic look at introversion, and how the desire to be included is measured against the fear of not fitting in. Over 91 unhurried minutes, it displays a perceptive understanding of the kind of quiet, reserved person for whom participating in life would mean having to put on a performance, a prospect too exhausting to contemplate. Even its titular fantasies of death exude calm — as the protagonist, Fran (Daisy Ridley), slips into dreams of strangulation or snakebite, these reveries are not gory or upsetting, just evidence of her rich interior life.
Not that there’s much else to occupy her thoughts. In her beige and brown sweaters, Fran blends into her nondescript office, a world of emails and endless spreadsheets. Outside, Oregon appears to be just as muted and desolate as she is, always looking like light is just about to break over it, but not quite. Ridley’s posture is part of what renders her character inscrutable to her coworkers, but also what makes her so easy for the audience to read. The actress uses her physicality to convey effortlessly everything Fran finds grueling to say.
At work, her shoulders hunch faintly, in a reflexive self-protective stance, during the overwhelming awkwardness of an office social event. When she does speak, it’s like she’s out of practice, her vocal cords rusty from misuse. She avoids eye contact. Writers Katy Wright Mead, Kevin Armento and Stefanie Abel Horowitz, on whose 2019 short this film is based, never judge Fran. Instead, by juxtaposing her against the background chatter of people who talk near-constantly without really saying anything at all, they build a great deal of understanding for why she might find it hard to join in. Through place and setting, they add a wealth of detail to Fran’s life — the rows of decorative crockery in her cabinets you get the sense she doesn’t have occasion to take out, the microwaved dinner for one, the pre-bedtime sudoku she plays, a game for one.