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Digging For Fire (2015) instantly establishes the relationship between Tim (Jake Johnson) and Lee (Rosemarie Dewitt) as one of standard matrimonial convention. The couple are vacationing in the fancy Malibu home of one of Lee’s yoga clients, a place far beyond the couple’s own financial reach (a fact which is quickly made known). They have a son, Jude (Jude Swanberg); frequently bicker about typical married-people things; and are in disagreement about whether to accept money from Lee’s parents who have offered to foot the bill for an expensive private preschool.

Without wasting much time, the story shows Tim accidentally unearthing a rusty gun and a human bone from a bank in the house’s backyard. What looks like a setup for a layman’s murder mystery quickly evolves into an exploration of relationship dynamics.

The next day, Lee takes Jude to Grandma’s house for the weekend and intends to meet up with some old friends, leaving Tim at the house to “do the taxes.” When neither Tim nor Lee end up spending the weekend as planned, we’re treated to each of their separate journeys and a mature film about parenthood, compromise, and the unavoidable quiescence of self.

“Tim is disillusioned about his relationship with Lee, which is only being kept alive thanks to Jude — whereas Lee is preoccupied with Tim’s immature tendencies and the idea that their marriage has already lost its passion,” Indiewire observes.

Asserting that Tim and Lee have a troubled relationship based only on the evidence in the film’s establishing minutes would be a stretch, but the couple does display the melancholy most married couples experience several years into marriage and a few years into the life of their first child.

Alhough he’s desperately intrigued by the gun and bone, Tim promises Lee he won’t dig up the lawn while she’s away. The evening she leaves, he invites over buddies Phil and Billy (Mike Birbiglia and Chris Messina), followed by Ray (Sam Rockwell), who brings cocaine and ladies Alicia (Anna Kendrick) and Max (Brie Larson). Unable to keep up with their frat-like behavior, Tim hangs out for a while but eventually obsesses about the bone and gun. He recruits one of the girls, Max, to help with the excavation. She even returns the next day to continue, sharing his intrigue. Tim seems oblivious both to his obsession with digging the hole and the gorgeousness of his shoveling partner—two things that prove the opposite of Lee’s situation.

When her plans with friends fall through, Lee ends up spending the evening roaming the city with Ben (Orlando Bloom), a suave looker with a man-bun whom she met when he protected her from the advances of a drunkard. Her day is the opposite of Tim’s; while he’s burrowing deeper into the earth in search of relics, she’s out in the expanse of the world experiencing a glimmer of freedom. And she’s well-aware of Ben’s hunkiness and enticingly unfettered lifestyle. He has no apparent responsibilities or ties binding him to any particular moment, which is a naturally irresistible concept to someone in Lee’s routine.

The bone and the gun are a trigger for the film’s conversation about identity and masculinity. When Lee leaves, Tim is excited to have some dude time. But as his friends hang out, he realizes he can’t identify with them anymore. He’s not that partying guy he used to be—he’s a husband and a father. Tim ignores his friends to dig something up in the company of a beautiful stranger. Finding the gun and bone reminds him of the excitement and passion he used to feel about things before the everyday existence of being a father and husband commanded his life. It offers a sense of freedom, and he feels finding a body is something he needs to do just to prove to himself it is there.

Lee undergoes the same sensations of freedom and exploration but in a contrasting way. Instead of fixating on something specific, she’s completely open.

The film takes a very interesting route to talking about marriage through the lens of a married couple when they’re apart. When they reunite at the end, neither talks to the other about the details of their weekend. Discussing it is not what the film finds important; the significance is in their individual discoveries, which end up being the same.

“The script makes good use of that possible murder scene in the backyard, never spelling out in the script its metaphorical significance,” Hollywood Reporter writes. What’s missing in their lives isn’t the fault of either person; it’s something internal. It’s that part of yourself you have to change when you become an adult, a spouse, and a parent. Everyone has thought back to their teenage years and longed to live a few days in that care-free environment again. Having that memory or desire doesn’t discredit a person’s current situation—there’s a natural longing in humans to remember the times that came before those inevitable shifts in identity we all endure. The film reminds us that sometimes people need to step back, take a breather, and remember why things have evolved to where they are.

Ultimately, in Digging For Fire, the bone and the gun serve as the catalyst for Tim and Lee to explore those identities in opposite directions but towards the same end. The bone and gun represent buried parts of the self—those behaviors and lifestyles that once defined them but no longer do. The result is that each character realizes which parts of the self are worth hanging onto as they continue to get older and which need to be let go.