Waterston helps lift dense thriller
Katherine Waterston is excellent as a grieving widow trying to understand why her husband committed suicide in writer-director Meredith Danluck’s “State Like Sleep.” Danluck over-complicates this muted slice-oflife, but a good cast mostly holds it together.
Waterston plays Katherine, a photographer married to Stefan (Michiel Huisman), a European movie star who kills himself around the time the tabloids photograph him with another woman. A year later, Katherine returns to their former Brussels home when her mother (Mary Kay Place) gets sick, but Katherine can’t stop thinking about Stefan’s death and his scandal.
The ailing-mother subplot has thematic resonance but isn’t wholly necessary. It’s also a bit excessive that, while in Belgium, Katherine gets involved with a sympathetic neighbor (Michael Shannon) at her hotel, and a sleazy club owner (Luke Evans) who knew Stefan.
“State Like Sleep” is sometimes a mysterythriller, as Katherine investigates her late husband’s secret life, at some personal risk. And it’s sometimes an arty drama, as she flashes between the past and the present, while having sensual experiences she thinks might help her feel what Stefan felt.
The genre mix and overload of characters burden the film. But Waterston is a wonder throughout, capturing the confusion as a woman whose life has been so upended that she wonders if she’ll ever see straight again. “State Like Sleep.” Not rated. Run time: 1 hour, 44 minutes. Playing: Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills; also available on VOD.