After appearing together in the terrific, but critically underrated, THE CURRENT WAR, Katherine Waterston and Michael Shannon come up to date in the brand-new Belgian-set thriller-noir STATE LIKE SLEEP.
Waterston plays photographer Katherine Grant, who isn’t having the best of times in her exotic existence, what with her mother Elaine (Mary Kay Place) about to go into surgery for a malignant brain tumour. Complications have heightened with the recent and apparent suicidal death of her celebrity actor husband Stefan (Michiel Huisman) on top of the conflict created by their imminent separation.
Clues lead her to an acquaintance of Stefan’s, Emile (Luke Evans), who runs a club Stefan frequents, as well as a dalliance with her hotel neighbour Howard (Michael Shannon), with whom she begins to form a close bond. However, bemusing reflection on her relationship with her husband and unresolved thoughts begin to impact on her feelings….
Now, all the elements are in place for a banging thriller with elements of classic Hitchcock and contemporary Coen Brothers here, with the influence of Antonioni’s BLOW-UP, but the film’s eagerness to set-up a host of relationships whilst attempting to thrill does impose on the overall satisfaction that a true classic thriller should acknowledge and embellish.
For one thing, the mother-daughter relationship could work as a totally different story arc in a different kind of movie, as here it is clearly a side bar designed to evoke convenient emotion.
It’s a shame, as it gives Kay Place a chance to remind us of why she is such a great character actor, having been in some memorable films of the past like PRIVATE BENJAMIN (1980) and THE BIG CHILL (1983), however she is woefully under-used, despite a competent-but-brief performance.
Shannon is also under-used in his brief but seemingly unrelated role in the film, merely providing some emotional and sexual comfort for Katherine as breather from the events affecting her.
In a thriller, there should be a much more suspenseful and taut approach to the narrative, with the film-makers leaving tantalising nuggets of information to keep the audience on their toes, whilst at the same time throwing a few curve-balls into the mix to keep them thinking all the time.
Writer/director Meredith Danluck has made a valiant attempt to mix and match genres to come up with something different, but it falls a little short in terms of what it could be. Waterston is the bright light in this film and is the one reason for seeing STATE LIKE SLEEP, as she demonstrates her evident talent with a wide range of emotions.
