PARK CITY – There is a second towards the tip of “Sometimes I Think About Dying,” a part of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival opening evening, when one character says to a different, “It’s hard isn’t it being a person.” It’s not a query. It’s an announcement. This explicit character isn’t making an attempt to be profound. They are simply exasperated. And for Fran (Daisy Ridley), the sentiment appears to resonate together with her greater than the particular person evoking it may ever understand.
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Based on Rachel Lambert’s personal 2019 wanting the identical title, “Dying” begins by introducing us to the place Fran seems to be at her happiest, her office. Set in a small metropolis on the coast of Oregon, Fran is the decidedly shy member of her small workplace. Almost unnoticeable surrounded by a loud boss Isobel (Meg Stalter, splendidly doing Meg Stalter issues), and the marginally devious Garrett (Parvesh Cheena), she retains hidden in her cubicle doing what she enjoys essentially the most, spreadsheets. When a longtime co-worker and workplace favourite Carol (Marcia DeBonis, so good you want the film was about her), retires, her alternative, Robert (Dave Merheje), arrives to perk Fran’s curiosity.
There is one thing about Robert that’s decidedly totally different from Fran’s different co-workers. Perhaps its as a result of he’s arriving from the massive metropolis Seattle, maybe it’s his life expertise. But he appears to appreciate his new crew is stuffed with decidedly socially awkward characters. He additionally nearly instantly tries to interact with Fran in methods her colleagues have by no means tried or given up on. He even asks her to see a film on the native revival home which Fran appears to shock herself by agreeing to.
At first it doesn’t appear to be they hit it off. They don’t appear to have a lot in widespread and Fran barely speaks (to anybody frankly, it’s fairly a silent position). And what the viewers is aware of about Fran, the movie’s essential character, is sort of all floor. She has a considerably drab wardrobe, loves cottage cheese, and, oh yeah, regularly daydreams about her demise. Or, effectively, the aftermath of her demise.
But over a chunk of pie following the screening, a spark ensues. At least for Fran. If you’ll be able to catch it. In the times following they proceed to socialize, however we solely appear to be taught extra about Robert. Fran’s previous continues to be a thriller. And whereas her persona is slowly beginning to emerge (credit score to Ridley for making it a plausible arc) Lambert continues to check the viewers’s persistence as we surprise the place that is all heading.
It goes with out saying that Lambert’s ability at stating the movie’s surreal moments is genuinely spectacular. She collaborates with cinematographer Dustin Lane and artwork director Robert Brecko to stage pictures that persist with you lengthy after you allow the theater. But, outdoors of a showcase second for Ridley within the film’s third act, there isn’t a lot else that does.
You hardly ever discover an impartial movie that has three credited screenwriters, however “Sometimes” does in Kevin Armento, Stefanie Abel Horowitz, and Katy Wright-Mead. Throw in inventive voices similar to Statler, Cheena, and Merheje and the result’s a movie that usually feels prefer it’s not completely clear the place it needs to go. And regardless of one minor carrot about Fran’s upbringing, we really know so little about her that one thing feels prefer it’s lacking. Something that will make Fran’s emotional state resonate. And, in the long run, sadly, that gap leaves you wanting. [B-/C+]
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