If the great existential question that is this whole godforsaken year hasn’t been enough for you, writer-director Tara Miele’s indie drama
Wander Darkly, which premiered at Sundance in January, takes on a doozy. Though at first seeming to ask what happens when we die, the film instead becomes a rumination on what makes life worth living.
Adrienne (Sienna Miller) and Matteo (Diego Luna) are an unmarried couple living in L.A. who share a baby daughter, a precarious financial situation, and a mountain of tension built of suspicion, resentment, and stress. One night, driving home from a party where they could barely conceal their dysfunction from their friends, just as they argue about whether their life together is even worth salvaging at all, they get into an accident. Adrienne dies.