Some people settle effortlessly into the business of living. Others find it a near-impossible challenge. Fran (a revelatory performance from Daisy Ridley) falls into the latter camp. A painfully introverted thirtysomething office worker, Fran has barricaded herself behind a rigid routine that minimises the risk of social interaction, both at work and after it. It’s not that she’s antisocial exactly, just that she has never quite grasped the rules of small talk, the ebb and flow of polite conversation. The amiable murmur of office banter might as well be playing out in Mandarin Chinese for all she comprehends of it.
It’s far easier for Fran to sink into her rich, if somewhat morbid interior life. Sporadically during the working day, a lush, romantic swell of harps and strings rises like a tidal surge on the score, drowning out the tinkling office chatter. And Fran treats herself to a moment of revery. She drifts away in her imagination, to a deserted forest glade or a beach – each location empty but for her own dead body. She isn’t suicidal – not actively, at least – but there’s something about death that appeals to her: the quiet of it, the simplicity. The fact that nobody is likely to ruin her day by asking her whether she would like a biscuit with her coffee.
