"State Like Sleep" is a throwback to French art films of the 1960s. The first image that comes to mind is Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg emoting for the camera with long pauses and mundane dialogue invested with gravitas.

The film begins with the deep philosophical platitude "without stories, the truth is too random." There follows two hours of ponderous melodrama framed in the vague format of a detective yarn.

The main character is Katherine, playing the Jean Seberg role. Katherine is distraught with the apparent suicide of her husband, a star actor named Stefan. She has no idea why he would have killed himself and is outraged that the police want to preserve his pristine image. She then plays the detective in following clues that will lead her to truth about her mysterious, wayward husband, who may have been leading a secret life.

The Jean-Paul Belmondo character is Edward and played by the fine actor Michael Shannon. Edward is the bon-vivant American residing in the hotel room adjacent to Katherine in Brussels. They meet and, at her insistence, they have sex. Edward is the epicurean, living for the moment, and he brings comfort to Catherine as she vomits after ingesting cocaine and heroin. He is earnest in proclaiming that he wants to be her friend while apparently forgetting that he is committing adultery.

This slow burner of a film advances the plot tediously. In the end, do we really care about the saga of Stefan? Do we care about Katherine's predicament? Do we care about an odd assortment of secondary characters in a hedonistic Brussels pleasure palace called the Vingt Fleurs?

At times the film nearly lapses into comedy as in the hospital scene when Katherine is arguing with her shrewish mother-in-law while her own mother lies in a coma. The machine starts bleeping, and the mother is flatlining. Yet, the argument continues between Katherine and the biddie! At this point, the film might be subtitled "The Taming of the Shrew"!

The mystery of Stefan Delvoe turns into the borefest of Stefan Delvoe. Structurally, the film is a mess with continuing flashbacks. As a tip for viewers, keep in mind that if Katherine has long hair (wearing the wig),that is a flashback. If she has short hair (Jean Seberg-style),that is in the present. After that bit of advice, good luck in trying to make sense of this boring art film. But, be on the lookout for the most bizarre scene of all: a kinky scene involving a shampoo in a Brussels bathtub that will leave every viewer slack-jawed in contemplating how such a sequence could be incorporated into the final film cut.

Stefan Delvoe (Michiel Huisman) is an actor who has it all. His wife has filed for separation. He is found dead from what the police call a suicide. His wife Katherine (Katherine Waterston) is not so sure and investigates the last few days of his life meeting friends she didn't know he had. Meanwhile, her mother is in the hospital. And there is a mystery woman.

PLOT SPOILER: The film is about how people cope with a suicide, looking for answers than it is a clever who-dun-it. Rather boring, even the club scenes.

Guide: F-word. Implied sex. No nudity.

After her celebrity husband may have committed suicide, a woman tries to figure out what was going on in the dead man's life just before he died. Her mother shows up to help. And the dead husband's mother shows up. And no-one gets along. And then nothing happens for 15 minutes. .. so it appears we keep flashing back into the days just before it all ended for hubby. It gets confusing ... we're not always sure where we are. In the past, or back in the present ? Maybe that's what the writer wants? Who knows. This is rated quite low on imdb, and I can see why so many are confused by it. But to a certain extent, you have to just go with the story, as bare as it is. Written and directed by Meredith Danluck.