Tribeca 2018: State Like Sleep Review

This will be the first of several reviews from this year’s Tribeca film Festival. To follow our coverage, click here.

Synopsis: A woman grapples with the consequences of her celebrity husband’s double life after he commits suicide. (IMDB)

Starring: Katherine Waterston, Michael Shannon, and Luke Evans

Writer: Meredith Danluck

Director: Meredith Danluck

Rating: n/a

Running Time: 104mins

Trailer: n/a

Great casts and performances aren’t always enough when the story isn’t compelling to watch and this was the case here. The central story of the film is about a woman named Katherine (Waterston) who had to deal with the mysterious death of her husband, a famed actor (Michiel Huisman). She had to go to some dark places but it was rather dull to watch and it just got worse as the story became more convoluted and dull by adding subplots that distracted from the central story. Ultimately, it was just hard to care about most of the story.

Despite the lackluster story, the performances were good for the most part with Waterston being the best and kept the film watchable. Michael Shannon was good as always but was miscast as Katherine’s underdeveloped sort of love interest Edward. The problem with their characters’ relationship was that it added nothing to the story and both Waterston and Shannon lacked enough chemistry to make it remotely believable.

Overall, this was still a decent, albeit messy, film that was simply dull to watch from beginning to end despite the good performances from Katherine Waterston and Michael Shannon.

Score: 6/10

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.