In ‘Sometimes I Think About Dying,’ Daisy Ridley dreams of death

Her shy smile, tentative and surreptitious, as if Fran were as surprised by the sensation of happiness as we are — and maybe a little alarmed by it — is prompted by the arrival of a friendly new employee, Robert (Dave Merheje), who is replacing a recent retiree (Marcia DeBonis). The slightly cringe-y retirement party, preceded by the distribution of no-longer-needed office supplies from another century (a stapler, a calculator, a three-hole-punch) and featuring awkward small talk, is one of many moments reminiscent of “The Office.” The boss (Megan Stalter) breaks the ice at Robert’s first meeting by asking people to introduce themselves with their favorite food. Fran likes cottage cheese; Robert, Thai food, movies and, as he says in deadpan seriousness, uncomfortable silences. “Like that one,” he adds, after the inevitable moment of discomfort.

Robert would probably love this film.

It’s not hard to like. Directed by Rachel Lambert; written by Kevin Armento, Stefanie Abel Horowitz and Katy Wright-Mead; and based on Armento’s 2013 play “Killers” (previously adapted as a 12-minute short in 2019), the film has a slyly beguiling charm. Fran, on the other hand, is a tougher nut to crack. Robert strikes up an out-of-office friendship that leads them to chastely sweet dating, one tiny kiss and plenty of mystery.

What, exactly, is Fran’s deal? Why does she push people away? Robert wonders this, too, in a story that takes its protagonists to the movies — he loves it, she doesn’t — then to a diner for pie; to Robert’s for homemade spaghetti; and to a home on the Columbia River for a round of Killers, the murder-mystery parlor game. Fran proves surprisingly adept at the immersive, macabre role play, probably because she spends so much of the film daydreaming about her own demise: by hanging, by snake, by shipwreck and, in the film’s most recurrent image, rotting on the forest floor.

One significant gap in the screenplay is any sense of where these morbid fantasies come from. Fran is a bit of a cipher, by design.

But Ridley (credited as producer) and Merheje are both excellent in their roles: his more expansive, and hers so constricted that Fran, in her wariness of relationships, seems at times like a potato bug, rolled up tightly in a self-protective ball of armor. And yet they are not so much opposites attracted by difference as brought together by a shared detachment. They’re both observers of the human dramedy, in a way, the exception being that Robert is also a willing participant, with two divorces under his belt.

Fran, who probably senses this, is drawn to Robert’s humor and ease with people. At one point, she takes a stab at sub-dad-joke levity: What do you call a sad cup of coffee? A depresso.

In some ways, the groan-worthy punchline is emblematic of “Sometimes I Think About Dying,” which delivers its story — short, black and sweet — with a reserve that is made up for by a genuinely affecting tenderness for its flawed yet searching characters. It’s kind of a downer, yes, but also stimulating as hell.

PG-13. At area theaters. Contains mature thematic material, some strong language and brief drug use. 91 minutes.