Sometimes I Think About Dying (2023)

So I know in my last post, I wrote that I would be writing about Wolfman (2025) next. However, I just watched Sometimes I Think About Dying (dir: Rachel Lambert, 2023) at home for the first time and enjoyed it so much that I wanted to write a little bit about it. Today is the last day of my so-called Winter Break before I report back for work tomorrow. I got my haircut early in the morning and had an initially casual conversation with an older gentleman before he (unprompted) decided to rant about bird-flu and a potential new mask mandate, all the while proclaiming that masks never worked during COVID. Even when I’m not working, old people seem to come up to “just ask questions” or impart some kind of “wisdom”. After my haircut, I had breakfast with my Mom and took a walk in a pretty sizable park a mile away from home. With everything clean, organized, and ready to go for tomorrow, I planned to just laze around and play some more Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (good game so far btw). However, once I reached a point in the game where I could take a break, I decided to watch Sometimes I as I’ve been meaning to see it for some time now. Despite releasing in in the film festival circuit during 2023, it had a limited theatrical release around this time last year. I wanted to watch the film then, but missed my opportunity as it wasn’t playing locally and I couldn’t make the time with friends to drive out to see it.

This film is a romantic dark comedy adapted from a 2014 play called Killers and a 2019 short film of the same name. It stars Daisy Ridley as Fran, an office worker that has trouble interacting socially and isolates herself mentally & physically from the world around her. As the film’s title implies, Fran also often daydreams about her death, not necessarily via suicide, but in general. A new hire named Robert (Dave Merheje) becomes interested in Fran after she makes him laugh with a small joke and the two begin dating. One of the standout qualities of the film to me is the cinematography. The film is shot in an atypical 1:40:1 aspect ratio. Not as tight as academy 1.33:1 (or even television 4:3), but also not quite widescreen as say 1.85.1 or 16:9. I feel this choice, coupled with the many long and extremely long shots present throughout, does well to highlight Fran’s confined loneliness, while also being just wide enough to show the world around her and emphasize her isolation. Moreover, there are a few notable long takes, particularly early on in the film that feature Fran moving through spaces. What’s interesting about these particular shots to me is how the shot composition and Fran’s positioning make it seem like she isn’t the focus. It’s reminiscent of the scene in Taxi Driver (1976) where the camera pans away from Travis in the middle of calling his love interest Betsy in a pitifully desperate bid to apologize. However, while the camera in Taxi Driver seems to pan away out of embarrassment, the camera in Sometimes I is more neutral and Fran’s positioning gives the implication that she doesn’t want to be the focus. This thread of storytelling, and how it plays out over the course of the film, ties in well to what the movie is trying to say.

Daisy Ridley’s performance as Fran is also a highlight. Her portrayal of a character that seems to worry about taking up space socially, and who sees herself generally as an uninteresting drag, speaks to me on a personal level. Her juxtaposition with Dave Merheje as Robert, a comparatively more sociable character, is compelling as we see how Fran navigates around her budding relationship with him. I also want to give a shoutout to Marcia DeBonis, an older coworker of Fran’s that has a great scene later in the film.

It’s hard to really talk about why I enjoyed this film and why it resonates with me without getting into spoilers. Just know if you ever had a hard time making connections as an adult, even when life gives you plenty of opportunities, then I can’t recommend this movie enough. From my experience, putting yourself out there is difficult, however some of the most meaningful connections in my life started from getting out of my comfort zone and yapping. I’m glad this movie reminded me of that. I’ll give Sometimes I Think About Dying a Best Movie Ever. It's currently streaming on Mubi, a service that seems to prefer independent, arthouse, and world cinema. It's also available to digitally rent or own and the blu-ray is set to release later this month.

Next post will be about Wolfman for real this time, not clickbait.