Sometimes I think about yawning. Quite often, while watching this film.

The film centers on Fran, a highly introverted young woman who becomes interested in a new worker in her office. Fran, played by Daisy Ridley, sometimes drifts into fantasies that seem less about dying than about being dead: lying dead on a floor of a forest or in a driftwood shelter on a beach. Will the significantly more gregarious new man draw her out of her depression and isolation? Honestly, I didn't care.

There's a lot of screen time spent on coworkers in the main character's office doing the sort of thing people do in an office when not actively working. Talking about their interests, getting coffee, speculating on what's going on outside the window, planning a retirement party, and so on. If one has worked in an office for any appreciable amount of time, this element of the film will seem realistic. Dull, but realistic.

Sometimes when I'm in a particularly boring film, I start to focus not on the characters or whatever passes for action in the film, but on details of the production design. Is there wallpaper or paint on the wall? Is that a throw on the sofa in the background? How many lights are there in a string of bulbs? I spent a lot of time during this film's running time looking at such details, because I just didn't care about what was happening to Fran. That's not to say that the production design is really very interesting. It's just in comparison to the plot.

I suppose Ms. Ridley's performance should be considered effective in some dimension. Fran is meant to be shy and unwilling to engage with others, and there's no question that Ms. Ridley portrays those characteristics. However, for a film about this kind of character to work for me, I must see hidden depths, things that actually make the person more interesting and worth spending time with than the surface seems. I don't think Ms. Ridley was successful in introducing those tones into the character. The script does not offer her much help in this regard.

Dave Merheje is somewhat more effective in playing Fran's new interest, perhaps because the script gives him more interesting characteristics. Not interesting enough to rescue the film, but there is something there to make me want to learn more.

There is one good scene towards the end of the film, when Fran runs into a retired worker from her office, played by Marcia deBonis. The film comes alive for about a minute during this scene, but it's a long wait for a small reward.

The movie is professionally made, with good cinematography and some nice shots of the Pacific Northwest, where it's set. But the script and direction really has little to offer. I found it a waste of 91 minutes of my life.

Back to the review list.